Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of

executive coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace

the way you want to be perceived. I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach, and today we're talking

about stories, the ultimate persuaders. Back in the earliest days of the Internet, there was a senior director of IT who worked for a theme park.

For months, he and his team had been working on a new business strategy that would offer services on the internet.

The director and his team knew the executive committee was skeptical about this strange new thing called the internet,

but these IT people could see the future, they knew this was the way to go. The question was, would

the executive committee sign on? Finally, the day came for the director to appear in front of

the committee. As he left to make his pitch, his team huddled in the

breakroom. They were way too anxious to do any work. When the director reappeared less than

20 minutes later.

They were horrified.

They assumed he'd been kicked out of the room.

How could he possibly have made a good pitch that fast?

Their collective jaws dropped when approval came down within the hour.

How did he make such a short compelling case for this new line of business?

He told a story.

Stories get to a different part of people's brains than data.

When done well, people remember stories for years.

To tell any story well, even a business story,

you have to have three specific elements.

The elements in order are one the want to the obstacle three the resolution in business we usually have data, and most of us want the data to tell the story for us,

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