Q.west for good: Change leadership stories with Denise Withers (Denise Withers)

Leaders across the globe are beginning to realize that the biggest thing stopping us from taking action on climate change isn't a lack of capacity or technical solutions. It's a lack of engagement. Of historical and cultural context. Of connection to people and place. No one wants to have climate action done to them. They want to play a role in creating solutions. They need to see themselves, their homes, their businesses and their families reflected in goals and strategies.

Of course, the best (and possibly only) way to create that kind of engagement is with stories. That's why I'm so excited to have Jeff Biggers, founder of the Climate Narrative Project,  join me for this episode.

Jeff draws on decades of experience as a journalist, oral historian and author to help communities shape new narratives on climate change and regenerative solutions. As a global leader in climate change communications, he's worked with groups ranging from the elite of Silicon Valley to small towns devastated by broken economic and social systems. His narrative change work has been featured in the New York Times and Chicago Tribune  - as well as on NPR and MSNBC.

In our conversation, Jeff shares some beautiful and powerful stories about how he works with leaders and communities to help them create a vision of an "ecopolis" where they'd like to live in the future – then reverse engineer or backcast it to figure out what stories they need to bring to life to make it happen.

Here are a couple of articles about his ecopolis work: https://artistsandclimatechange.com/2018/12/06/shaping-new-climate-narratives-why-a-journalist-historian-turned-to-theatre-for-climate-stories/

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2017/01/15/ecopolis-iowa-city-envisioning-regenerative-city-heartland/

Jeff also shares critical insights about what's stopping municipalities and communities from being able to move ahead on climate action and offers tangible ideas about what we can do right now to get unstuck. (Hint - it's to hire a climate storyteller!)

Jeff's approach works across cultures, continents and communities, and generates co-benefits that go well beyond mitigation and adaptation. You can find more stories about his work and outcomes here. 

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"In so many ways I have seen people downplay certain aspects of their identity. When in reality, they should be really, really kind of doubling down on being more of who they are." –– Jenn T. Grace

Despite decades of advocacy for diversity in publishing, a quick Google search for the top non-fiction authors inevitably turns up a list of white men. This matters, for lots of reasons. If we want people to be transformed by books, they have to see themselves in those books. Which means that we’re not connecting with a vast majority of the world. Plus, by not publishing work by under-represented writers, we’re missing out on all the wisdom and expertise they have to share, stuff that only they know.

Nobody knows this better than Jenn T. Grace. As an author, speaker, founder and CEO of Publish Your Purpose, Jenn has a fierce commitment to bringing voice to the invisible stories that free people from their isolation. She’s published six books of her own, including her memoir “House on Fire” and coached hundreds of authors to help them bring their stories into the light.

In this episode, Jenn shares key insights from her publishing journey. We talk about why it's important for authors (and the rest of us) to get raw and real when we share our stories. We explore the one-to-one connection authors must create with their readers. And we talk about the need for more diversity in publishing – something she's trying to change through her work.

"It tends to be either women or LGBTQ people or people with disabilities or people of color, people who are coming from some marginalized standpoint that go and enter into the publishing space, and just don't feel seen. And if you want to share your story, speak your truth, impact people, you have to be working with a partner that helps you feel seen and heard. And there's just not a lot of that still in the publishing space. And so our focus is very much on those voices that are often excluded from those traditional publishing settings.

Jenn also has some great tips for authors who are just starting out, and those who want to take their work to the next level. Find out more about her and her journey here. 

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Polarization has become a major roadblock for those working on issues from public health to climate change. Unless we can figure out how to shift cultures and the stories that shape them, it’s going to be tough for us to find ways to move forward together.

That’s why I’m so excited to have Laura Hughes join me for this episode. As a senior policy analyst in the Alberta clean energy program at the Pembina Institute, she leads the organization’s files on women in the energy transition, the Alberta Narratives Project, and nature-based solutions. She also works with municipalities to support their transitions to renewable energy.

In this episode, Laura walks us through the details of the Alberta Narratives Project – an incredibly successful initiative run with Alberta Ecotrust and Climate Outreach to help everyone move past the polarizing stories that were holding them back and find common ground to start creating a better future together.  She outlines what they did, who they worked with, what challenges they faced, and – importantly – what they found in their evaluation. 

She also talks more broadly about the value of taking a narrative approach to policy development, as a key strategy in creating the cultural momentum necessary for any successful change project. 

With competing stories and ideologies tearing apart families, communities and nations, learning how to find common ground to tackle tough issues is a critical skill we all need to develop. Laura and her team have created a model for how, exactly, to do that. So be sure to check out her work!

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The only way we’re going to make progress on complex environmental and social issues is through collaboration - bringing together groups with diverse perspectives, needs and skills. And the only way to do that is to find common ground as a place to start - something that’s getting tough to do in an increasingly polarized world. 

That’s why I’m so excited to have George Chmael II and Rachel Seba from Council Fire join me for this episode. As long-time leaders in sustainability consulting, they’ve recently integrated a more intentional approach to storytelling in their work, with impressive results. In particular, their recent film, Fishing for Data for the Net Gains Alliance offers a powerful case study of how to use stories to bring diverse stakeholders together to tackle a common problem.

In this conversation, we look at how they've used stories on multi-year projects to not only find ways to engage diverse communities in co-creating a better future together – but also address historical injustices along the way. In particular, they walk us through two powerful case studies - Fishing for Data, and the development of Masonville Cove - the first urban wildlife refuge partnership in the USA.

They also talk about their decision to develop their internal storytelling capacity to elevate the power of stories in their client work, as well as how they managed to build such a powerful creative team as a small business.

As George reminds us:
"We've got to get the word out. We have to tell the stories. We have to connect to people such that we can drive action in the masses. The activity of an individual company or an individual person can't get it done by itself. We have to do it at scale and storytelling is a key tool to help us do that."

 

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Food does more than just provide the chemicals we need to survive. It feeds our spirit, imagination and relationships. It connects us to the land, our history, our culture and each other. Perhaps most importantly, food also gives us the power to heal our relationships, systems and society. But to do that, we first have to start to explore, understand and ultimately shift the dominant narratives that define our relationship to food.

And that's exactly what Shizue Roche Adachi and the team at Food Culture Collective are trying to do through story-driven events and strategies with food culture workers. In this conversation, Shizue helps us unpack the power of food to nourish and heal a struggling society. She also shares examples of the ways in which stories can not only reveal harmful narratives but also create opportunities to shape the future.

Find out more about upcoming events at the Food Culture Collective here, and check out their recent piece in the Non-Profit Quarterly here. 

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We're changing things up a bit this episode! Before taking a break for the summer, I wanted to share my TEDX talk on Narrative Intelligence.

It's a great introduction to how we can use stories to make personal, cultural and social change, weaving together everything I've learned over the last 30+ years of work as a filmmaker, educator, consultant and coach.

If you'd rather watch the video for the full TEDX experience, here's the link.

And don't forget to check out my free online webbook that unpacks all the science and shows you how to put Narrative Intelligence to work right away.

Happy listening and have a great summer!

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After a brief hiatus to shift direction, I'm back with an amazing line-up of innovators ready to share the stories of how they overcome barriers to create breakthrough change on issues from fleet electrification to chronic disease.

In this episode, I talk briefly about the new direction and what to expect, introduce my new online journal packed with innovation stories and strategies from global change agents, and share highlights from the first three years of the show. 

Grab some inspiration. Grow your influence.  Get more impact. And join me on my Q.west for good!

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Real climate innovation is incredibly complex. Even when we manage to develop technical solutions that allow us to cut fossil fuels, we still have to "sell" those to others – make it easy for them to switch from the way they currently do things.

Fortunately, that's one of Shayna Rector Bleeker's superpowers. As a former advertising exec who worked on energy challenges from Shell, she's able to bring diverse partners together to find new ways to solve some of our toughest problems. These days, that means leading EV start-up 7 Gen, along with her co-founder Frans Tjallingii,  to advance fleet electrification.

In this episode of the Qwest for Good, Shayna shares the story of how she came to be an accidental entrepreneur and champion of electric transportation. And takes us behind the scenes to show us how she and her partners are finding new ways to do everything from financing to fleet management."

Fleet electrification right now is complex. And, we're just, we're in it. We're innovating. And the thing with complex challenges is that it is emergent. You probe, you try, you sense and you respond. Okay, what worked? Do that again. What didn't work? How do we adjust? That's where the market is right now.  And we're committed to the vision. So when you have those hard days, the setbacks, you get up the next day and you find a new path."

Shayna's concluding remarks remind us to 'just get going'.  We have much work to do, and rather than waiting for things to be perfect - just start from where you are

If you'd like to learn more about Shayna's work and how Canada is poised for leadership up and down the transportation electrification supply chain, here are a couple of her most recent articles.

Why it's time to electrify medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (iPolitics March 2021)

Why Electrify Medium and Heavy Duty Vehicles (White paper for Electric Mobility Canada (October 2021)

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We wouldn't expect someone to be able to run a bank or do surgery unless we trained them to do it. So why do we think we can "magically" adapt to climate change when we haven't taught people how?

Workers across every nook and cranny of society need to learn what climate change adaptation is, how it affects their jobs and what they can do to tackle it.

That's why Vivian Forssman, Robin Cox and the team at the Adaptation Learning Network (now CanAdapt) at Royal Roads University in  British Columbia decided to spend almost 4 years of their lives figuring out how to teach Canadian workers to address adaptation.

Though they had a pretty straightforward plan to identify core competencies and develop some courses, they soon found themselves having to find new ways to "do" higher education as they navigated a world disrupted by COVID, JEDI, reconciliation, and a looming recession.

 In this episode, Vivian shares her story about how they wrangled unforeseen challenges and developed deep insights that are now informing work to educate professionals across Canada, including the entire civil service.

Read the Adaptation Learning Network's final report, discover the future of this work and find out more about climate change adaptation educational opportunities. 

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When Deljit Bains stepped into her new role to lead the South Asian Health Institute in British Columbia, she knew she had a big challenge ahead of her - trying to find ways to improve health outcomes for the huge South Asian population there, which had really high rates of chronic disease.

A nice neat plan had already been developed for her, where she was supposed to find volunteers to go into the community to do things like educate people, give flu shots and run exercise programs.

But when she started to put the plan into action, she realized quickly that it wasn't going to work. It had been designed for a predominantly white, educated, English-speaking health care system that operated from 9 to 5 on weekdays – not a culturally rich, Punjabi-speaking, population with often low literacy rates that gathered in the evening and on weekends.

If she was going to have any impact at all, she'd have to let go of old-school approaches to health promotion and adopt an innovation mindset. And that's how the Apnee Sehat Design Lab for South Asian Health started.

In this episode, Deljit shares her biggest insights about leading change in an incredibly complex situation and tells us how she found a new way forward using human-centred design.

You can find much more detail about the project in the evaluation report. Or watch the video summary of the project. 

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It's one thing to take on the challenge of bringing an innovative product to market. But figuring out how to build an entirely new industry requires next-level vision, creativity and passion. 

Mark Smith brings all of that and more to his role as the President and CEO of the Pacific Seaweed Industry Association. He and his tiny team are working with growers, manufacturers, distributors and governments – including First Nations – to scale seaweed production across Canada. And they're doing it in an environment that's short on infrastructure, production systems, clear regulations or even a market.

In this episode, Mark shares the backstory of how he and his colleagues at the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance managed to get the island designated as a foreign trade zone – then leverage that win to start building out the seaweed industry. 

We explore the incredible potential for seaweed products – including foods, biofuels that can replace fossil fuels, and nutriceuticals. 

And we unpack the secrets to his success to date and what's going to help the industry become a world leader, in a way that's economically, culturally and environmentally sustainable.   

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When you buy a digital ad through something like Google, it usually gets placed on a website. But you don't get to choose which websites it goes on. Who does? The ad tech industry. Which is not a problem, until you discover that they're running your ad for your precious brand on a site that promotes disinformation, racism, hate or even treason. 

So how do you stop that from happening? That's what Claire Atkin and her partner Nandini Jammi are trying to figure out, through their work at their Check My Ads Institute. Together they're taking on a ridiculously huge and largely unregulated industry to fight not only disinformation and hate but the rise of global authoritarianism. 

In this episode, Claire shares the incredible story of how they got started and have gone on to defund some of the biggest names in disinformation and hate speech, from Steve Bannon to Fox News. Simply by starting to ask questions and call out lies in public, they've started a movement that's garnered support from across the industry. They're also working hard to inform policy and best practices while pushing for more transparency about where client funds go and how they're used.

This is my new favourite episode and I'm grateful to Claire for sharing their work. If you'd like to support them, you can sign up to become a CheckMate at https://checkmyads.org/membership. And if you want to know more about how to protect your business, subscribe to their newsletter Branded to get behind-the-scenes stories the ad tech industry doesn’t want marketers to know.

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When it comes to climate innovation, North Americans are often guilty of assuming that we do it best. But we forget that the most powerful innovation is driven by need, creativity and constraints. These are some of the key contributors to the success of Sea6 Energy, an Indian company co-founded and led by Sowmya Balendiran to develop breakthrough solutions to key global problems.

Over the last decade, Sea6 has revolutionized tropical seaweed farming on the ocean through its patented solutions across the value chain, from the cultivation of seaweeds to the end products, paving the way for a sustainable tropical blue economy. Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum recognized them as a top innovator, inviting Sowmya to Davos to share their work.

But building a global biotech business from scratch that transforms the way we think about, grow and use sea plants hasn't been easy. As a Ph.D. student turned entrepreneur, Sowmya's had to develop a collaborative leadership style that enables her to not only build strong teams but also thrive in a male-dominated economy. 

In this episode, she shares insights from her journey over the last ten years, along with what she's learned about leading climate action, specifically embracing a multi-disciplinary approach powered by curiosity and collaboration.

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Municipalities are ground zero for tackling climate change, especially when it comes to adaptation. They're well positioned to take direct action to do things like build infrastructure and create new policies. However, they're also the level of government typically operating with the tightest fiscal constraints and most demands in terms of serving a diverse constituency. 

So what does it take to be able to lead the kind of transformative change we need in such a challenging environment? That's what we're going to find out in this conversation with Norm Connolly.

Trained as a planner, Norm's worked for several municipalities across the Lower Mainland of British Columbia on files from development to community energy. These days, he's the Sustainability Manager for the City of Richmond, a largely island-based municipality. Home to critical infrastructure like the Vancouver International Airport, Richmond is under threat from sea level rise, as well as events like heat domes and extreme storms. 

In this episode, Norm shares several stories about how he's been able to lead innovation and generate engagement for climate action, despite fiscal and political constraints. He also highlights the need for interdisciplinary collaboration, and offers insights about the kind of climate action leadership we need going forward. 

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We often think of engineers as simply technical experts when it comes to tackling issues like flood management from climate change. But early in her career, Tamsin Lyle realized that she'd have to grow her leadership skillset and change the way she approached her engineering work if she wanted to have a real impact.

That inspired her to start her own consulting company, ebbwater, and build a new kind of approach to climate action leadership that blends technical skills with so-called "soft skills" like communication, facilitation, envisioning and engagement. Along the way, she discovered that we desperately need to change the way we work to become more collaborative, creative and multi-disciplinary if we want to develop and scale climate solutions that make a difference. 

In this conversation, Tamsin shares the story of how she built a leading engineering consulting practice, explores the challenges of creating effective adaptation solutions and unpacks how she's been able to build multidisciplinary teams and communities that inform and inspire climate action.

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Climate action leadership isn't limited to governments and scientists. We need all hands on deck if we want to avoid the catastrophic effects of climate change today and in the future.

But what does climate action look like for people not on the frontlines, like those who work in areas as diverse as finance, health care or software as a service? That's what we're going to find out today in my conversation with Abid Saifee.

He's the Senior Director of Product Management for ecomedes, a climate tech company that's making it easier to source sustainable commercial building products. A veteran product developer, Abid spent years working at giants like Microsoft and Nordstrom before moving into climate tech. This gives him a unique ability to see what's needed to run a business that can make money and tackle climate change. 

In this episode, Abid shares his journey into climate action, reveals hidden benefits for businesses that tackle climate change and highlights how we need to change the way we work to resolve these kinds of wicked problems in the future. 

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Most leaders know by now that a "business as usual" approach won't work if we want to avoid the worst effects of climate change. We need expertise from across sectors, cultures, continents and disciplines to be able to resolve the kinds of wicked problems we now face.

But figuring out how to do that kind of interdisciplinary, intersectional work, particularly in a Western, largely patriarchal society, grounded in somewhat risk-averse institutions, requires a major shift in our processes, systems and beliefs. And we don't have the luxury of waiting a few decades while we figure it out. That's where Margot Hurlbert comes in.

As the Canada Research Chair in Climate Change, Energy and Sustainability Policy and a Professor of the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Regina, she's studying interdisciplinary approaches to these kinds of wicked problems through research on real-world projects about issues like water and clean energy. She's also been a Coordinating Lead Author, Contributing Author and Review Editor for the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change or IPCC

Through that work and her decades of research, Margot has developed deep expertise that allows her to bring a unique perspective to this challenge. In this episode, she unpacks key concepts about inter- and trans-disciplinary work, explores the very real barriers that still prevent us from doing it and shine a light on promising new approaches for current and future climate leaders. 

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Mary Brandon of Aspect Consulting is one of North America's top career and work-life coaches and consultants, with 30+ years of experience working across public, social and private sectors for clients from LinkedIn to the U S government. She's also a community leader who's deeply engaged in empowering women to discover how to work and live in more authentic, organic, and feminine ways. To do all of this, she uses story a lot – and that’s what we talk about in this episode. 

As a coach, Mary combines a lifetime of personal experience with story-driven development methodologies and deep research into how the mind works to help people realize their goals. In this podcast, she shares an amazing example of how she enables clients to discover and become their heroic selves, a process that leads them to big and small changes that bring joy, peace and prosperity. Though her practice is an evolution of exposure to many different experts and theories, she identifies the work of Barbara Sher, who wrote I Could Do Anything if Only I Knew What it Was and Joseph Campbell as being particularly influential.

Mary also takes us through a powerful coming-of-age ritual she developed for her son, to share the stories of his life with him as a foundation for adulthood. Almost a decade later, she discovers the true impact of that process on him, and tells us how it transformed his life. 

Between coaching assignments, Mary’s also making a documentary and writing a book to share her methodologies. We’ll be sure to check back in with her when these become available.

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As the facilitation practice lead at digital transformation company, Domain7, Kevan Gilbert’s job is to help clients design the future. But how do you create something when you don’t know anything about it? That’s where story comes in, as an essential tool to help people imagine, experience, experiment and ultimately fall in love with a specific future. And that’s what we talk about in this episode

Kevan’s work centres around the idea of co-creation or collective genius, as a way to mobilize all the knowledge, expertise and experience we need to solve today’s complex problems. One of the challenges of this work is finding a way to help people let go of their old practices, old roles, old beliefs and step into a new way of being that fosters collaboration, innovation and creativity.

To do that, he shares an example of a type of role play technique he used recently that enabled senior executives from the public sector to try on new approaches to collaboration, in a risk-free way. Drawing on the work of Barry Oshry, he helps them step out of their old story and into a new one. Only then can they begin to move past significant barriers in their work, and start to develop the creative culture they’ll need to reach their shared goals.

Finally, we talk about Kevan’s experience with a huge corporate transformation underway in his home town. He shares his experience with big box retailer Staples, and the way they bring to life their future story to become a community-driven work hub.

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Katie Lin is a multimedia journalist, campaigner and storyteller, who’s contributed to social justice and environmental contribution projects around the globe for organizations that include Greenpeace and SeaLegacy. In the last decade, she’s worked across digital and traditional media channels, producing stories that engage audiences and drive change at local, national, and international levels.

Though Katie has led incredibly high-level campaigns to tackle issues like petroleum development, mining and endangered species, she tells us that some of her favourite stories have a much smaller footprint, and come from the heart. This leads into a discussion about the importance of using our voice to tell the truth, through telling everyday stories. As those privileged to have the access, training, equipment and platform to be heard, it’s critical for journalists to use story to give people a voice, help them be seen and remind them that they belong – they matter.

While Katie shares stories of her work in Tibet, the Amazon and SeaLegacy, we explore the concept of citizen journalism as the next big movement – the most powerful way to make change. Through her work, Katie shows us that only by enabling people everywhere to use their inner storyteller to make the world into a place they love, can we create a future that works for all.

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Paola Ardiles Gamboa is an educator and public health champion who teaches health promotion and social innovation at Simon Fraser University in Canada. She’s also Chilean-Canadian and an advocate for human rights in Chile. Much of her work focuses on the social determinants of mental health, and story is one of her most powerful tools for change.

Recently, she shared a very personal story of her immigration to Canada and the resulting mental health challenges her family faced. Her goal was to draw attention to challenges and inequities in our systems, specifically the social determinants of health. As we discuss the surprising impact of this seemingly simple act, we explore the power of story to help us find, create and strengthen community.

This leads to an exploration of her use of stories in the health change lab she co-leads for university students in Surrey, British Columbia. By listening to and analyzing their own stories alongside stories from the community, students are able to develop deep empathy and understanding for the people they’re about to serve, which enables them to co-create better solutions to health challenges.

Finally, Paola tells us about the work she’s doing to share specific stories from the frontlines of the uprising in Chile, as a way to raise awareness and encourage global action. By seeking out personal connections and focusing on making the stories relevant to listeners thousands of kilometres away, she and her colleagues have been able to inspire both grassroots and political action to address the human rights injustices in her home country.

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Tracy Bacenas is an Emmy-nominated editor, director, writer, artist and supermom who infuses story throughout her work and her life. In this episode, we follow the first half of her career, as she shares tips and insights from the work that has made her one of the world’s top storytellers.

We start out with the tale of one of her first assignments as a young TV journalist sent to cover a KKK rally in her home state of Georgia. Things don’t go so well, and she learns some valuable lessons about perspective, bias and when to keep your head down.

After spending the next decade honing her craft making films and videos for art and corporate clients, she heads to art school to explore different genres and media for her story work. This culminates in the production of an incredibly avant-garde art project, in which she combines video episodes of future stories and online dating as a way to design her life. Decades ahead of her time, this work nicely foreshadowing today’s emerging practices of using speculative and design fiction as a way to develop and test new ideas for innovators and entrepreneurs.

Inevitably, her career takes her to Hollywood, where she becomes a top editor for Survivor. As we talk about the high stakes challenges of working at this level, Tracy takes us behind the scenes into the edit suite to reveal the secrets of crafting compelling stories.

Wrapping up, we realize that we have so much to talk about that we decide to continue our conversation in another episode. So be sure to catch Tracy Bacenas – Part Two!

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In this episode, we continue our conversation with Emmy-nominated storyteller Tracy Bacenas.  After leaving Hollywood and her job at Survivor, Tracy returns to Canada’s capital to raise a family and begins to focus her story work on creating content for kids.

One of her first challenges is a fascinating, high-end animation project that sets out to use story to teach the scientific concept of biomagnification to kids. Despite having world-class visuals and intriguing science, the producers were struggling to make the piece work. As Tracy shares her approach to the project, we discuss the role of story in bringing complex ideas like scientific theories to life – and discover the value of investing in creating a good Hollywood story that makes the audience care about the outcome.

She also takes us into her creative process for her current project – another animation series designed to engage young voters in the electoral process, by creating stories about how their votes produce impact across levels. Through this discussion, we dive into the potential of using story to engage people across demographics in change – as well as a bit of the latest neuroscience into how stories sync up our thoughts and feelings.

Finally, we bring the story process full circle, as Tracy shares what she’s learned about the toughest challenge of all – writing a killer pitch story. Tune in to learn about the unique process she’s developed for creating winning pitches that’s based on her 30 years of pitching news, Hollywood, ad agencies, governments and business.

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How do you stand-out in a consulting market crowded with global experts and world-class solutions? With a story. But not just any story. One that demonstrates that you understand your clients' unique challenges and aspirations, and have a vision of a shared journey to create success on their terms.

That's what Maryn Wallace and her colleagues of Deloitte – one of the world's top consulting firms – are doing for clients across Canada, with surprising results. Not only are they building trust and relationships with their customers, but they're also shifting their own work culture to become more collaborative, creative and client-centric.

In this episode, Maryn shares her discovery of story design at the THNK School of Creative Leadership, and walks us through her process to bring it into her customer development work at Deloitte. Along the way, she describes the story template she uses (introduced to her by Deloitte Partner Stephen Brown), and highlights the transformational impact this seemingly simple shift in workflow has had on both customer outcomes, and the performance of teams across the organization. 

Maryn also shares her advice for those who want to bring story design into their own workplaces – and wraps up the episode with a tease for her next big story project.

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Great leaders are masters of empathy. They know how to design compelling stories that blend the right facts with the right emotional experience to inspire action. And, they can do that across diverse audiences, ranging from boards and investors - to employees and citizens. But how do you know what story to tell to whom? That’s what I explore with Lasse Gustavsson in this episode.

Currently the President and CEO of Ocean Wise - a global ocean conservation non-profit - Lasse has led massive change initiatives across cultures and continents. He’s conducted scientific expeditions, served as the executive director of conservation at World Wildlife Fund International, and commissioned the most comprehensive study of fisheries across the European Union. Today, his portfolio includes the Vancouver Aquarium, which is legendary for its conservation storytelling and audience engagement.

Early in his career, Lasse learned that the key to shifting beliefs and behaviours is to figure out what people need, then help them get it in a way that supports your purpose - which is the essence of human-centred design. During our conversation, he shares several examples of how he’s used this strategy to create stories that tackle challenges from pollution to climate change. And he reminds us that one of the key elements of engagement is helping people have fun - something to keep in mind when working on darker issues of the day.

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Scientists need to be able to tell the story of their work if they want to get grants, engage collaborators, shift policy or generate new knowledge. Unfortunately, that’s not something they learn to do in school. And that’s a problem for all of us, because the world needs to know about the incredible research being done, if we want to solve some of our most complex issues.

Dr. Phil De Luna understands this need and has embedded storytelling across his work to help him generate consensus and maximize his impact. As a world-leading clean energy expert, he’s one of Forbes Top 30 under 30, a Carbon XPrize Finalist, carbontech co-founder and manager of a $57 million dollar project at the National Research Council of Canada. In this episode, he shares the story strategies and tactics behind his success.

A “Filipino kid” who grew up watching the decline of the auto industry in Windsor, Ontario, Phil learned how to connect with others through story early in life, consuming Harry Potter novels and finding his voice in drama club. As he launched his materials science career in university, he began to weave creative and self-reflective practices into his research to define both his brand and his purpose. Investing time to develop and understand his own story – to get clear on who he is and what he wants to achieve – has paid off in his ability to earn recognition and opportunities. That includes publishing in the esteemed journals Science and Nature, serving as a member of the OECD Advanced Materials Steering Committee and winning the Governor General’s Gold medal. 

As we explore his story practice, Phil shares practical tips to help scientists who might be uncomfortable with stories find ways to experiment with them to increase their impact. He also emphasizes that science storytelling isn’t about convincing or selling. Rather, it focuses on being able to make sense of or distill the problem being addressed in the research, so that scientists can share it to engage diverse audiences. 

This episode is a favourite – packed with useful insights and a-ha moments from Phil – highly recommended for experts who want to expand their influence to have a listen.

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Sustainability can be a tough sell, especially in established organizations resistant to change. That's why former journalist and sustainability expert Eric Unmacht uses story design as a foundation of his sustainability strategy work. As he says, it’s easier to make change by working with the existing stories and culture in an organization than by working against them.

He should know; he’s spent decades making change at major brands that include Patagonia, Lululemon, Mountain Equipment Co-op and the Vancouver Economic Commission. Today, he’s leading a new initiative to make sustainability in the fashion industry more transparent in his role as the Director of Brand and Retail Performance at the Sustainable Apparel Coalition.

In this episode, Eric shares several specific examples of how he’s used story to research, design and test strategy. His practice offers a really clear illustration of relatively quick and easy ways to use story to advance innovation. Through this discussion, we explore what works in this approach and why, as well as where things can go sideways. 

Eric also unpacks the way he uses skills he developed as a journalist - including being curious, asking good questions and learning to accept that the best path forward may not be the one on which you start out. As we wrap up the episode, he shares some great tips about how anyone can start to use stories to inform and guide their strategic work - and reflects on the need for and power of story design to help us navigate an increasingly complex world.

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Today’s crises demand new ways of thinking and doing. But true innovation is tough – especially if you’ve never done it before. That’s why many leaders lean on story as a familiar tool to inspire and inform breakthrough solutions. And that’s what I talk about in Episode 11, with two women who’ve been supporting the Indigenous Homes Innovation Initiative* – Natalka Cmoc, now Director General of Science and Policy at Indigenous Services Canada and Shannon Lough, Manager of Communications and Engagement at the non-profit Ecotrust Canada.

Their project promotes the development of Indigenous-led housing innovation across Canada. From day one, they knew they couldn’t use a typical competitive and bureaucratic approach to engage First Nations partners. So, they integrated the use of story into the process - from proposal development, to community engagement, to knowledge sharing and idea testing.

By enabling Indigenous project leaders to connect through stories about their shared ideas and visions for the future, the project team expects to be able to scale successful housing innovations much more quickly than in the past. Plus, they’ll support the development of new relationships and strengthen storytelling capacity across some of Canada’s most remote and isolated communities. Though the project was in early stages when we recorded this episode, Shannon and Natalka were already able to share some impressive success stories that have emerged through this approach. Find out more about the storytelling work and the innovators themselves.

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* The Indigenous Homes Innovation Initiative (IHII)is a five-year $36M federal program funded by Indigenous Services Canada and delivered in partnership with the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers (CANDO). An Indigenous Steering Committee selected 24 projects led by  Indigenous Innovators to participate in the Accelerator phase where innovators will spend up to 18 months refining their project ideas. Project ideas that meet eligibility criteria will access additional funding to support implementation. Follow or contribute to the community of practice through the IHII Circle

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Rain Bennett doesn’t just tell health stories. As a two time Emmy-nominated filmmaker, public speaker, and writer , he inspires hope and action among people struggling with life’s toughest problems: disease, addiction, disability and pain. Through his video production company, Six Second Stories, he works with non-profits and purpose-driven companies to develop stories that promote better health outcomes and increase revenue. One of his biggest projects, Raise Up: The world is our Gym, takes us inside a global fitness movement for the world’s most underprivileged citizens, helping them create a road map to escape their desperate situations. 

This episode is a continuation of the conversation he and I had on his podcast, The Storytelling Lab, about how leaders can use stories to inform and inspire action and hope during the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on challenges in health and care, we talk about the power of stories to help people heal, in particular as a way for front line health workers to deal with the stress and trauma of their everyday work. Rain shares a great example of how we can do more of this work, through the Health and Happiness storytelling series he hosts. As we wrap up the conversation, he also shares his hope for the future and a call to action to leaders for transparency and better communication through stories to help us all get through this crisis safely. 

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“There will be a new social profit sector at the end of this pandemic.” And if you want to make sure your organization is able to continue serving your mission as a non-profit or charity, then you need to listen to Douglas Nelson, Manager Director of The Discovery Group.

Recognized as a ‘fundraising phenom’ by the Vancouver Sun, Doug raised nearly one billion dollars during his service as President and CEO of the BC Cancer Foundation, Chief Development Officer at the University of Alberta and President of the California Pacific Medical Center Foundation. These days, he and his team are the go-to consultants for social sector Boards and CEOs, helping them align governance, planning & performance.

In this episode, Doug explains why leaders in social sector are facing the biggest challenge of their lives – finding a way to communicate how their mission contributes to the kind of society we want in the future. He shares the latest data on how the crisis has affected giving in the sector. (Hint – it’s not what you think!). He shows us why it’s impossible to educate donors and ask them to give at the same time. And he describes, in crystal clear terms, how organizations need to use stories in the future to create philanthropical relationships that serve their mission best.

“Telling the story of how you’re going to make the world different through your mission, and inviting donors to join you on that journey is going to be the greatest fundraising case for support I think we’ve ever seen.”

If you want to learn more from Doug, check out his podcast http://www.thediscoverygroup.ca/podcast/.

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Today’s actions become tomorrow’s stories. And those stories define our culture, relationships, experiences, and outcomes. As a leader, how do you need to think and act to shape the future stories your people need?

Join me and Candace Giesbrecht CPHR to find out. As an HR consultant and coach who runs SVP Consulting, Candace operates what she calls “the red phone” - a specialized service that helps leaders navigate crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. With 25+ years of senior leadership experience in the social and private sectors, Candace knows what it takes to recruit, lead, reward and grow talent across industries. 

In this show, Candace helps us see that everything we say and do as leaders affects people and culture, ultimately shaping the stories we tell. Being deliberate about our choices and behaviour can go a long way towards building trust, creating clarity and strengthening performance. We also dive into challenges created when leaders fail to communicate, creating information gaps that can be filled with rumours, fears and speculation.

To help leaders and their teams learn to improve clarity and inform future actions, Candace also shares a couple of resources she uses. These include the work of Joseph Grenny and a toolkit she’s developing, grounded in the military science behind after-action reports. (Contact her for access). Finally, she reminds us that self-care is critical for great leadership. “Know where your oxygen mask is first. Make sure you have what you need so that you can help others.”

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We are all sales people, spending 40% of every day trying to influence what people think, say and do. And nobody knows how to do that better than ad agencies. What’s their secret? Brand storytelling. How’s it work? Find out, in this incredible interview with advertising guru Lance Saunders.

As the former President and COO of DDB - Canada’s top agency - Lance has over 30 years of experience creating award-winning campaigns across iconic global brands that include Coca Cola, Pepsi, Netflix, VW, Nordstrom and Heinz. But what’s really cool about Lance is that his expertise goes way beyond his street smarts - he also brings a rich understanding of the psychology and behaviorial science that drive our decisions to his story work.

In this episode, Lance gives us a crash course in brand storytelling, updates us on the research that drives it and shares familiar examples that illustrate how big brands use stories to influence behaviour. (His references include the brilliant work of Daniel Kahneman and Donald B. Calne). Plus, he offers some practical tips to help everyday leaders find ways to start to shape and share their own brand stories to make change. If you need to influence others in your work or life in general, then this is essential listening. 

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Climate leaders around the world know that storytelling is the most powerful tool we have to lead us to a carbon-neutral future. But, no one has invested in creating a practical way to do it - until now. In this episode, you’ll meet Per Grankvist, Chief Storyteller of the Viable Cities project in Sweden. As a well-known author, journalist and sustainability expert, his mission is to lead a research project to develop, test and scale a storytelling toolkit that will help cities across the country become carbon-neutral faster. 

During our conversation, we explore the history, challenges and opportunities of climate storytelling through a lens of citizen engagement. Part of the problem Per and his colleagues have identified is that visions of the future are often too much like advertising – so grand and abstract that real people can’t seem themselves there. They can also be scary, more focused on loss than reality. 

“So if I tell you that we have to live a climate-neutral life, what might spring to mind is that I will take your car away and your burger away. You can never go to Hawaii again. And so it feels like I will compromise your life rather than to enhance it. Instead, we will describe what will change in your life. Things will get better and some things will remain the same. You will still be able to have a fat greasy, juicy burger, but it may not be made out of animals. For example, you will still be able to smoke. You will still be able to drink wine and get sometimes too drunk on Fridays. You will still have kids who are quarrelling in the back of your car, although that vehicle will be electric.” 

Over the next ten years, the project will research and develop ways to use stories to engage people in co-creating specific transition solutions - or stories of the future - that will work for them, in their specific places. As new tools and finding emerge, Per and his team will share them with the rest of the world for other countries to adapt and apply to their own unique challenges. 

As Per reminds us, in the words of Aristotle, “Storytelling rules the world. If you want to change the world, you need to master storytelling.” Make sure you tune in to find out how this team of global leaders are doing just that!

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People have to see themselves in a story for it to resonate with them. So it’s no wonder that decades of health promotion activities around the globe have failed to get people of colour to change their behaviour and adopt healthy habits. Not only have organizations been using boring, statistically-based materials like pamphlets and websites instead of stories, but even when they do use stories, they’re either poor quality or not culturally relevant. If you want to compete with big advertisers like McDonalds and Coke to get people to change, you’re going to need a kick-ass story that sticks.

Shyam Valera and Kashif Pasta, founders of Dunya Media, figured this out way back in high school after seeing the power of visual storytelling to move people during the 9-11 disaster. That’s when they decided to focus their careers on making high-quality, compelling stories about people of colour, like their South Asian community, to help them live healthier lives. Through their most recent campaign that featured a film about a Punjabi grandmother struggling with a diabetes diagnosis, they generated some impressive impact. Their engagement rates were 17 times the industry average. Plus most viewers learned something new about diabetes, changed their diet or adopted new exercise routines. 

In this episode, Kashif and Shyam take us behind the scenes to explore their simple and powerful approach to making culturally relevant films that don’t cost a fortune, and share their passion for purpose-driven storytelling to change the world. 

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When most people think of storytelling for business, they usually imagine flashy advertising and social media campaigns. But stories are also incredibly effective inside organizations, helping leaders do things like navigate mergers, shift culture, enhance experiences, and create strategic engagement. And nobody does it better than Alison Esse and her team at The Storytellers, based in the UK.

As storytelling and business transformation specialists, The Storytellers have spent the last two decades helping over 180 major organizations worldwide move people to accelerate change and transform business performance.

"If you can actually make it emotionally compelling, then it's amazing how much buy-in you can get, because you're winning people's hearts. You're not just winning their minds. You're actually helping them change their belief system about something, helping them change their attitude , and really creating that emotional connection that I think every human being responds very positively to."

In this episode, Alison shares the approach they’ve used to do things like double the size of Citibank, create best-in-class customer service at the Wynn Hotel in Los Vegas and trigger a dramatic shift in employee engagement scores at Kerry Foods.

“You know, we started this business 17 years ago and realized pretty quickly that if you position it as storytelling, you will get a little bit of pushback. And quite often leaders really don't bite because storytelling per se is not what they're looking for. What they want is a business outcome. So what I learned very quickly was that what we're selling was an outcome. We were selling change. We were selling acceleration and pace. We were selling leadership capability building.  But the tool that we were using to make it happen was storytelling.”

Our conversation also explores the strategic importance of using stories to help win the talent wars, create and shift culture and streamline strategy. The Storytellers have found a way to turn story design into a tangible, repeatable, measurable business performance accelerator that can work for any organization, anywhere in the world.

“Story is not just another initiative - it's a sense-maker. The narrative is what brings us all together into something cohesive, something simple, something easy to understand. And most importantly, something that people can really believe in.

And a lot of our clients in the past have said it's a fantastic decision-making tool. Because if something that we're doing is not relevant to that narrative, then why are we doing it? So I think it can be a way of streamlining. It can be a way of simplifying, massively, the amount of clutter that is going on in the workplace, and helping just create a really comprehensive set of priorities that you can then much more neatly plug all of those different initiatives into.“

Be sure to check out their work and follow Alison for more tips. 

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It’s never been easier to take and share great photos. And telling stories visually is one of the fastest, cheapest ways to connect with other people - employees, customers, investors, voters, or your team. So why aren’t leaders using photos more to build trust, inspire hope and fuel change? That’s what I turned to David duChemin to find out.

David is a world and humanitarian assignment photographer, bestselling author, digital publisher, and international workshop leader based on Vancouver Island, Canada. He’s spent decades chasing compelling images on all seven continents for the international NGO community, including World Vision, Save the Children and the BOMA project.

In this episode, we explore how visual stories create emotion and connect us, what personal skills you need to tell powerful stories with a camera and how leaders can start putting photos to work for them and their teams right now. David also generously shares access to some of his incredible resources for learning photography.

Get in touch with him. listen to his podcast or follow him on Instagram to learn more about how he can help you. 

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Frustrated that you can’t get people to support your big idea or brilliant project? You’re not alone. Every day, across the globe, leaders from scientists to CEOs struggle to find effective ways to promote and engage others in their incredibly powerful and important work.

That’s why I’m so excited to share this podcast episode with communicator-extraordinaire, Andy Goodman. As the co-founder and director of The Goodman Center, Andy draws on his time in Hollywood as a TV sit-com writer to help do-gooders learn to do better, through story-driven presentations, workshops, and consulting. In the last 20 years, he’s worked with over 500 purpose-driven clients across the globe, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, MIT, The Nature Conservancy, CARE, GE, and Bank of America. He’s also the author of three books on storytelling and communication and a highly-sought after keynote speaker. 

In this episode, Andy and I explore the challenges leaders face in developing a storytelling culture in their organizations. By sharing examples from his decades of work at places like the Nurse-Family Partnership, Andy takes us behind the scenes to discover how he’s been able to help leaders learn to use stories to do everything from raise funds and recruit talent - to change policy and behavior.

During our chat, we tackle questions like, “Who should be the hero of my story?” and “Is it okay for me to tell someone else’s story?” And we explore ways to use stories to develop your vision and plans for the future. Andy also recommends a few resources for leaders interested in putting stories to work, including the website Ethical Storytelling, and the book “Numbers and Nerves: Information, Emotion, and Meaning in a World of Data”. 

Over the past 20+ years, Andy and his colleagues have transformed hundreds of organizations, by teaching them how to become better communicators and storytellers. No matter what mission you serve, you’re guaranteed to learn something new from him in this episode - I definitely did! 

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Every day, organizations like BC Housing conduct critical research that has the potential to shape decisions and our world. But finding ways to share, promote and activate the knowledge produced can seem almost impossible in a world filled with noise and fake news. And if no one knows about your work, they can't use or support it.

Recognizing this, Karen Hemmingson, former Chief Research Officer, Research and Corporate Planning at BC Housing, decided to try something different. Inspired by an adventure storytelling event called FEAT, she and her colleagues invested in using stories to mobilize their research on Community Housing for Resilient Communities.

As expected, their story-driven communications work was successful at engaging both existing and new audiences. But what they didn't expect was that they'd generate rich new insights through the process of shaping the stories - insights they likely would have missed through a more traditional approach.

In this episode, Karen walks us through the project, explaining how things unfolded, the challenges they faced, and why - from a leadership perspective - she chose a story-based approach. She also speaks to the reluctance of some researchers to use stories to share their work, highlighting the fact that communication doesn't have to be only data or only stories. And she shares tips for those considering using stories to advance their own research impact.

Read more of her insights on the project here.

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It's tough being a scientist these days.

You have to be rigorous, data-driven and totally committed to your calling to maintain credibility in a world where fake news challenges every finding. Plus, you have to be able to communicate your research to non-scientific audiences in a way that gets them to act on and support your work. Science storytelling can help you find a way to do both.

In this episode, Dr. Britt Wray shares insights from her award-winning work as a science storyteller, focused on the mental health impact of climate change and ecological crises. As an author, broadcaster, TED Fellow and scientist herself, she's used stories to engage audiences in everything from de-extinction (bringing back extinct species) to AI.

To humanize often complex concepts, Britt encourages scientists to  find ways to get out of the lab and into the field, to interview real people affected by the issue they're researching. She also emphasizes the need to look for the "X-factor" in their work – what is surprising or unexpected about their findings? Where is there conflict or suspense about how the research will turn out?

For those who want to know more, she recommends two books: Houston, We have a Narrative: Why Science Needs Story, written by marine biologist turned storyteller Randy Olson, and Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio, based on behind-the-scenes work at This American Life and Radio Lab.  

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While companies across sectors struggle to cope with the economic impacts of the pandemic, it's becoming increasingly clear that those driven by a social purpose are out-performing their profit-driven competition. They have better customer loyalty, employee engagement and innovation capacity. But how can leaders make the shift?

It turns out that stories have a big role to play - and that's what I talk about with Mary Ellen Schaafsma in this episode. She's the Executive Director of the Social Purpose Institute at the United Way of the Lower Mainland in British Columbia. 

Her job is to help companies find, activate and grow the impact of their unique social purpose.  To do that, she and her team ask leaders to do a deep dive into their company's stories. And what they find often surprises them! 

Join us to learn how the Institute's helping companies use social purpose to become more resilient and innovative, while doing good, and how the future stories leaders design set them up for success in a turbulent world.

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It seems like everyone's starting some kind of a "Business U" these days. But they're almost all grounded in old paradigms focused on growth and profit. And that's not what we need if we're really going to #BuildBackBetter. That's where Hamsa Daher and her team at Small Giants come in. They're growing a learning community for leaders who prioritize purpose and people – and they're doing it with stories.

In this episode, Hamsa tells us how a narrative analysis of stories about successful, "alternative" business models inspired the founders to launch Small Giants, and how they weave stories throughout their work. By using stories to share knowledge and experience, foster relationships, engage teams and inspire innovation, Small Giants has created a unique learning environment that helps leaders step into their purpose and strengthen their teams.

As Hamsa tells us, uncertainty is at an all-time high, and leaders need reliable ways to engage and support their people, while adapting to new economic opportunities. Using stories to analyze what's working, experiment with new ideas, build trust and inspire action will help purpose-led organizations not only survive but also thrive in an unknown future. 

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As increasing numbers of younger people enter politics, we’re seeing leaders who are not only more media-savvy, but also more transparent and collaborative.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when Amesbury’s new Mayor Kassandra Gove and her Communications Director Caitlin Thayer told me that story listening is at the heart of their strategic work.

Sure, they’re doing great things to engage residents, businesses and partners through channels like social media, email newsletters and a narrative-driven budget book. But they’re also devoting a lot of time and energy to finding, analyzing and using insights from stories people across the city tell them to inform their work. 

By combining this intel with complementary activities to collect and dig into other data sources, they’ve been able to create a government that’s more responsive and connected than you’ll see in most other municipalities. As Mayor Gove tells us –

"My hope long-term is that we are able to make progress at a more rapid rate. What I was seeing was the municipality's governments and officials being left behind.  That society was progressing around them. And we have a lot of wonderful people in our community that are experts with information and experience to offer. And if we can get them involved and engaged, I think that we can do great things and really move the city forward much more quickly if we have them as partners rather than driving a wedge between us, because we aren't able to speak the same language."

You can see samples of their work, and learn about their upcoming future story work to create their 10-year vision here. 

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If you want to engage people in creating a better future, then you have to make sure they know that they are seen and heard, that their voices matter. And in many places across the world, for many peoples, that hasn't always happened.

But in the City and County of Denver, Rowena Alegria is changing that. As the Chief Storyteller, she's on a mission to bring the stories of the people to each other and the government, to change the narrative of exclusion and division to one of belonging and unity.

Through storytelling labs, training, projects and events, she and her small team are helping residents outside the "mainstream" share their stories to correct historic wrongs and support policy-making for a more inclusive future.

This episode is packed with incredible examples of the kind of impact her work has had, along with practical advice on how other cities can start to tap into the power of stories to create change, for good.

"I feel like by using story, we are using one of the most powerful tools to bring our community together.  Can I give you data and say that this story changed this person's mind or changed this person's life? Maybe once in a blue moon. But day in and day out – no, I can't. But, if you hang out with me for a while and you see the impact that we have–  if you watch the relationship develop from the beginning of an interview to the end of an interview, to the launch of that story or the screening of that story and see the faces on the people who are watching our film and how they react to it ... I can't quantify that for you. But I can tell you that the power is immeasurable. And I think we're only scratching the surface for what is possible when you take story and make it part of the City's toolbox, part of its archive.

Find out more about IAMDENVER, read the book Rowena references or connect with her team. 

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Over the last year, we've heard growing demand across the planet to change the narrative on issues from racism, poverty and capitalism - to climate change, health care and biodiversity. But what, exactly, does that mean? What are narratives? How do they influence the way we live and work? And how the heck do you change one?

That's what we discuss in this episode, with Sean Gibbons, CEO of The Communications Network. His organization connects, gathers, and informs leaders working in communications for good in order to advance the missions and impact of foundations and nonprofits. Before joining the Network, Sean held senior positions at several policy think tanks in Washington and worked as an award-winning news producer for CNN.

If you have any interest in social change, you need to hear what Sean has to say. Not only does he share some incredible resources with us, including the strategic toolkit Storytelling for Good (developed with the Rockefeller Foundation and Hattaway Communications), and a brand new platform for diversity, equity and inclusion – but he also tells an amazing story of how - exactly - social change leaders used stories to change the narrative on a global human rights issue - marriage.

The Communications Network has some terrific resources - it's definitely worth checking out. And, if you know of any social good organizations who did amazing work to make a difference this year, Sean invites you to nominate them for the Clarence B. Jones award. 

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Kimberly Herrington’s passionate about data storytelling. And she’s not alone. Across the globe, people are eating up books and courses about this relatively new story niche. Why? Because they realize that our ability to generate data far outperforms our ability to communicate and act on them.  

Data storytelling goes beyond simply telling the story of how you got your data, or explaining what a specific plot point means. As we discover in this episode, it helps us figure out what questions we need to ask to guide data collection, and who needs to understand those data to make sure they get used. 

That’s exactly what Kim is doing, through her work as a data journalist and creator of #BuffaloBusinessIntelligence. Just in the last year, she’s been able to use data to advance health innovation and fuel change in her home state of New York, by helping to accelerate access to the Internet for thousands of citizens during the pandemic with WIFI Warriors. She also promotes data education and literacy, building on her own studies with BI Brainz. 

Data storytelling’s just getting started. If you want great tips about how to bring it into your work, then this episode is for you. 

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Entrepreneurship is on the rise, as more and more people seek meaning and control over their work. But figuring out what, exactly, they want to do and how, exactly, they want to do it can be one of the toughest parts of building a new business. Stories can help - by giving new entrepreneurs the clarity, confidence and courage they need to succeed. And that's what I explore in this episode with Karen Greve Young.

Karen's the CEO of Futurpreneur Canada, the only national non-profit organization in the country that's dedicated to supporting young entrepreneurs age 18-39. Futurpreneur’s unique model combines loan financing, mentorship and other resources to fuel the success of thousands of young entrepreneurs in every Canadian province and territory. Before joining Futurpreneur, Karen worked in leadership roles at non-profits around the globe, most recently serving as the Vice President of Corporate Development & Partnerships at MaRS Discovery District, a global innovation hub based in Toronto.

Karen shares stories of how they help entrepreneurs use their own stories to shape and grow their businesses, through processes ranging from business model design to mentoring. She also tells us how Futurpreneur has stepped up its own storytelling, sharing  entrepreneurs' stories across staff, partners and the board to strengthen connections to the purpose and people they serve. As a result, they've tripled their employee engagement in less than three years.

Plus, we  explore  the role entrepreneurs play in helping communities create, share and deepen the stories that bring them together, by developing places and experiences where everyone can support shared values.

Join us to hear the incredible stories of entrepreneurs like Devon Fiddler, who started SheNative accessories to employ and support Indigenous women, and Mai Eilia, a refugee who started home-building business Magnum Construction to create employment for other refugees – and find out more about how you can use stories to grow your business today. 

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In recent years, it's become clear that we can't keep doing business as usual. The costs to our people and the planet are just too great. But what and how do we change? That’s what a small and mighty group of businesses called B Corporations is trying to figure out.  And that's what I explore today with two leaders from the B Corps community, Jennifer Kongs and Veena Harbaugh.

As a founding partner of Bark Media, Jennifer and her colleagues run B The Change, the storytelling platform that supports B Corps and B lab, the organization behind the movement. She works closely with Veena, who’s the Marketing Director at B Lab, to help everyone in the B Corp community develop and share stories about their successes - and sometimes failures - as a way to grow their collective reach and impact. 

As you'll hear from our conversation, stories play a critical role in fostering learning and innovation inside organizations, and across the B Corps community. Recently, they've also started to play a bigger role in helping B Corps come together to tackle some of the toughest and most damaging narratives in our culture that stop us from tacking action on critical issues from climate change to racism.

In addition to sharing practical and actionable examples of how stories support this work in this episode, Jennifer and Veena also tell some pretty compelling stories about the power of the B Corp movement to inform and inspire a new way of balancing purpose and profit to use business as a force for good. That includes discovering ways to tell stories even if you don't have a dedicated comms person and tips for finding stories across your organization.

If you want to know more about how B Corps work or just be inspired by their stories, you can find out more and sign up for their fabulous newsletter at https://bcorporation.net.

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We all struggle with making change, whether it's figuring out what to do after you graduate – or how to slow global warming. And while there's no shortage of experts out there who say they can help, there are very few who have a proven model for human change that's empowered thousands of people be their best over the last 20 years. That's why I'm so excited to share this interview with Dr. David Drake.

As the founder of Narrative Coaching and Integrative Development, David's worked with some of the biggest organizations in the world, like Nike and PwC; trained more than 20,000 practitioners, and; written more than 60 publications on coaching.  He's dedicated his entire life to the art and science of change, and brings a depth of clarity and knowledge to this challenge that few others have.

In this episode, he shows us how narrative coaching works, explores the key issues that hold leaders back, and shares insights for how to start to tap into the power of stories to make change in yourself, your team and your culture. 

You can find out more about David and his work by visiting The Moment Institute, which is the home of his practice, and reading  his best-selling book on Narrative Coaching.  

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Storytelling experts often say that we need to make sure our stories for change have an enemy or a bad guy in them – because it's easier to get people to fight against something than to get them to fight for something. But what do we lose, when that becomes the way we spend our entire life? Our humanity.

If we want people to change, we have to first discover our shared values – what we want more of – and rally them around that. And that's what I talk about in this episode, with author and journalist Andrea Collier.

Andrea has written countless articles and stories for publications like O the Oprah Magazine, Woman’s Day, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and The Greater Good, Plus, she's authored two books - Still With Me... A Daughter's Journey of Love and Loss and, the Black Woman's Guide to Black Men's Health.  She also tells stories on platforms like the Moth and Contently.

In this conversation, Andrea shares what she's learned about telling stories to move people, to affect the way they show up in the world. By tapping into her lived experience as a Black writer, mother, wife, daughter, and change-maker, she's able to help leaders learn how to be more authentic in their work and in the stories they tell.

See some of her work here, and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

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One of the biggest reasons change initiatives fail is that we assume people are a blank slate when create our strategies and interventions for them. We just expect them to realize how brilliant our big ideas are and buy into them.

But the reality is that almost everything we think, say and do is controlled by an existing set of narratives, about how the world works and our place in it. So, what we often fail to realize is that you can't change someone's beliefs or behaviors until you change their narratives.

Nobody know this better than Dr. Hans Hansen from the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University. He "accidentally" joined a team that used narrative change to save dozens of lives, by transforming the way sentencing works for capital offences in Texas. Simply by changing the "norms" or narratives that guide the behaviour of different actors in the legal system, they reduced death penalty sentences by a whopping 90%.

In this episode, Hans shares his story and the model they used, which can create narrative change for individuals, organizations or social systems. A big part of this work is finding ways to make the existing narratives we go by visible, so that we can deconstruct them - then develop new narratives to replace them.

If you have an example of how you've used narratives to enact change, Hans would love to hear from you here.  And make sure you pick up a copy of his book, "Narrative Change: How Changing the Story Can Transform Society, Business, and Ourselves", to get the full story of the incredible journey he and the team went through as they worked to do the impossible in Texas. 

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"The future does not exist. It is not some destination out on the horizon waiting for us to show up. It is ours to create. The journey to better tomorrows begins with the stories we tell ourselves about what is possible." – Joe Tankersley

Most of us struggle to imagine a future that is significantly different than our world today. Yet, using storytelling to explore possible future scenarios as a way to inform vision, purpose, and strategy is one of the cheapest and most effective ways for leaders to build resilient organizations. Just look at the success of future focus companies like Disney, Apple, and Tesla.

So why don't we use future storytelling more? Mostly just because we don't know how.

That's why I'm so excited to have Joe Tankersley on the show. Joe is a futurist, filmmaker and former Imagineer who helped Disney build strategic foresight right into the heart of their organization. These days, he works as a futurist and storyteller, combining his skills to help organizations design and implement strategic narratives to shape their future. His clients include multinational corporations, major foundations, and community-based organizations.  Recent projects have explored the future of the workforce, retail, sustainability, public health, creativity, and ageing.

In this episode, Joe shares some incredible stories about how he helped bring strategic foresight into Disney and how they used it to imagine and build their future success. We also unpack some of the challenges of doing this kind of work in a corporate environment. And discover how the process of engaging people in exploring the future can be just as valuable sometimes as the actual story produced.

Tools like futurism, strategic foresight and scenario planning have been around for decades now. But it takes the right mix of creativity, vision and rigour to be able to use them effectively. Joe brings all that and more to his work, and I know listeners will leave this episode inspired to put what they just learned to work to "imagineer" a better tomorrow for themselves and their organizations. 

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It can be nearly impossible to get people to take action on big issues like racism or climate change – until it affects them directly. Looking at fuzzy satellite photos and trying to imagine what will happen when the sea level rises isn't very interesting or exciting for most people.

But in recent years, a perfect storm of technological advancement and design know-how has created an opportunity for us to create simulations that allow people to actually feel what it's like to be in a wildfire or flood. And that's a game-changer for communities. By combining the latest virtual reality tools and drone technologies, Dr. Juliano Calil and his team at Virtual Planet Technologies are creating 360 VR stories that allow planners, politicians and the public to experience potential future scenarios and test out possible solutions.

In this episode of the podcast, Juliano shares the story of his work with several communities across North America as they try to figure out how to respond to the predicted impacts of climate change. He describes the "punch in the gut" he felt when he first saw a real neighbourhood flood from sea level rise in VR, and shares the surprise response of community members when they see themselves in his stories.

He also talks about the challenges of this kind of future storytelling, bringing an equity and justice lens to climate adaptation planning, as we start to realize the implications for those who may lose their homes, their livelihoods and their family histories in the coming decades. 

3D, VR and drone technologies have historically been a bit too awkward and expensive for municipalities to consider in public engagement work. But recent breakthroughs in the tools themselves, combined with Juliano's extensive expertise in this field are finally putting these kinds of simulations within reach of local governments and environmental NGOs.

To find out more or see Juliano's latest production, "Wildfire Explorer", be sure to check out Virtual Planet Technologies. 

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It's tough for us to shift our behaviour on big issues like climate change when all we ever hear is the same, dominant narrative. And that's a real danger in these days of media consolidation and takeovers. Yet, misinformation propagated by "alternative news" sites can be even more dangerous.

So how can we use scientific storytelling and independent journalism to help us find a balance? That's what we explore in this episode with strategic communications consultant, writer and coach, Denise Young.

For the past decade, she's worked internationally on changing the way scientists connect with policymakers and the media, mostly around climate change and sustainability. To do that, she draws on years of experience reporting on finance and markets across Asia, North America and Europe for Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

Denise introduces us to the concept of perspective, talking about the difference between the so-called "objective" voice she was trained to use as a journalist – what she calls "the view from nowhere" – and the need to have an opinion or stand in order to be heard, as we see in much of today's communication work.

Our conversation also explores ways we can all use the power of narrative to explore ways to address climate change, as she shares the work and findings of the Climate Narrative Circle project she ran with her colleague Stina Heikkilä.

Plus, she shares one scientist's work to address this very issue, in her discussion of Dr. Kimberly Nicholas' new book, Under the Sky We Make: How to Be Human in a Warming World.

Find out more about Denise's work, read her newsletter "The Zeroist" about climate and finance, and check out her podcast, "New Climate Capitalism".

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Science communication is a tough gig. You have to find a way to maintain accuracy and rigour while telling a story that people can relate to and remember. And it's more important than ever these days, as we work to combat the spread of fake news and misinformation on issues from climate change to the pandemic.

So what's the secret? That's what we find out in this episode with Johanna Wagstaffe.  She tackles this challenge every day in her work as a seismologist, meteorologist and scientist at CBC, Canada's national broadcaster. 

Johanna talks about the creative process behind some of her work, including the award-winning climate change podcast 2050: Degrees of Change, which combines future-focused interviews with climate experts with the fictional life of a 12-year-old girl in the year 2050.  By bringing some of the concepts and impacts of climate change to everyday life now and in the future, Johanna and her team helped transform the way we think about and plan for it.

We also explore the need to find a "heartbeat" for every story - some nugget or focus that triggers our emotions, by making the science or the scientist irresistibly human. And we discuss the responsibilities of scientists in the media to help translate complex concepts so that governments, citizens and organizations can make informed decisions for the future.

As a woman in media and science, Johanna brings a critical perspective to some of the toughest issues facing society today - and finds creative ways to help us understand them. Check out the full episode to hear her thoughts about how we need to advance science storytelling in the future – and follow her online here: https://twitter.com/JWagstaffe  here: https://www.instagram.com/cbcjohanna/ and here: https://www.facebook.com/johannacbc

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If you want to move hearts and minds, then you have to change the narratives that control them. But few people have the time, expertise or research to invest in the long game that is narrative change.

That's where Ellen Buchman and her team at The Opportunity Agenda come in. They run a social justice communication lab, where they work with partners across the continent to help them find new ways to change the stories that shape the world.

This past year, they published a powerful report, Shifting the Narrative, which analyzes six diverse case studies in narrative change to identify what works well and what we need to do better.

In this episode, Ellen shares their lessons learned, along with some of the core principles and practices behind their work. She also suggests three things that we can all do right now, to start to shift the narrative on issues that matter to us.

Join us for a rich conversation about both the strategies and tactics of narrative change - then be sure to check out The Opportunity Agenda's site to find out more about their work, including their Narrative Research Lab and Narrative Fellowship.  You can also check out their Shifting the Narrative podcast here.

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Creating narrative change is always tough, but doing it in the arts, where beliefs and behaviour are grounded in centuries of stories and tradition can seem impossible. You need to be able to weave a powerful vision, rich data and purpose-driven leadership together into a compelling story that informs and inspires change. And that's exactly what I talk about in this episode with Aubrey Bergauer.

As the CEO of Changing the Narrative, she uses classical music and the arts as a vehicle to create social and system change. Her work builds on her success as the Executive Director of the California Symphony, where she propelled the organization to double the size of its audience and nearly quadruple the donor base in less than five years.

A graduate of Rice University with degrees in Music Performance and Business, Aubrey's work and leadership have been covered in national publications including Entrepreneur, Thrive Global, Wall Street Journal, and Southwest Airlines and Symphony magazines, and she is a frequent speaker at universities and conferences across North America, including Adobe’s Magento, TEDx, Opera America, the League of American Orchestras, and Orchestras Canada.

In our conversation, she tells us how she combined stories and data to find new opportunities and engage both staff and subscribers in a new narrative for classical music. She also unpacks her leadership approach to finding, testing and building on small experiments that ultimately pay off big for her clients. And she shows us how having a strong, clear purpose helps her create a bold vision that makes it easy to win the support of boards and donors alike. 

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"By telling a story, you put in motion this vast sort of undercurrent of cognitive abilities that we all have for determining what's plausible. What's likely? What would play against what else? And there's nothing quite like narrative for doing that."
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Leaders and organizations live and die by their ability to plan for and navigate the future. While tools such as data and analytics have a key role to play, the most powerful way to explore and shape the future is through the lens of story. Nobody knows that better than award-winning science fiction author and futurist Karl Schroeder.

Over the last 40 years, Karl's helped organizations from the Canadian military to Intel use tools like strategic foresight, prototyping, and design fiction to anticipate and prepare for the unknown, through his creative and consulting practice with the Human Futures Studio.

In this episode, Karl shares crystal clear insights about why it's so hard to plan for the future, how tools like strategic foresight can "innoculate us" against surprise, and how we might use future stories like his latest novel Stealing Worlds as thinking tools to tackle global issues like the climate crisis.

He also shares recommendations for three fantastic books, for those who want to learn more.

• The Origin of Stories by Brian Boyd
• Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System by Alicia Juarrero
• Science Fiction Prototyping by Brian David Johnson.

While it's true that we can't predict the future, we can prepare for it. Storytelling is one skill we all have that we can use to understand future trends and develop responses to potential scenarios. Don't miss this episode to learn more about how you can become a better leader, for good. 

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Rinku Sen is an expert on shifting narratives. In her role as the Executive Director of the Narrative Initiative, she leads a team that works across timelines, cultures, sectors and the country to make equity and social justice common sense. As an author, former ED of Race Forward and Co-President of the Women's March, Rinku brings deep experience in racial justice, feminist and labor movements to her change work.

In this episode, Rinku demystifies the work of narrative change, helping us understand what's required, what can stand in our way and what we need to stay committed in the long term.

“It's just about putting in the time and the creativity and the hard work. It's not magic, like the kind of magic we don't have access to. The magic is the combination of having people willing to do this work and letting it be loose.  In non-profit land, in the United States and NGOs globally there's not a lot of room for experimentation. And even in cultural production in Hollywood, for example, or in publishing,  people's ideas of what the market wants and what there's a market for and what there isn't a market for – those kinds of requirements for art do limit what kind of art gets made and what kind of art gets distributed. So finding free spaces to do narrative thinking and narrative work  can be a structural challenge.”

Plus, she shares several excellent examples of narrative change in action, highlighting successes, failures and ongoing challenges on issues like gender equity and racism. In particular, she describes the support her team provides through its Wordforce program and explores early work focused on shifting the model minority narrative about Asian-Americans.

To make the process more accessible, Rinku walks us through the powerful Four Baskets Framework she and her colleagues at the Narrative Initiative use to research, create, test and deploy narrative strategies that inform and inspire action.

Want to know more? Check out the Narrative Initiative and its fantastic resources. You might also want to explore the work of their colleagues at The Opportunity Agenda (listen to my interview with their President Ellen Buchman), the Center for Story-based Strategy, ReFrame and the Center for Cultural Power.

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