How Storytelling Can Transform Toxic Teams with Karen Eber

The Mindful Marketer

We’ve heard horror stories about toxic bosses and behaviors: McDonald’s, United Way, The Ellen Show are just a few examples.

Storytelling can make or break your team engagement and culture. Leadership expert Karen Eber reminds leaders to rethink how they communicate and use storytelling as a neuroscience hack to cultivate relationships and culture effectively.

Watch the replay on LinkedIn.

Some key episode moments include:

✔️ Discover the key ingredients to strong storytelling. The goal of a story is to take your audience to a specific outcome. A great story answers these four questions.

What is the context?

What is the conflict?

What is the outcome?

What is the takeaway from all of that?

When you start to anchor those answers, your stories get more precise and impactful.

✔️ How our brains respond to stories. The more oxytocin we feel, the more trust is built. Karen Eber shares, "By sharing life experiences or personal issues, you are increasing that oxytocin, trust, and empathy. Even in a business setting, it creates that actual bond, and it will have a huge impact because people feel like they know you, even if you're telling a story about someone else. There's the act of vulnerability that people respond to."

Listen to the replay on Stitcher.

✔️ Ways to use stories to encourage balanced, inclusive return to work programs. Data and stories need to work hand in glove, and together they can be powerful. Karen shares that the default of relying on numerous slides and pictures and talking our way through them instead of telling a story about the data is crucial to communicate what's truly important.

Copyright 2021, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.

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Lisa Nirell of EnergizeGrowth™ LLC helps courageous marketers and CEOs accelerate growth and get promoted faster. Download your Mindful Marketer learning bonuses at themindfulmarketer.com/bonus. You will also join the “know ahead” list for our upcoming Life Streams.

Karen Eber is the CEO and Principal of Eber Leadership Group. Karen's roots are in psychology, communications, performance improvement, adult learning, and instructional design. She is a four-time American Training and Development (ATD) award winner, a TED Masterclass speaker, and eminent thought leader in various publications, including her popular article "Make Waffles, not Spaghetti." Karen holds a Master's in Instructional Design and a Bachelor's in Psychology and resides in Atlanta, GA.

Copyright 2021, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.