Successful Project Leadership through

Storytelling

Stephen Carver FAPM

“People don’t like to plan - Planning is

unnatural - It is much more fun just to do.

And the nice thing about just doing is that

failure comes as a complete surprise.

Whereas if you have planned, the failure is

preceded by a long period of despair and

worry”

Planning

Major Threats to Project Success Key to graph

A Bad communication between stakeholders

B Lack of planning

C Milestones not being met

D No quality control

E Costs getting out of hand

F Inadequate resource co-ordination

G Poor overall management

H Mis-management of progress

I Supplier skills over-stretched

J Supplier under-resourced

10

16

17

23

24

27

31

36

37

55

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

J

I

H

G

F

E

D

C

B

A

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them stories.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter,

political activist, biographer, and critical

thinker

Man is at all times a teller of stories.

He lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others;

He sees everything that happens to him through them,

And he tries to live his life as if he were recounting it as a story.

Newspapers

Books

Magazines

Plays

TV

Adverts

Video Games

Films

Business

“Stories are vital

for Leaders!”

“A story expresses how and why life changes and how it can be”

Visioning

Logic/Rhetoric Storytelling

“People are not inspired to act

by reason alone”

Logic/Rhetoric Storytelling

Conventional

Safe

Reasoned - logical

IQ

Engages intellect

Tells

Easy to destroy with logic

Linear thinking

Unconventional

Dangerous

Emotional - complex

EQ

Engages hearts and minds

Sells

Hard to destroy with logic

Systems thinking

Ambiguity effect

Anchoring

Attentional bias

Availability heuristic

Availability cascade

Backfire

Bandwagon effect

Groupthink

Herd behaviour

Base rate fallacy

Belief bias

Bias blind spot

Choice-supportive bias

Clustering

Confirmation

Congruence bias

Conjunction

Conservatism - Bayesian

Contrast

Curse of knowledge

Decoy effect

Denomination effect

Distinction bias

Duration neglect

Empathy gap

Endowment effect

Essentialism

Exaggerated

Experimenter's

Expectation bias

False-consensus

Functional fixedness

Focusing effect

Forer effect

Barnum

Framing effect

Recency illusion

Gambler's law of large numbers

Hard-easy effect

Hindsight bias

Hostile media effect

Hot-hand fallacy

Hyperbolic discounting

Dynamic inconsistency.

Identifiable victim effect

Illusion of control

Illusion of validity

Illusory correlation

Impact bias

Information bias

Insensitivity to sample size

Irrational Just-world

Less-is-better effect

Loss aversion

Sunk cost effects

Ludic fallacy

Mere exposure effect

Mirror-imaging

Money illusion

Moral credential effect

Negativity bias

Neglect of probability

Normalcy bias

Observation selection

Observer-expectancy effect

Subject-expectancy effect

Omission bias

Optimism bias

Wishful thinking,

Valence effect

Positive outcome bias

Ostrich effect

Overconfidence

Pareidolia

Pessimism bias.

Planning fallacy

Post-purchase rationalization

Pro-innovation bias

Pseudocertainty

Reactive devaluation

Recency bias

Recency illusion

Restraint bias

Rhyme as reason effect

Risk compensation

Peltzman effect

Selective perception

Semmelweis reflex

Selection Social comparison

Social desirability bias

Status quo bias

Stereotyping

Subadditivity effect

Subjective validation

Survivorship

Survivorship bias

Texas sharpshooter fallacy

Time-saving bias

Unit bias

Well travelled road effect

Zero-risk bias…

Are we rational?

Memory bias

So what’s the Science?

Neural Coupling

Mirroring

Dopamine

Broca’s/Wernicke’s

What’s the

Story?

What makes for a good story?

Has characters

A mind journey

An emotional journey

Embraces complexity

Has structure

Creates meaning – often multiple

Does not tell – it shows

Has an impact

Catalyses change

Is remembered…

Speak at 150 WPM

Process 500-750 WPM

Average Attention Span 7.5 min

Relative Importance:

A Picture/Chart tells 1000 words

Content7%

Vocal35%

Body Language58%

Communication Facts

Cna yuo raed this at nroaml seped? 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I wasrdanieg.The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to arscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are,the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deosnot raed ervey lteter by istlef,but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig eh?

And I awlyas tghuot slpeling was ipmorantt!

You are cleverer than you think

DISTIL IT

“A computer on every desk and in every home”

Speak at 150 WPM

Process 500-750 WPM

Average Attention Span 7.5 min

Relative Importance: Content7%

Vocal35%

Body Language58%

Communication Facts

Getting the Message Across

Voice38%

Words7%

Body

55%

What makes for a good PROJECT?

Has characters

A mind journey

An emotional journey

Embraces complexity

Has structure

Creates meaning – often multiple

Does not tell – it shows

Has an impact

Catalyses change

Is remembered

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them stories.

If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more stories.

Henry Ford (1863-1947)American industrialist, inventor

“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right”

but…

The shortest distance between a human being

and the truth

is a story

Anthony de Mello

Writer & Philosopher

Successful Project Leadership through

Storytelling

Stephen Carver FAPM