Executive and Leadership Storytelling Training
Develop your ability in leadership storytelling.
Learn the essential leadership skill for engaging, motivating and inspiring, and use what you learn to immediately improve your impact.
Storytelling is the essential leadership communications ability for the transforming business landscape.
Once upon a time, leadership storytelling was about staying on brand and on message. But today, in the changing world, the cat is out of the bag. For executives, senior leaders and other change agents in a corporate structure, the storytelling emphasis has changed. It’s no longer about how to tell the “right” story; instead, you need the ability of leadership storytelling. This ability enables you to accomplish essential leadership tasks like finding the optimal narrative, framing the right message, and tailoring your approach to different contexts and audiences. In fact, the ability of leadership storytelling can improve how you approach every form of leadership communication: whether you are communicating formally or informally, in writing, images, data or in words.
This is an evolved way of thinking about leadership storytelling for an evolving world.
I have been teaching leaders how to become better storytellers for more than 10 years. I have worked with 1000s of leaders at over 100 organizations around the world. I know this subject matter fluently, and I would be honored to guide your team through this exciting, challenging and very fulfilling skill development journey. My hands-on, tailored approach is appropriate for every leadership role, including executives, business development leaders, product visionaries, and fundraisers. If your job is communicating with other people at work, I can help you do it with more impact.
Expert Leadership Storytelling Facilitator
Jordan Bower
linkedin.com/in/jordan-bower-storyteller/
Serves organizations around the world.
Based in Vancouver, Canada.
Past Workshop Clients Include:
How I Teach the Ability of Leadership Storytelling.
Leadership Storytelling is a complex and advanced communications skill. It’s not something that can be “trained” conventionally; there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all corporate storytelling training for leaders. Instead, leadership storytelling needs to be coached, mentored and practiced, in the same that an athlete or artist achieves mastery.
It’s essential that this learning journey is conceptualized first. In other words, you’re not going to become an amazing leadership storyteller in just one day.
However, there is a lot that can be accomplished in a day. In an introductory, one-day leadership storytelling training, I help leader teams accomplish these goals:
Explore the art and science of storytelling, and understand how it applies to effective communication at work
Redefine how you see the value and impact of storytelling in the workplace
Improve your emotional and psychological understanding of your audiences
Clarify your ideas and message, increasing the impact of data-driven storytelling
Practice using storytelling to improve how you engage, build trust and inspire
Discuss the changes you need to make as leaders, and as a leadership team, to immediately and sustainably improve the impact of your communication.
Transform those changes into a practical and tangible action plan that your whole team can align around.
I can help you make these tailored, focused adjustments, shifting your perspective on how you communicate, and ensuring immediate and sustainable impact.
I can do it quickly, with major insight, for not a lot of budget, and while being a pleasure to collaborate with.
Essential Details:
In-person preferred. I’ll travel to you. Hybrid and virtual also possible.
Modified to suit any leadership team. Appropriate for executives, Boards, divisional leaders, leadership development academies, etc.
Standard workshop is 7 hrs of learning. Shorter and longer versions are available.
Every storytelling training is facilitated by Jordan Bower. Jordan is an expert in leadership storytelling who has facilitated more than 100 organizational and corporate storytelling trainings.
How My Leadership Storytelling Training Works.
I have a standard training curriculum that I tailor to every team I work with. Some example modifications include:
Best practice examples are customized so they are appropriate to your team, industry and job function.
Storytelling case studies are specifically chosen from your real work
Storytelling exercises and workshop structures are modified based on your goals, the size of your group, and the time you have available.
Your Customization Process:
Before the training, I conduct several short (30 min) virtual interviews with a cross-section of leaders in your learning cohort. This gives me essential background, while also allowing me to assess current goals, skills and the challenges you have in common.
Next, I present a tailored curriculum with clear structures, examples, exercises and goals. This helps you create buy-in and includes you in the creative process.
At the training itself, I use a facilitative style that relies on Socratic questioning and interactive discussions, rather than a lecture-based approach more closely associated with a corporate storytelling training or storytelling seminar. My dynamic approach keeps the content fresh and engaging; additionally, it allows the learning conversation to flow towards the essential topics. Your takeaways will come from the content itself, as well as the themes that emerge through group conversation.
After the storytelling training, I facilitate one final retrospective. (30-60 mins, virtual.) This session can be attended by just your leadership and planning team; alternatively, it can be attended by all training participants. In this session, I’ll guide you to reflect on the training and provide further, tailored advice about how each participant can integrate your learning back into your real work. At this point, I may also recommend additional ways I can help, such as leadership coaching or transformational consulting.
“Jordan knows his stuff inside and out, and he communicates it wonderfully.”
— SVP, Canadian Tire Triangle Leadership Academy
How Most Leadership Storytelling Trainings are Structured:
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1. See Best Practice
Begin by learning the foundations of transformational storytelling by studying examples tailored to your team.
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2. Try New Ideas
Participate in fun, interactive storytelling exercises with your team, and practice using your new insights.
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3. Apply Your Insights
Put storytelling to work by applying the frameworks and processes to your team’s real communications challenges.
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4. Reflect on Next Steps
Huddle with your team to discuss your learning experience and align on next steps.
Hear More About this Storytelling Workshop from Jordan Bower
I’ve worked with more than 100 organizations, including corporate storytelling trainings for:
“We came into the room unclear about how to talk about a highly technical product and walked away knowing exactly which stories to tell and why.”
“Immensely practical and also deeply insightful. Every leader in our company should attend this storytelling workshop!”
“More than just business storytelling—a new perspective on how to communicate in all aspects of our lives. Thank you, Jordan!”
Get in touch with Jordan
Let’s schedule a 30 min consultation to discuss your group, your goals, and how I might be able to help.
FAQs
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The training includes 3 learning modules:
Overview of Business Storytelling: What it is and why it is relevant
Foundations and Frameworks of Business Storytelling: How to think about integrating storytelling ideas in business mesages
Putting the ideas into practice: Applying new insights to the team’s real messaging.
These modules are supplemented with a mix of interactive exercises, peer learning groups and large group facilitated conversation.
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Very! We keep the energy up with real world examples of effective business storytelling, dynamic content and facilitation style, and plenty of structured exercises in pairs and peer learning groups.
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This training takes a principle-based approach to business storytelling. That means the principles can be applied broadly to any kind of business communication. We address written and verbal communication in emails, reports, Powerpoint decks, presentations, videos, social media and much, much more.
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Yes! The principles learned in this workshop apply to storytelling with data and other visuals. Participants learn how to clarify their message, find the emotional core and relate it to their stakeholders or other audiences. Then, they practice applying these ideas to real examples of their workplace messaging.
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Yes! Before every workshop, we conduct research that allows us to customize content and examples to your group. Before the session, we will suggest examples of your real messaging that can be “workshopped” during the training. These examples may be marketing materials, a slide from a Powerpoint deck, or other relevant “stories”.
Don’t worry, we will guide you to the best stories to work on in the training, and you will approve everything in advance!
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Yes! We love working with our clients to maximize the value they get from our training. Just send us a message!
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No! The workshop uses a mix of structured exercises, peer-learning groups and large group sessions to introduce and learn the material. Your team will participate in exercises in pairs and groups of four, but no one will be obligated to present anything in front of the entire group.
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Yes! I have custom designed the content, and I deliver it in a tailored way to every group. I have successfully delivered more than 100 storytelling workshops!
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Yes! Your team will receive additional materials, recommended readings, and tools to continue developing their storytelling skills after the workshop.
Additionally, I will meet with your leadership after the workshop to reflect on the learning experience and to recommend customized next steps.
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This storytelling training is often the first step in a change initiative. Transformation is my speciality! I will be happy to discuss a longer journey if you like, after the training. For more info, check out my homepage.
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This content is presented as a workshop, rather than a storytelling training for business, because participants will “workshop” real examples of their mesaging. The workshop is highly engaging and interactive, focusing on developing storytellers rather than “training” them.