We Are Ready

It's true...

The road to my own transformational leadership was fraught with mistakes, dead ends, thrilling rides, and lots of questions. It’s taken me awhile to figure out what drives the kind of leadership that inspires and motivates us to be our better selves. But figure it out I did, and client results speak for themselves.

The Mission

Coaching and training leaders in agile storytelling and communication to achieve extraordinary results together with others.

The Vision

Together we create a future that excites, inspires, and empowers humanity.

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Office —
Eugene, OR

Folklorist, business storyteller, narrative strategist, facilitator, coach.

I did not grow up in a family of storytellers. I came from a family of engineers. My dad was an engineer. My brother John is a software engineer. My husband Tim is a software engineer. Other family members are engineers. I'm surrounded by them! Engineers and introverts are not necessarily known for great communication skills, and I wasn’t a great communicator, either.

To make matters worse, as I acquired my PhD in Folklore, I was trained in how to present theoretical knowledge, but not narratives. I’ve put to sleep more audiences with mind-numbing PowerPoints than I ever care to remember. Over the years, I've had to learn storytelling and influential communication the hard way. But I did it.

I began my career helping financial services firms on Wall Street understand and strengthen their cultures. Did you know that folklore contains the building blocks of any culture, including any organization? Folklorists study and understand how groups, communities, and organizations transmit their knowledge, values, and wisdom, and how they grow, sustain themselves, or thrive through time. Now what leader wouldn’t want to know that? My focus then was on assessing the health of the culture through the types of narratives being told or not told; the stories that were broken (one division knew one part of the story, another division knew another part, but no one knew the full story); the stories that were buried; and which stories were missing. I called these Story Archeologies. It was pioneering work. My findings, reports, and recommendations to executives were illuminating indeed.

From there, my career evolved into working with executives and middle managers to improve their skills in using narratives for effective and influential communication. And I still love the story archeology work of discovering the organization’s narratives.

My objectives are simple — to help you become a more compelling, inspiring, and influential leader — for you to generate buy-in and alignment that helps you accomplish amazing results together with others. And to create a future with you that excites, inspires, and empowers humanity.

Along the way, I learned the specific behaviors and attitudes for story listening. Who knew that story listening is far more effective for leaders, influence, being inspiring, and getting work done through people than just storytelling?! This is now at the core of my client work. Here’s my TEDx talk on the power of story listening to get you started. In that talk, I also share how I got started in storytelling, and how significant my first storytelling teacher was.

I can’t wait to share with you the processes and tools I’ve developed over the years that take the mystery out of being inspiring and influential. Then Wiley publishers came knocking at my door, asking me to write a storytelling for Dummies book. I did that too, co-authored with Lori Silverman, which thrillingly became a best-seller. Check out Business Storytelling For Dummies.

I've contributed to many other books on business storytelling like the Circle Of The 9 Muses: A Storytelling Field Guide for Innovators & Meaning Makers, by David Hutchens; Working with Stories in Your Community Or Organization: Participatory Narrative Inquiry, by Cynthia Kurtz: Vocal Leadership: 7 Minutes A Day To Communication Mastery, by Arthur S. Joseph, Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over; How Organizations Use Stories to Drive Results by Lori Silverman, and The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling; Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative by Stephen Denning. My current book contribution is a few chapters on narrative and knowledge transfer in Communicating Knowledge for Emerald Publishers, available in January 2022.

For six years, I was the world's #1 curator on business storytelling until other projects demanded attention. It was one of the largest free resources on business storytelling, where I reviewed 2,300+ evergreen articles. I wish the platform was still available for people like you to use the articles I curated and reviewed. 

Along the way, I’ve worked with clients like Cedars-Sinai, Citrix, Viasat, Princess Cruises, Chase Bank, Avery Dennison, Walt Disney Imagineering, SIAC, California Bank & Trust, Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, Microsoft, Beaver Medical Group, Just In Time for Foster Youth, and many others — from the Fortune 500 to victims of human trafficking.

I received my PhD and MA in Folklore/Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. My BA is in Communication.

If you want to be an authentic and inspiring communicator or leader, let’s talk. I look forward to it.