Stories impact organizations, businesses & groups in powerful ways.
Can your story make a difference? Can you move people from apathy to empathy? Can you inspire others to imagine a better way forward?
Stories and storytelling can be used, with powerful results, to strengthen the narratives at the foundation of organizations working in social, environmental or economic justice; to build cooperation and influence strategic change at the heart of business; and to reconnect our communities to the vast wealth of our ancestors and the living world around us. The most influential social advocates, sustainability professionals and change agents are those who can go beyond metrics and tap into something deeper, more essential, through story. People ask for data, but they believe stories.
Stories and storytelling can be used, with powerful results, to strengthen the narratives at the foundation of organizations working in social, environmental or economic justice; to build cooperation and influence strategic change at the heart of business; and to reconnect our communities to the vast wealth of our ancestors and the living world around us. The most influential social advocates, sustainability professionals and change agents are those who can go beyond metrics and tap into something deeper, more essential, through story. People ask for data, but they believe stories.
Jeff facilitates workshops, strategic consultations and educational offerings, online or face-to-face, utilizing story to shift perceptions, increase communication competency and create positive results for individuals, groups organizations, and communities. Overall, participants gain new ways to tell their organizational or business story and better understand how storytelling is the conduit for social innovation and change.
Contact Jeff to find out more!
Contact Jeff to find out more!
Keynotes
Jeff uses story to help participants understand why storytelling is not just a communication tool, but a strategic business competency, a way of sharing knowledge and an ancient art form. He speaks to the science of storytelling, the practice of storytelling and the mythic aspects of story. Jeff is able to synthesize, educate, entertain and inspire while helping participants understand why stories and storytelling are at the heart of what drives leadership, culture and change.
What makes Jeff unique as a speaker is his ability to both perform stories and blend these stories as "entertainment" into a deeper conversation about the role of story and sustainability in our lives. He invites conversation and engages audiences around themes of sustainability, the human condition, the role of business in social change and deep ecology, and how it is in everyone’s best interest to become better storytellers.
What makes Jeff unique as a speaker is his ability to both perform stories and blend these stories as "entertainment" into a deeper conversation about the role of story and sustainability in our lives. He invites conversation and engages audiences around themes of sustainability, the human condition, the role of business in social change and deep ecology, and how it is in everyone’s best interest to become better storytellers.
Workshops, Coaching, Consulting & Educational Services
As a key discipline and strategic practice, Jeff works with clients to hone their core organizational and sustainablity story in order to build excellence and a shape a culture of success and sustainability.
Clients working with their core story to create powerful, purposeful story lines, which do more than craft a distinct value proposition for the organization or leader. Working with your core sustainability story helps to shape group identity, leadership potential, culture brand, communications strategy, sustainability performance, vision, mission and impact in the world.
Storytelling for Sustainability Services Include:
Strategic Storytelling Salons
Perfect for executive retreats, strategic visioning or contemplative workshops, join Jeff for a strategic storytelling salon, where participants are invited to take part in a ritual storytelling circle in order to explore the role of story and its connection with nature, self, organizational purpose and society.
The strategic storytelling salon explores the following questions: What makes a good story? What makes a story believable? How can stories result in positive change? How can I tell the kind of stories that get retold? What’s the role of story and systems thinking? Why is storytelling an X-factor?
Participants will learn how leading and working with story can help almost any group clarify its purpose, create a strong group identity and acquire a set of storytelling competencies and narrative maps needed to strategically design and meet short-term and long-term objectives.
Narrative Leadership Development and Communications Coaching
Would you like develop your leadership capacity or build a business that’s a unique expression of who you are? Would you like to break bad communication habits? Can you engage and inspire others with a distinctive sustainability story and message? Do you want to translate your vision, values and purpose into messages that connect with and inspire others? Would you attract more business if you had a compelling sustainability story and brand that presented your unique gifts in the most memorable and differentiating way?
Whether the setting is a large Fortune 500 company, a small non-profit or a medium-size government agency, Jeff helps senior executives, emerging leaders, working professionals and community leaders make sense of who they are, what they stand for and how to bring the best parts of themselves to their efforts.
Storytelling as Organizational Development
Do you need to tell a more compelling story about your organization, its products or services? Do you know how to shape what’s best, most distinctive and most authentic about you into communications that involve, influence and inspire people inside and outside your organization? Do you have a core purpose and sustainability story that leverages your organizational culture, empowers your people and creates an attraction field for your endeavors?
Jeff helps sustainability clients achieve real value in aligning their sustainability and CSR efforts with their organizational and leadership development, strategic planning and reporting processes and operating decisions—that’s in keeping with the direction of their core storyline and best reflects their strengths, values, vision and mission. The impact of storytelling as organizational development include:
Telling your Story in the Digital Age
Knowing how to tell your story matters. It's even more important to be able to share your story. In the age of social media, and smartphone technology, knowing how to craft a digital story is a key skill. Jeff helps clients and participants in his storytelling classes to develop an approach to digital storytelling which is typically first person, and through the lens of some form of advocacy for change.
Using Social Media tools for iPhone, iPad or Android, including the downloading and use of photography and video editing applications, Jeff works with clients and participants to craft a story through still images, video, personal voice over and music. Typical stories and digital stories are roughly between 1 to 5 minutes, depending on client needs, and are generally used for social media platforms such as YouTube, Soundcloud, Vimeo and other story platforms. The style is authentic, unfiltered, first person and more "reality-based" stories. Outcomes include:
Clients working with their core story to create powerful, purposeful story lines, which do more than craft a distinct value proposition for the organization or leader. Working with your core sustainability story helps to shape group identity, leadership potential, culture brand, communications strategy, sustainability performance, vision, mission and impact in the world.
Storytelling for Sustainability Services Include:
- Organizational story branding & communication
- Storytelling as Organizational Development & narrative leadership
- Organizational culture assessment and engagement
- Developing your core sustainability story
- Developing your story brand
- Aligning your organizational story and talent brand
- Digital Storytelling
- Story coaching
Strategic Storytelling Salons
Perfect for executive retreats, strategic visioning or contemplative workshops, join Jeff for a strategic storytelling salon, where participants are invited to take part in a ritual storytelling circle in order to explore the role of story and its connection with nature, self, organizational purpose and society.
The strategic storytelling salon explores the following questions: What makes a good story? What makes a story believable? How can stories result in positive change? How can I tell the kind of stories that get retold? What’s the role of story and systems thinking? Why is storytelling an X-factor?
Participants will learn how leading and working with story can help almost any group clarify its purpose, create a strong group identity and acquire a set of storytelling competencies and narrative maps needed to strategically design and meet short-term and long-term objectives.
Narrative Leadership Development and Communications Coaching
Would you like develop your leadership capacity or build a business that’s a unique expression of who you are? Would you like to break bad communication habits? Can you engage and inspire others with a distinctive sustainability story and message? Do you want to translate your vision, values and purpose into messages that connect with and inspire others? Would you attract more business if you had a compelling sustainability story and brand that presented your unique gifts in the most memorable and differentiating way?
Whether the setting is a large Fortune 500 company, a small non-profit or a medium-size government agency, Jeff helps senior executives, emerging leaders, working professionals and community leaders make sense of who they are, what they stand for and how to bring the best parts of themselves to their efforts.
Storytelling as Organizational Development
Do you need to tell a more compelling story about your organization, its products or services? Do you know how to shape what’s best, most distinctive and most authentic about you into communications that involve, influence and inspire people inside and outside your organization? Do you have a core purpose and sustainability story that leverages your organizational culture, empowers your people and creates an attraction field for your endeavors?
Jeff helps sustainability clients achieve real value in aligning their sustainability and CSR efforts with their organizational and leadership development, strategic planning and reporting processes and operating decisions—that’s in keeping with the direction of their core storyline and best reflects their strengths, values, vision and mission. The impact of storytelling as organizational development include:
- Increased competence and satisfaction as a systems-thinking communicator
- Increased ability to deal with and leverage ambiguity, uncertainty and mystery
- Transformed relationships among stakeholders
- Intercultural competence
- Enhanced sense of self, group morale and efficiency
- Increased capability for creative problem solving and creative visioning
Telling your Story in the Digital Age
Knowing how to tell your story matters. It's even more important to be able to share your story. In the age of social media, and smartphone technology, knowing how to craft a digital story is a key skill. Jeff helps clients and participants in his storytelling classes to develop an approach to digital storytelling which is typically first person, and through the lens of some form of advocacy for change.
Using Social Media tools for iPhone, iPad or Android, including the downloading and use of photography and video editing applications, Jeff works with clients and participants to craft a story through still images, video, personal voice over and music. Typical stories and digital stories are roughly between 1 to 5 minutes, depending on client needs, and are generally used for social media platforms such as YouTube, Soundcloud, Vimeo and other story platforms. The style is authentic, unfiltered, first person and more "reality-based" stories. Outcomes include:
- Creating a first-person digital story that can be shared via Social Media
- Develop an understanding of best practices in digital and visual storytelling
- Develop basic skills for telling digital stories
- Learning key aspects to successful storytelling for sustainability
- Understanding how to authentically communicate stories that matter
Performance Storytelling
As a performing storyteller, and mythsinger, Jeff shares in the telling of the old stories – myths, folk tales and fairy tales from many different cultures around the world. He believes the old stories inform us on how to deepen our connection with each other, nature, place and our own mythic journey. Jeff uses story to engage audiences around themes of sustainability, the human condition, living myth and deep ecology.