The StoryBank

Send us Fan Mail “Why does the Argentine team pass more balls to Messi than the Portugal team does to Ronaldo?” - Rubens, a taxi driver in Goa. Messi Vs Ronaldo Teamwork Vs Individual brilliance. Could Ronaldo have won the GOAT debate if he did one thing that Messi does better? Listen on Thank you RamG for the story. www.ramgvallath.com For more Stories at Work do subscribe to our YouTube channel...

Send us Fan Mail When you design a product or service for the “average customer”, you actually design for no one. Not even one in 4603 people. Curious? For more #storiesatwork do subscribe to our YouTube channel   #StoryBank - https://bit.ly/SW_SBYT   #LeaderSpeak - https://bit.ly/SW_LSYT. You can also join our WhatsApp group to get a copy of this video. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_1 Our website has a vi...

Send us Fan Mail When I moved from my corporate role to that of self-employed, a lot of things I took for granted disappeared. A call from my office was enough to get even the most senior personnel of our vendors to drop everything and come for a meeting. I suddenly had to keep calling people’s secretaries multiple times to get an appointment. In the past, I often got upgraded at hotels and airpor...

Send us Fan Mail How do clients react when a colleague calls out your experience and expertise. This story shows that it can be very powerful. In my work, we take it even further and tell a story that brings out the person’s experience rather then just claiming it. I call it a Key Staff story. A great way to boost credentials. I first heard this story from the my partners in Australia - Shawn Call...

Send us Fan Mail On 28th Oct, 2022, the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) announced pay equity for Indian women cricketers. It rightfully got a lot of media coverage. Biases that exist which are easy to spot can be corrected if the organisation intends to do the same. But what happens when the bias is hidden. Hidden biases often hide in plain sight and are usually created not out of bad...

Send us Fan Mail “On one hand you have Yuvraj Singh and on the other Rahul Dravid. Both assets for the team”. Sourav talks about how you need to use different strokes for different folk. www. StoryWorks.in allows you to search for business points in over a hundred storiess. Do try it out. For more #storiesatwork do subscribe to our YouTube channel which has two playlists - #StoryBank and #LeaderSp...

Send us Fan Mail *Apocryphal Story: * A story of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true. I don’t usually use apocryphal stories. As you know, my definition of a business story is - a business story is a fact, wrapped in context and delivered with emotion. But this story, about Aditya Birla, has been inspirational and I have been looking to verify its authenticity over the...

Send us Fan Mail Did Dhoni know something that Kumble didn’t? Perhaps… Incentives & disincentives work when we combine moral and social along with monetary. Listen to how Dhoni knew this intuitively and how economists in Israel needed an experiment to come to the same conclusion. I first heard this story from the my partners in Australia - Shawn Callahan and Mark Schenk from Anecdote. For more...

Send us Fan Mail I am sure most of us have experienced that colleague who is awesome at his work but impossible to work with. Someone who may be a fantastic performer but also good at making the rest of us feel that we are just taking up too much space. At Netflix they call them “brilliant jerks”. While in many other organisations these individuals would be both recognised and rewarded, at Netflix...

Send us Fan Mail Would you ever join a team which promised “hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honour and recognition in case of success” Probably not.  Listen to this story to see how honesty is the best policy even when recruiting. For more Stories at Work do subscribe to our YouTube channel which has two playlist...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever wondered why gyms are full in January but empty a month later? Why ambitious goals - write a book, build a business, lose 20 kg - is often not achieved? An attempt at massive change, for most people, will remain just that – an attempt! The change is just too big. We tell ourselves that we need to make huge changes, that all of our friends will be amazed by, because m...

Send us Fan Mail If I gave you Rs. 500 as seed money for a entrepreneurial venture and told you - “you have two hours to make as much money as you can make using this seed money”, what would you do? Take a moment and think of a few options before you read further.... Buy a lottery ticket? Gamble? In 2005, Tina Seelig, the professor of entrepreneurship at Stanford, gave the same challenge to the st...

Send us Fan Mail The bridge to nowhere is a story with a powerful lesson in what happens when we cannot adapt. Certainty is something we have valued dearly (checking the weather forecast is just one manifestation of this). With COVID changing lives as we have known it, nothing is certain any longer. Which is our bridge that may be leading to nowhere if we don’t adapt, is a question worth asking. F...

Send us Fan Mail Whether you’re an athlete, aspiring coach, or business professional, the ultimate goal remains the same: reaching your potential. But it’s not always easy to do that on your own. There are times we need a push, someone to make us raise our own bar. Did you have someone who did that for you? Share and tag that person and use this post to thank them. At the time it happened you may...

Send us Fan Mail The scarcity mindset - not enough for everyone - that has been ingrained in us from when we are a child resulted in me being a person who was determined, driven, hard working, diligent but this A-type personality also comes with stress and burnout. Metaphorically burning the candle at both ends. Many-a-time we push ourselves even when putting the foot off the pedal may actually ha...

Send us Fan Mail “Storytelling doesn’t work in serious/important business situations.” has been a common refrain I have often heard. 7 years ago, when I started StoryWorks, I heard it very often. It’s reduced now but the objections hasn’t disappeared. Do you have similar doubts? Or have you heard your colleagues voice similar concerns? Would you believe a merger between two iconic companies - Disn...

Send us Fan Mail When I was a kid, I remember everytime something bad happened to me - from tripping and falling or accidentally breaking something - my grandmother would almost immediately say “phanra katlo” (Bengali for disaster avoided). Her belief was that these little troubles were my guardian angel’s way of ensuring that the big disasters didn’t happen by ticking the disaster checklists of s...

Send us Fan Mail Can you imagine a two hour movie where the main character appears 1 hour 21 mins after the start of the film? Today’s story is a great example of a very important step in solving complex / chaotic problems. Changing perspectives. This story drives home several points. I have mentioned a few at the end of the story. Please add other points that come to your mind in the comments. Fo...

Send us Fan Mail 2nd January 2004 - Sachin Tendulkar walks to the crease at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The Australians were waiting with a plan. After all their plan had worked in all the six innings of the first three tests. But what they were not aware was the challenge Sachin had set for himself. Here is that story. For more Stories at Work do subscribe to our YouTube channel which has two play...

Send us Fan Mail A story not just for the Steve Jobs and Apple fans. There are stories and then there are stories. Stories of event that changed the course of history in a particular field or for a particular company. This story is one such. Changed it for advertising, for the Super Bowl and for Apple. What other such momentous events in business come to your mind? I am looking for anecdotes. Like...

Send us Fan Mail How often has someone been upset because you lost your cool on a small mistake? What teams need to understand is that a series of seemingly minor errors can become fatal in the long run. This is the story of the Mars Climate Orbiter and how lack of communication caused a small error which landed up being very costly. Since this story is about Mars, my voice in this story will feel...

Send us Fan Mail Are you good at riddles? For more Stories at Work do subscribe to our YouTube channel which has two playlists -  #StoryBank https://bit.ly/WStoryB and  #LeaderSpeak https://bit.ly/WLeaderS You can also join our WhatsApp group to get a copy of this video. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_1 Our website has a video version of this story.  https://storyworks.in/storybanks/ Follow me on LinkedIn -...

Send us Fan Mail A story about  perseverance, persistence, resilience and freewill. For more #storiesatwork do subscribe to our YouTube channel which has two playlists -  #StoryBank https://bit.ly/WStoryB and  #LeaderSpeak https://bit.ly/WLeaderS You can also join our WhatsApp group to get a copy of this video. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_1   Our website has a video version of this story.  https://storyw...

Send us Fan Mail A story about taking initiative. For more Stories at Work do subscribe to our YouTube channel which has two playlists -  #StoryBank https://bit.ly/WStoryB and  #LeaderSpeak https://bit.ly/WLeaderS You can also join our WhatsApp group to get a copy of this video. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_1 Our website has a video version of this story.  https://storyworks.in/storybanks/ Follow me on Li...

Send us Fan Mail A story about #gratitude. About acknowledge that we all stand on the shoulders of others for the success we have. A story from Captain Charles Plumb. For more Stories at Work do subscribe to our YouTube channel which has two playlists -  #StoryBank https://bit.ly/WStoryB and  #LeaderSpeak https://bit.ly/WLeaderS You can also join our WhatsApp group to get a copy of this video. htt...