Episode 101: A Leaders' Guide To Business Storytelling With Alison Esse

In the latest episode of Climb in Consulting, Nick talks to Alison Esse, the Co-founder and Director of business transformation specialists The Storytellers. Having begun her career in communications, and later in big show production, Alison has been no stranger to captivating people through the power of storytelling. But when the events industry went into freefall in the early 2000s, she decided to switch focus from telling stories on stages, and into helping businesses create emotionally-compelling narratives that allow leaders to navigate their people through periods of change. 19 years later, and The Storytellers have worked with over 200 of the world’s biggest brands, including HSBC, Coca-Cola, Deloitte and BP. In this conversation Alison and Nick discuss a range of fascinating topics around storytelling, including: • Why stories cut through the noise to help make dense and complex information much more digestible. • How to use the traditional Hero’s Journey framework to tell an engaging story for your own firm that your team will buy into. • And the origins of The Storytellers, the challenges they’ve faced on their own Hero’s journey, and how Alison and her fellow co-founders turned something often considered fluffy and intangible into a toolkit to inspire people, shift mindsets, and build trust that even the most sceptical CEOs buy in to. Wherever you are in your career, Alison shares some brilliant advice on how to be a good listener, how to take knocks and learn from them, the importance of always staying in tune with what your customers actually want, and why it’s crucial for entrepreneurs to take the back seat from time to time. You’ll get so much from this conversation, and we hope you enjoy the show! Get in touch with Alison at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-esse-ab2bb91 Find out more about The Storytellers at: https://thestorytellers.com/ Specific things discussed in the show: Dan and Chip Heath – Switch https://www.waterstones.com/book/switch/dan-heath/chip-heath/9781847940322 Will Storr – The Science of Storytelling https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-science-of-storytelling/will-storr/9780008276973