COMMUNICATING THROUGH STORYTELLING EXAMPLE:

Many years ago…yet the example remains crystal clear to me today.  An address to the University of Michigan incoming MBA class

Storytelling speaker:  Bob Knowling, at that time an executive with U.S. West’s Telephone Network

The message told through story: Be a catalyst for change.

Story—he tells the story of growing up in poverty and an incident that changed his life—the incident galvanized his passion to be a catalyst for change.  As one of 13 children, he tells the story of the time he was even years old and he was standing in the welfare line with his mother.  When his mother inquired as to whether she could use the stamps to buy more peanut butter as less of something else (as it was a food item that stretched further than others)  The response to his mom was ‘if you’d thought about that before having all these kids, you wouldn’t be having to beg for more peanut butter’.  It was that incident that was the catalyst for change for his mother to get off welfare and work hard to deliver the message to her children to take responsibility for their lives and to always give back to those in need, without judgement.  It compelled him to finish high school, college and to this day fuels his drive and success.  A lot of the students in the audience that day might not remember Bob Knowling’s name, but they remember the ‘peanut butter guy’ and the delivery of message so powerful that the silence in the room screamed.