Annette Simmons most popular book, The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence and Persuasion through the Art of Storytelling came out in the year 2000. CEO-Read twice named it as one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. All five of Simmons’ business books define and promote “power-with” strategies and principles even
though (and in some cases, specifically because) they undermine autocratic “power-over” strategies.
She began recording true stories about “turf wars” that revealed ten predictable tactics commonly used to protect silos in her first book Territorial Games: Understanding and Ending Turf Wars at Work. American Management Association gave away 40,000 free copies as their free membership gift in 1998 and it was eventually translated into eleven languages. That was the year she started
Group Process Consulting. Her clients have included NASA, Microsoft, Meta, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, businesses large and small, non-profits, and governments.
Far beyond the idea that telling a story is a sales tool, Annette sees storytelling as an evolutionary process to aid humans in preserving vital social and survival lessons about collaboration. Storytelling is more than a past time. It’s how we learn how to treat others so we can invent solutions for complex problems. Her most recent book Drinking from a Different Well: How Women’s Stories Change What Power Means in Action challenges traditional assumptions about what power is, what it is for, and who should have it. When masculine narratives tend to portray life as a competitive game to win, the fatal flaw is that “winners” tend to interpret anything less than dominance as a personal weakness. They can conclude that collaboration with others is actually a betrayal to their own “winning” tribe and even condemn generosity as a lost opportunity to exploit opportunities. This book is a love letter to women who instinctively seek to balance “winning” with moral actions that protect the weak and preserve our planet.
We talked about how to communicate across silos, when it’s time to quit trying to come to a consensus, the effects of artificial intelligence on storytelling, and one of our favorite storytellers, Taylor Swift!
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