I read this today in, "The Leadership Excellence Devotional" by Pat Williams. Having just wrote the Investigators as Storytellers post for the Nuix blog, I found this to be wonderfully complimentary. I hope you like it as much as I did.
"The shortest distance between two people is a story."
- Terence Gargiulo
Steve Sabol helped found NFL Files with his father Ed Sabol. He began working as a writer, editor, and cameraman with the 1962 NFL Championship game. Over the years, Steve won more that forty Emmy Awards as a documentary filmmaker, and succeeded his father as the president of the company.
More than a filmmaker, Steve Sabol was a storyteller. He used camera angles, slow-motion images, stirring music, the shouts of players, and the collision of helmets to transform football games into epic tales of human drama.
In March 2011, Sabol learned he had inoperable brain cancer. In August of that he, he delivered an emotional induction at the Hall of Fame enshrinement of his ninety-four-year-old father. And on September 18, 2012, Steve passed away at the age of sixty-nine.
When his father's Hall of Fame induction was announced, Steve said, "My dad has a great expression: "Telle me a fact, and I'll learn. Tell me a truth, and I'll believe. Tell me a story, and it will live in my heart forever."
That is great leadership wisdom. Our greatest leaders have always been storytellers. They use stories to illustrate their vision, teach us lessons, touch our emotions, rivet our attention, and motivate us to action. Stories move us, compel us, and inspire us. Stories make us laugh, and cry.
To be persuasive, to be unforgettable, simply say, "Let me tell you a story..."
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