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Stephen Denning is the author of several books on leadership and narrative, including The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative (Jossey-Bass, 2007), which was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best business books of 2007. To learn more, go to http://stevedenning.com/SecretLanguage.htm. Formerly the program director of knowledge management at the World Bank, Steve now advises organizations world-wide on leadership, innovation and business narrative.
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 27, 2008 The Uniter vs The Divider
As Hillary Clinton learns to tell her story, and for the first time generates genuine enthusiasm among her supporters, she also runs the risk of being seen as "the divider". Meanwhile if Barack Obama is to continue to be seen as "the uniter", he must learn to tell a wider set of stories, including those of gun owners and small-town America.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 19, 2008 The Nature of Plagiarism
The Clinton campaign's accusation of plagiarism is without foundation, as is their argument about "words versus solutions". Instead, Clinton needs to make the substantive case what she has to offer as president that is different from and better than what Obama offers. Otherwise, she risks being seen herself as a plagiarist.
(13 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 17, 2008 Obama Speaks The Language of Leadership
There's nothing mysterious or devious or cult-like about what Obama is doing to inspire extraordinary enthusiasm in his audiences: he is using well-known principles of the language of leadership to reach people's hearts and change people's minds through the skilful use of narrative.
(12 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 18, 2007 An Inconvenient Truth For Democrats
There are eerie parallels for Democrats between 1999 and 2007. the "obvious" nominee has not yet learned the language of leadership.
(9 comments) SHARE Monday, November 13, 2006 Clarity in Iraq: the war on terror
When you've got yourself into a goddamned mess and you're trying to figure out how to get yourself out of it, it usually isn't very helpful to spend your time trying to find someone to blame. What makes more sense is to figure what intellectual errors led you there in the first place, so that you can find the right way forward. Nowhere is this truer in thinking about Iraq and the war on terror.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 6, 2006 We need leaders, not managers
As both Democrats and Republicans gear up for the current political campaign with the inevitable spate of labeling and name-calling, it needs to be recalled that people can smell the truth when they encounter it. What both Republicans and Democrats need is leaders who can speak it.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 4, 2006 The Difference Between Leaders and Managers
Think of Political leadership as you read the book review for RESONANT LEADERSHIP;: this book confuses leadership with managership, barely mentioning the principal tools by which leaders inspire action without hierarchical power-- narrative and storytelling. It almost totally neglects the central challenge of genuine leadership, namely, what one says and does to catalyze change.
SHARE Tuesday, May 30, 2006 Making The Workplace Worthwhile
Steve Denning reviews David Whyte’s book, Crossing the Unknown Sea and finds that it is a timeless meditation on the meaning of the modern workplace. It recognizes the forces that are darkening the heart and offers a pathway from all that is deadening, de-energizing in modern work. It is a book that lifts the spirit, gleams in the sunlight, breathing life and spirit into our lives.
SHARE Monday, May 29, 2006 Conversation The Most Delightful Activity Of Our Lives
Steve Denning reviews Conversation, a book by Stephen Miller, and finds that while it sheds light on “the most delightful activity in our lives”, it falls short of revealing what a world of genuine conversation would sound like, or how we might move from our current context of mean-spirited abstract arguments to a world of open-minded, jovial, spirited exchange of narratives.