offerings
Executive and team coaching
Get the coaching you need to increase your profits, your purpose, and your possibility for success. Coaching packages available in three areas of focus:
Healthy Leadership.
Your health as a leader impacts the health of your team. If you are not transforming the stories you tell yourselves about yourself, your work and team will suffer the consequences.Storytelling for Influence. Well-told, high-impact stories have the ability to create the engagement and belief you need from your team and stakeholders so that you can create the change you want. Learn how to tell these well.
Navigating Change and Conflict. Navigating change and conflict were always leadership skills before, and yet in this 21st century world, they are even more vital. Change is constant. Are you well-equipped to guide your people?
The Storytelling Leader Workshop
Highly experiential, engaging, fun leadership and team development workshop for finding, developing, and telling your most impactful stories in order to create engagement and belief in your work.
You will:
Explore the unique power of stories for influencing people to action
Use a process called “story mining” to identify the value-holding stories that you should be telling about who you are, what you do, and why you do it
Learn to craft your stories so you can tell them with impact for maximum engagement
Leave with a series of tools and resources that you can use over and over again to find and activate your best narrative assets
STORY EXAMPLES
When two sales teams at CVS needed to find the right stories for a new marketing campaign, David Hutchens and Michael facilitated four 90-minute engaging sessions over two weeks. They met on Zoom, using interactive virtual tools like Miro and Mentimeter.
The Changemaker Initiative in Los Altos, California realized they needed support telling stories that captured the unique identity of their organization. Over a full-day workshop on-site, Michael guided staff through a process to identify their most impactful stories, offered simple frameworks for ensuring they told those stories with maximum impact, and left them each with a participant kit filled with practical tools for continual learning.
World-class process facilitation
For many groups, important conversations and processes need outside expert facilitation. Investing in a skilled facilitator to customize and lead a process to address your needs and accomplish your goals can result in a massive return in impact.
The most common requests for facilitation are:
Values discernment
Strategic planning and visioning
Sharing knowledge and generating ideas
Staff retreats
Creating connection on a team
Navigating a challenging group conversation
Mediate a conflict
STORY EXAMPLE
The Alliance for Health Policy in Washington, D.C., hired Michael to help them craft a statement of values. Using story circles as the foundation, Michael facilitated a virtual process over three days to discern the values that drive the Alliance by exploring the stories that define their work.
Navigating Conflict & Emotions at Work Workshop
This workshop is designed to shift your team’s mindsets around conflict and emotions, offering masters-level tools for analyzing both, and gaining foundational skills to channel conflict’s powerful energy into something constructive.
You will:
Discern your primary approaches to dealing with conflict
Evaluate the role emotions play in work and conflict
Explore key principles of conflict resolution and de-escalation
Practice skills of deep listening and nonviolent communication
Learn tried-and-true tools for analyzing and mapping conflicts
Leave with a series of accessible, simple resources so that the learning can continue long after the end of the workshop
The Change Management Webinar Series
A four-part virtual delivery series on navigating times of change and uncertainty. Each webinar is 45 minutes and includes opportunities for small-group interaction and audience engagement. This offering includes optional yet highly-recommended 30-minute workshops for skill-building on subjects such as negotiation, dealing with difficult conversations, identifying core issues of conflict, and more. In between each webinar, your team will have access to short, high-impact videos, PDF downloads, and more.
Webinar topics are:
Change It Up: The Four Core Principles of Change Management
Lead with Story: How Three Stories Can Change Everything
Embrace the Heat: Navigating Conflict through Times of Uncertainty
Persuading the Resistant: How to Empathize with the Reticent and Get People on Board
Book a free consultation with Michael now.
Some of the organizations that trust Michael…
DIY: A Master Class in Leadership Storytelling.
It’s Michael’s new, unique, and active “digital workshop” alongside his colleague David Hutchens. You now have the opportunity to experience the same, innovative content that has been lauded by scores of organizations worldwide, like Google, PayPal, FedEx, CVS, and even NASA.
But in this online format, it’s a fraction of the usual cost.
“Michael did a terrific job leading our organization through a strategic planning session. His approach, rooted in the power of storytelling, was refreshing and engaging. We walked away with clarity, a sharper focus, and a renewed energy in working towards our vision.”
— CHRIS ITO, PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD, HOPE’S CORNER
“Michael is a rare gift of a facilitator.”
— JULIE, WORKSHOP PARTICIPANT
“I can’t fathom anyone not hiring Michael. He’s probably the most gifted speaker, facilitator, and human I know.
— MY MOM