Free taster sessions
24 October, 19h00 CEST
21 November, 9h30 CET
Limited spots, book yours here.
Influencing through storytelling
A 2-day workshop tailored for life science professionals and leaders
Learn and practice an evidence-based change management framework to increase your leadership influence and drive action1,2
Ne
Workshop objectives
Unlock
inspiration
Individual perspective
- Inquire into a current challenge to reveal its narrative and open new paths to success.
Influence teams
and stakeholders
Relational perspective
- Inspire others with collective power to improve collaboration and achieve shared objectives.
Impact
your organisation
System perspective
- Use systems theory to reassess context, reveal hidden narratives and identify leverage points.
What you’ll learn
- How to draw insights into your strengths and inner resources to boost your confidence and leadership influence.
- How to present information that inspire and co-create synergies as you engage with diverse perspectives.
- How to use systems thinking tools to reveal the full influence of your actions and inactions and to design strategies that help drive meaningful change.
Get a glimpse of the workshop experience by reading this
By Parastou Pezeshkian
short story
Workshop
co-facilitators
Parastou Pezeshkian
MSc, MBA, ICF-PCC
A seasoned Organisational Agile Coach, Leadership & Team Effectiveness Coach, and business transformation consultant with 20+ years of corporate experience across the value chain in the Pharma industry.
Her deep understanding of leadership challenges and influence in times of change allows her to tailor her approach to meet the specific needs of the industry.
Jean-Simon Fortin
PhD, CCMPTM, GLP Certified Coach
Scientific communication professional with 13+ years’ experience designing and implementing best-in-class communications that have helped 20+ Pharma and Biotech companies grow their market share, innovate and transform.
He now transfers his experience by mentoring and training founders, scientists, leaders and graduate students in mastering storytelling and developing leadership skills.
The science behind storytelling
Stories release a biological cocktail of neurotransmitters and hormones that fosters trust and connection, sharpens attention, and enhances memory.3,4
Storytelling shaped human evolution and survival by influencing culture, strengthening communities, improving cooperation, and reproductive success!3-5
Compelling narratives create deep neural connections, synchronizing brain activity between the storyteller and the listener, driving audiences to act on what they hear.3,4
Transforming inner narratives has been shown to enhance the ability to navigate complex situations while fostering more strategic thinking and decision-making.1,2
AGENDA
Day 1
Morning
8h45 | Arriving and morning coffee
9h00 | Welcome and programme overview
9h45 | Group activity
10h15 | Storytelling and perspectives
10h45 | Workshop Activity
11h45 | Change management framework
12h15 | Workshop: your case study
12h45 | Lunch break
Afternoon
13h45 | Workshop: your case study (con’t)
15h00 | Plenary debrief
15h45 | Influence and communication
16h00 | Workshop: revised case study
16h30 | Reflections and learnings
17h00 | End
Day 2
Morning
8h45 | Arriving and morning coffee
9h00 | Overnight reflections
9h30 | Group activity
10h10 | Team dynamics
10h15 | Introduction to systems thinking
10h45 | Workshop: systems mapping
12h15 | Plenary debrief and questions
12h30 | Lunch break
Afternoon
13h30 | Workshop: stories in your system
15h00 | Interventions & enabling structures
15h45 | Workshop: interventions
16h00 | Plenary storytelling
16h30 | Workshop feedback
17h00 | End
PRE-WORK
Pre-work’s purpose
For the upcoming workshop, we invite you to experiment and anchor your learnings using a case study which currently poses a challenge for you.
This would be something you are currently working on and aiming to influence or have the desire to seek change. It may concern a team, department, function, process, whole organisation, or other “system” that you work with or are involved with.
All the stories / cases will be shared confidentially amongst participants and will serve as a foundation to build your own learnings and to enable multiple perspective taking.
Choose something that matters to you, where you have skin in the game.
Describe a current challenge you are facing, inclusive of your experience(s), person/ people involved and your desired outcome. You are aiming to portray a vivid brief story around your chosen case (under a page).
Please use the following prompts:
- What is the context/ place, the situation, person/ people/ stakeholders?
- What is your role in this story/ case?
- What specifically are you struggling with and why is it challenging for you?
- A short statement about the desired outcome for yourself; i.e. Ideally, I would like to …
- A short statement about the desired outcome for dynamics between people or teams involved; i.e. We would…
- A brief statement about the desired outcome for the whole system/ situation; i.e. Overall, it would…
During the programme, we will introduce aspects of transformational storytelling using evidence-based change management frameworks designed to strengthen your influence and ability to respond to challenges.
References
1. Torbert, W. R., 2013 The Pragmatic Impact on Leaders & Organizations Of Interventions Based in the Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry Approach. Integral Review 9(2), 264-299.
2. Rooke, D. & Torbert, W. R. 2005 Seven Transformations of Leadership. Harvard Business Review 83(4):66-76, 133.
3. Suzuki, W. A., et al. 2018 Dialogues: The Science and Power of Storytelling. Journal of Neuroscience 38 (44) 9468-9470.
4. Zak, P. J., 2015 Why inspiring stories make us react: the neuroscience of narrative. Cerebrum 2;2015:2.
5. Smith, D., et al. 2017 Cooperation and the evolution of hunter-gatherer storytelling. Nature Communications 8(1):1-9.