The Learning To Lead Show with Mark J. Cundiff

Leading Takeaways: What Stood Out & Why It Matters from the Shon Isenhour Interview

• Mark Cundiff

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Harnessing Storytelling for Effective Leadership

In this episode of the Learning to Lead Show, we reflect on the recent interview with Shon Isenhour, focusing on the power of storytelling as a leadership strategy. The discussion covers how purposeful storytelling can drive organizational change, the concept of the Valley of Despair in change initiatives, and book recommendations to further enhance storytelling skills. Key points include the distinction between mere story time and impactful storytelling, as well as tips for navigating and marketing the journey through challenging phases of change. Listeners are encouraged to download Leader Notes for a summary of key takeaways and explore further learning resources.

00:00 Introduction to the Learning to Lead Show

00:19 Introducing Leader Notes

02:06 The Power of Storytelling in Leadership

09:01 Navigating the Valley of Despair

11:59 Recommended Reads for Leaders

14:10 Conclusion and Call to Action

Learning To Lead Free Resources

🔎 About LeaderNotes

LeaderNotes is a quick-hit companion to each episode of The Learning to Lead Show. In just 5–10 minutes, Mark Cundiff recaps the top leadership insights, frameworks, and action steps from each interview, designed for busy, growth-minded leaders who want to review and apply the episode’s biggest takeaways on the go.

It’s like the highlight reel + playbook—all in one.

Download This Episode's Leadernotes Here: LeaderNotes



Hello. Welcome to the Learning to Lead Show where we help leaders grow on the go. Our objective of everything that we do is to help good leaders continue to lead, grow, and move their leadership up the level to where they're moving from. A good leader to be a great leader. Today's podcast is Leader Notes. It will be a reflection back on the interview we just had with Shon Isenhour in the previous two episodes. What I want to do is dive deep a on a few things that Shon highlighted in order for us to have some good takeaways. One of the things that happens to me a lot of times when I listen to a podcast is that you go through the podcast, you hear it, you're listening to it in your car. Or while you're walking or exercising and you hear some really great points, but you don't have time to reflect on those, you don't have a notebook, and a pen to help you write down what you've learned. So there's two things I wanna do. One, I'm going to provide a document that summarizes the key points of the podcast and that will be called Leader Notes. I will put those links in the show notes for you to be able to get those. But I also want to have an episode after each interview and just give you some reflection of the main points that I got out of the interview, what really stuck with me. So there's three that I want to cover today from our interview with Shon Isenhour. And again, if you haven't listened to those episodes, it's the previous two episodes to this one. Go back and listen to those and see what you get out of them for yourself. Are you a busy leader who struggles finding time to learn and grow? If so, I then I have the perfect resource for you, the Learning to Lead Newsletter that I publish weekly with five to seven minutes of quick leadership insights, book reviews, and tips to help you grow as a leader, you can get instant access by going to markjcundiff.com/newsletter. Again, that's markjcundiff.com/newsletter or by clicking the link in the show notes. Now let's dive in today I'm gonna dive deep on a few of the things that he talked about. One, the power of storytelling to affect change. One of the things I really was impressed with when I listened to Shon answer the question about how he's trying to drive change in organizations is how he focused on storytelling. I've worked in industrial manufacturing for nearly 40 years. That has not been a priority that you would see in the communication plans or any of the communications activities of most organizations that are out there in the industrial manufacturing some of the things that he highlighted is that the power of storytelling can affect change if it's done correctly. It can be a, it can be a vehicle for transformation. His annual theme for his organization this year was to learn to study, storytelling, to understand how to do that. The difference between story time and purposeful storytelling. Some people are really good, they're like. Jerry Clower, the old comedian or some of the comedians that you know are out there, Jeff Foxworthy, that can tell a good story and have a good laugh, but there's no purpose behind the story that they're telling. What you have to have in order to affect change is purposeful storytelling. When he talks about storytelling, it's not a throwaway line, it's a leadership strategy. It's a specific way to use. Story to drive improvements. So many times we get caught up in PowerPoints and statistics and charts and performance dashboards, that we really lose the audience and we lose the power of the moment to drive the change. In one organization I worked for, there was a methodology that was used when I joined that organization when we were trying to sell a client. We just fire hosed them to death with PowerPoints and data to try to sell them. In those situations you might have a PowerPoint that would be upwards 70 slides, sometimes even a hundred slides full of charts and data. All the information in there was good information. It was important information, but what happened by the time you got about 20 minutes into that, most of the audience, their eyes were glazed over and they didn't have the ability to really connect the dots with how that data that was being presented would move them to need. Our organization to help them impact change. Later on during my time with that organization, I worked for some different leaders where we implemented some significant changes in the way we presented this material. We were able to move to more of a storytelling type of process, where at the most we would have 20 slides. Most of the times would have 10 to 12 slides. What we would do is we would have the information in the background if they wanted to dive deeper into the statistics or know more about how we came to the conclusions that we did, but we told a story about what their current situation was, how we could help them go through a transformation. And how that would look and what their involvement would be in that, and what our involvement would be on that. Then we give them a picture of what things would look like five years down the road after working with us. We moved to very much away from a statistical and charts type of presentation over to a storytelling type of presentation, and our sales dramatically changed as a result of that. Landed some significant accounts. During my time working in that part of the business. We booked over a hundred million dollars in contracts I would have to say that one of the strategies. That we move to storytelling and painting a picture of the transformation journey that would take place. Why does stories matter in leadership? Shon Isenhour's challenge to leaders, especially in technical and engineering driven culture, is this. Somewhere along the way we decided spreadsheets and acronyms were the best way to communicate. We know that's not true. It's about the storytelling, about telling a transformation story that you're going to take these people on. That leads me to my first book recommendation. Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller. this book can be used. In your organization to develop a culture story, to develop a selling culture of what you're trying to do from a project standpoint so that you can get projects approved. It really takes you through a seven step process of not being the hero of the story, but being the guide. When you become the guide, you're able to take. A customer, a client, a potential person that you're trying to lead and influence through a journey where you're showing them the transformation that's gonna take place by working with you or doing the change initiative that you're talking about. Shon argues that leaders are not just visionaries, they are storytellers. People who are able to walk their people through a journey of transformation to tell a story about how they're going to go from point A to point B and give them a vision of the future through the power of a story. He argues that most successful change leaders aren't just visionaries, they're storytellers. They don't just roll out charts or quote productivity gains. They connect the technical work to the real life wins, these are not just antidotes, they are culture shaping moments that need to be told, retold and internalized. Storytelling alone isn't enough. Shon Isenhour warns us that, what he calls the story time syndrome, where someone enjoys the spotlight, spends a few fun tells, but they fail to connect the dots. You gotta use storytelling in an effective manner. You have to finish the story, and then you have to unpack it and connect it to what the real world results are going to be, and how they impact the organization in a positive way. You gotta clarify the takeaway. You gotta tie it to a principle and you gotta help the listener see how to apply it. A good story doesn't just entertain us, it equips us, it enables us to understand the journey of transformation that we're on it could be a force multiplier to your effectiveness. In his framework, it builds trust by creating shared understanding. It drives change by making abstract ideals tangible. It reinforces learning by linking principles to real outcomes. It sustains momentum through the valley of despair, and it also creates culture by defining what we do and how we do it. The second key point that I want to dive into today is the valley of despair. I wanna highlight just a few moments about this because it really goes to selling through the hard part of change and using the storytelling to help you get through the value of despair. What happens many times, we have this exploitation when we roll out a change initiative that. It's just going to be like a straight rocket up of success. What happens, a lot of times you'll have a momentary bump with some initial excitement and things improve, but then you go through a learning curve where there's actually a valley in the performance before you start ascending back up. Just getting back to where you were before the change initiative started so what is the Valley of Despair? It's a point in every change in initiative where these things happen, the initial excitement, AKA, the Hawthorne effect wears off. You have that initial assignment, you have some momentum. Things start looking good, but then what happens next? The new way still seems awkward and unfamiliar, so people become slower in doing some of the things. They become unsure. They make more mistakes than usual. The old way is still lingering in the background. It's a tendency to rubber band back to the way it used to be. The return on investment definitely has not occurred yet, and resistance starts whispering or shouting, this isn't working. So you have the naysayers, which you always have naysayers when you go through a change initiative that are going to get louder during the valley of despair. Before you start a change initiative, you need to create an expectation, especially with some of the higher up executives in in the company, that there is going to be a value of despair, that there is going to be some time when things do not go well, where there's a dip in performance, and then it won't be a straight line of just making this change initiative and shooting to records overnight, but that there will be some ups and downs and that valley despair. Will be a trying time for everyone involved, but you gotta work through that to get to the great results and reap the benefits on the other side. So part of it's creating expectation. The second part selling through the hard part of change, making sure that you incorporate that storytelling. You talk about the changes that you're making. Talk about the positive small micro winds that you have. You might have to go and show that you did this setup in less time than you've ever done it. Maybe you have to show that over here on this machine, their waste is actually starting to drop because they're catching on to what's going on. So you might have to share some micro winds during that process to show the things that are happening that once put all together are going to make the return on investment pay for going through the Valley of Change. So marketing the journey. Not just the destination is a key. If you don't sell and market during the Valley of despair, you may never get the chance to reach their ROI, I want to give you a list of books for those of you that want to dive deeper. There's always people in the audience that want to learn more, to go deeper, to study things a little more. Again, building the StoryBrand by Donald Miller. There's a book by Matthew Dix called Story Worthy. It really goes through the process of learning how to tell a story in a good way. He has a process in there where he challenges you to do homework for life, where you actually. Capture stories in a spreadsheet. In other words, this is just your run of the mill everyday stories. It could be a story about your family, it could be a story about your childhood as they come to memory. I'll put a chart in the leader notes to show you an example of that. But it's just a process of capturing stories. One of the things you could do in your workplace is have a spreadsheet for capturing stories about things that are going well, things that maybe didn't go well. To use those stories when you're trying to sell a change initiative or sell something that you need to sell in your organization or promote something or celebrate something. If you document and keep these stories in a spreadsheet, then you have things that'll trigger your memories. You're not starting from a blank slate. The Art of Explanation by Lee Lafe has some really good information about how to explain things in a way. That are effective. The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication by John Maxwell is a good one about how to communicate more effectively, making numbers count by Chip Heath. Same author for the Power of Moments. Both those books help you communicate technical data or technical information, the Making numbers Count book. My son is actually using that book as a finance analyst for a company that he just started with, and he's using that when they try to present some of their financial information to different folks in the organization. He also mentioned. Leading Change by Kotter. He's got a really good book about how you actually go through the change process in a large organization. These are applicable to even smaller organizations, but he goes through all the different stages and all the different work that you need to do to drive change. I hope highlighting some of these key points will help you take and put into action what we've learned from Sean during these two episodes. I hope these books are helpful to you. They will be in the leader notes you can download. Also, I would encourage you to go to. Your favorite podcast player and give us a five star rating. It would help us get more listens, also make sure that you subscribe and if this has been impactful for you, please share with a friend to help us get the word out about the learning to lead show.