WAYNE BROWN: Hello, I’m your host, Wayne Brown, and welcome to the ET project. We’re delighted to be delivering this podcast for executive talent all over the world, whom we’re affectionately referring to as Team ET. Today, we’re flying into Melbourne, Australia, and chatting with storytelling guru Gabrielle Dolan. While working in a senior leadership role at National Australia Bank, Gabrielle realized the power of storytelling in effective business communication. Since that epiphany, she has found her calling as a global expert on strategic storytelling and real communication. A highly sought-after keynote speaker, educator, and author, Gabrielle’s extensive client list includes: Telstra, EY, Accenture, Visa, Australia Post, ANZ, Salesforce, Amazon, Vodafone, and the Obama Foundation. Gabrielle holds a master’s degree in management and leadership, an associate diploma in education and training, and is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Executive Education. In 2024, she launched a successful top-rated podcast, ‘Keeping It Real with Jac and Ral.’ Gabrielle is also the bestselling author of multiple books. Her latest title, ‘Story Intelligence: The Craft of Authentic Storytelling, Made Smarter with AI,’ and I think it’s number nine, and you’ll hear much of our conversation centered around this book. For Gabrielle, bringing humanity to the way business people communicate isn’t a career; it’s a calling. Her dedication to the industry was recognized when Gabrielle was awarded the 2020 Communicator of the Year by the International Association of Business Communicators. The ultimate expression of her passion for the cause is her Jargon Free Friday global movement, which you’ll find on jargonfreefridays.com. Team, this is an energetic and engaging conversation that reminds all of us about the importance of effective storytelling and how we should now be leveraging AI for even greater impact.
INTRO: Welcome to the ET project, a podcast for those executive talents determined to release their true potential and create an impact. Join our veteran coach and mentor, Wayne Brown, as we unpack an exciting future together.
WAYNE BROWN: Hello, team, welcome to this week’s conversation. Do you recall, I’m old enough to actually know this story, but I’m guessing there aren’t too many of you in my case, but in 1938, Orson Welles panicked a nation; people fled their homes believing that Martians were real and they were invading. Now, if we fast forward to 2026, which is some 88 years on, today we’re watching CEOs, politicians, and influencers on social media say things that they never even said. And we just take it in our stride; we squall past, we’re not panicked, and we’re actually probably a little bit numb to the whole scenario. And we seem to have traded hysteria for apathy, but here’s the problem that I see with that, is when we stop believing anything, we also stop trusting everyone, and without trust, no story lands, no sales flow, no leader really leads. And my guest today has spent the past 20-odd years teaching leaders to tell stories that build trust, and now she’s including, or pivoting a little bit, teaching them how to use AI without losing themselves. Gabrielle Dolan, you call yourself Ral, and we’re going to find out a little bit more about that shortly, but welcome to the ET project.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Thanks, Wayne. I’m excited to be here and talk about all things storytelling.
WAYNE BROWN: Now, for my audience, they listen to me every week, and I’m Australian, but I don’t believe that my accent is as strong as your accent. Where are you? Are you in Melbourne?
GABRIELLE DOLAN: I am in Melbourne, Australia, and yes, I do have a pretty strong Australian accent.
WAYNE BROWN: You’ve written another book; I’m not sure which. What number is this? Five, six, or seven?
GABRIELLE DOLAN: It is the eighth, not that we’re counting, but we are. It’s the eighth book I’ve written, yeah.
WAYNE BROWN: It’s called ‘Story Intelligence: The Craft of Authentic Storytelling, Made Smarter with AI.’ Why this book? Why now?
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah. A good question, Wayne. My previous book, which I wrote about four years ago, and I truly thought it would be the last book I would write on storytelling. I mean, clearly, there’s only so much you can write. But I had more… you know, I would run my training workshops, and I increasingly had more people ask me, will AI replace storytelling? And the fact that they were even asking me the question sort of horrified me a bit. It was like, “No, no, AI won’t replace storytelling.” But then, people would say, “Well, can you use AI to help with your stories?”
[00:05:00]
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Now, my initial response to that was no, but then I thought, well, I better start testing it out, and you can use AI. So, the latest book, I say to people, the latest book is still ultimately a book on storytelling, but you can use AI to help find and refine your stories. And I think what you said in the intro, the key though is to not lose your voice in it. So, I sort of felt compelled to write this story because you talked about trust, the importance of trust. We are in, I don’t know if you follow the Edelman report, but they produce an annual report; they’ve been doing it for 20 years, and trust is at its lowest ever since they’ve been doing that report. So, you’re right, we watch stuff, and you see deepfake videos. So, we’re all becoming a little bit cynical and judgmental. Was that AI? I was at the gym the other day on a treadmill, and they had the music channel going on, and there was this thing, and someone on the treadmill next to me goes, “Oh my God, that looks just like an amazing concert. What’s going on? And then part of me went, ‘But it could be AI; you don’t even know if it’s like… is it real?’ It sort of looked real, but you know, maybe it’s not.” So yeah, so that was part of it as well. So yeah, I felt compelled to because I truly, truly believe that in a world of distrust and in a world of AI-generated content, our stories, our authentic stories, are needed now more than ever. So yeah, that was the premise of the book.
WAYNE BROWN: Before I get into the book itself, Ral is just an abbreviation for Gabrielle?
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah, my younger sister could never pronounce my name, and she’d always call me Gabral, and so Ral has stuck. Everyone calls me Ral. Even, I’ve got a podcast; I co-host a podcast, and it’s called ‘Keeping It Real with Jac and Ral.’ And I always have to say, “I’m the Ral of that…” So, feel free to call me Ral.
WAYNE BROWN: Ral, okay. Well, I’ll call you Ral throughout the rest of this recording, but you opened the book with what I alluded to in the beginning, the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast. People, as I understood, literally ran into the street, believing the Martians had landed on Earth. The recording was very lifelike, I have to say; it was well done. But if forward to today, and we have all these deepfakes, right? Have we become too trusting? Have we gone from… or is it the other way around? We’ve become not trusting enough.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah, I think… You know, it’s funny… I think we’re becoming… well, and all the research shows that we’re becoming less trusting, like we don’t trust institutions as much, and we don’t trust leaders. And there’s the whole deepfake video; it makes it really hard to know, is this real? And I talk about this in the book. You see, like these videos of… and they’re clearly… like, you know, a lion eating a snake or vice versa or, you know, just stuff like that. And I watched them, and I go, “That’s clearly AI?” It’s clearly AI, because that’s not… even though it looks real. And then you read the comments, and I am just gobsmacked over the comments, where like 50% actually believe it’s real. So, there’s comments going “AI” and “deep fake,” and other people going, “Oh my God, I can’t believe that really happened.” And I was like, “God, it didn’t happen.” So, I’m actually surprised. And as technology gets better and better and better, it’s going to be harder to distinguish what’s real and what’s not. And we will get in a position where, like, they talk about, I mean, you know, the Epstein files, for example, are all over the place, and an excuse or a PR strategy for people being caught on video doing the wrong thing will just go, “That was a deepfake video.” And it could be, but even if it’s real, that’ll be their go-to. And as consumers of this, you just don’t know what to believe anymore.
WAYNE BROWN: We’re in a trust crisis; I also believe that. The challenge that I have for all of this, and you mentioned the report, is that trust is one of those strange commodities, right? You can’t really see it, you can’t measure it, so how do we know that trust is really declining? What are you observing with the leaders that you work with? What’s their feedback? What’s the whole premise behind that belief?
[00:10:00]
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah. Well, I mean, you talked about how you can’t measure trust. Like, I don’t know how Edelman does it, but they measure it; maybe it’s just a poll, but it’s just trusting.
WAYNE BROWN: Yeah.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: I think you see it almost… I mean, trust is always important; you’d likely, for example, as a leader, if you’re leading a team, a CEO, trust has always been important. But I think now leaders have to acknowledge the fact that people are questioning things more; they’re questioning… And I think it… I even think, you know, the younger generation questions things. Like, Wayne, you and I are a similar age, and we would probably, when we started our careers, just go, you know, if your manager said this or your CEO said this, you would just go, “Well, okay, well, then that’s true.” I think the younger generation questions things a lot more, and good on them for doing that. So, you think, “Well, as a leader, people are questioning things a lot more, they’re calling stuff out, they’re not as trusting as previous generations, so it’s almost like you have to work harder to build that trust and maintain that trust. And as you know, with trust, once it’s broken, it’s very, very hard to get back, very hard to get back. And so that’s why whenever I talk about storytelling, I talk about authentic storytelling. So, not only do you have to believe in the message you’re communicating, but the story also has to be true; like, you’ve got to tell true stories. And I’m actually surprised, you know, I’ll go to Wayne and run a workshop, and it will be like senior executives in a company. And to this day, I still have people go, “Well, but if the story is made up, but it gets the point across, that’s okay, isn’t it? That’s just a little white lie.” And I was like, “No, it’s not a little white lie. It’s not even a lie; it’s actually a betrayal of trust.” And I say that to them, “It is a betrayal of trust. Why would you do it? Why would you make up stories when your own stories are going to be more powerful and effective?”
WAYNE BROWN: And you talk about that in the book, that many leaders don’t realize that they have so many great stories they can leverage. So, I want to come to that point on authenticity because I do a lot of work with paradoxes, and authenticity in storytelling for me is a paradox or it could be seen as a paradox. So, the question I have is, you’re helping leaders to craft stories now. Crafting implies that we’re editing or shaping, but authenticity implies that it’s raw, or it’s unpolished, it’s real. So, crafting authentic stories sounds like a paradox, a contradiction.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah, actually, that’s a good point. One of the hardest challenges of writing a book is coming up with the title, and then what’s even harder than that is the subtitle. I actually tried; I used AI to help find the subtitle, and in the end, one of my friends came up with the title. So, you’re right, it’s the craft of authentic storytelling. For me, the word “craft” implied it’s a skill. So, there’s a bit of skill to it. I would always go; I could help you find a story, right? So, if you were giving a presentation and you said, “Okay, I want to share a personal story on the importance of, let’s say, innovation,” right? So, I can work with you, and I can help you find that story, help you find a personal story. I can then show you… You know, you have to tell me the story, and I can then give you the skill and go, “No, it’s going too long; you need to start it this way. Don’t start it that way. Leave out that detail because it’s not important.” I would probably ask you questions like, “How did you feel when that happened?” And you go, “Oh, I felt really, really excited.” I go, “Okay, well, that needs to be in the story.” So, put that in the story, take that out of the story, end it this way, and don’t end it that way. So, I’m helping you craft that story, but the whole time it’s authentic; that’s where I see the difference.
WAYNE BROWN: Right. Now, if I use AI to polish that story, is that actually a part of the craft?
GABRIELLE DOLAN: It can be. So, in writing this book, I started to experiment with AI. And so, because I had, like I said, at the start, I had people saying, “Can you use AI? And my initial response was, “No, you can’t.” And I thought, okay, I’m going to test my theory out that you can’t use AI to help with your stories. So, I started by literally putting to ChatGPT, can you come up with a personal story, as in written in the first person, about innovation, right? Whatever.
[00:15:00]
GABRIELLE DOLAN: And it came back with a story, and I was… I was going to say, I was surprised how good it was. I was disturbed by how good it was, Wayne. The story came back, and I went, “Actually, this is pretty good.” And it actually disturbed me because I thought, “Here I was thinking AI can’t help with stories, but it was like, “That’s pretty good.” The thing is though, it was missing something, you sort of read it and you go, “yeah, that’s pretty good, it sort of makes sense,” but it was missing something. And what it’s missing is authenticity because it’s not real, and it’s missing that human connection, so it is missing something. In the book, I go through the process of how to find… You know, and I talk about the four types of stories, which we can talk about if you want, but how to refine them. So, AI can help you refine a story, but what you need to do then is not be lazy, not be lazy with it, because it could sound good, but does it sound like you? And so, AI will say things like, at the time, I was so excited, everyone was screaming and hugging each other. And you could go, actually, that didn’t happen. But I remember at the time I was excited, and I remember this happening. You go, okay, so we put that in the story. And the other thing you have to do is I always suggest talking… You know, if you’ve got AI help you refine the story, say it out loud, and if there are words in there that you would not normally use, don’t use them. AI-generated content, it’s sort of, it’ll be, it went from clarity to courage to blah, to blah. I’m just like, “Oh my God, no one talks like that,” it’s just like… so, you don’t want to lose your voice in the whole process. And I’m really big on that, is don’t give control or power over to AI, you should always, always have the driver’s seat.
WAYNE BROWN: On a personal level, just sort of circling back around to that a little bit. You’ve got Harvard credentials, you’ve written multiple books—eight books now, and you helped train the Obama Foundation
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Oh no, that was pretty cool.
WAYNE BROWN: And yet you failed. I think it was year 12 English, so you’ve really evolved. How did you achieve that? For all our listeners, for government leaders, that journey in itself is probably something of interest.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah. And I think when I look back, I think I was just a very lazy student. I sort of had this; it’s a terrible philosophy. Any kids out there, ignore me. And I’ve told my children, “Ignore me.” But I just sort of thought 50% is a pass and 51% is a waste of effort, right? That is my mentality. And it almost worked because I got 49%. But yeah, look… and I would be the first to say, grammar and stuff like that, spelling, is not my strength. I do, I have a lot of ideas, and I put them, and I work with good editors, so that’s an evolution. I remember in my early 30s, I was doing my MBA in management and leadership, it’s very academic writing, and I’d get my husband to correct my assignments and stuff. And he would always go, “You can’t write as you talk. I’m reading this, and it just sounds like you’re talking.” And he goes, “You can’t write like that.” He goes, “It’s an academic paper.” And I’m going, “Why can’t you just write…” Like, “Why can’t I write as I talk? ”And he goes, “Because you can’t, because it’s an academic paper.” When I write my books now, the greatest compliment I receive, or to me, it’s the greatest compliment, is when people go, “I was reading your book, and it felt like you were in the room talking to me.” So, my style of writing is I write how I talk. And you know what? I can do that in my own books. You can’t do it if you’re doing it…
WAYNE BROWN: I was going to make that observation myself that in reading the book, I can sense it’s you who wrote the book, right? I can really pick that up by the way that you express yourself.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yes.
WAYNE BROWN: One of the things I saw in the book is you came up with your own definition for ‘story intelligence.’ We’ll see if I remember it; the ability to purposefully and skillfully use storytelling to connect and inspire. Is that right?
[00:20:00]
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah, that’s close enough. It’s the ability to purposefully and skillfully use authentic storytelling to communicate with clarity, but then to connect, engage, and inspire. And you’re right, because when I came up with the book Story Intelligence… so, a little background, digress a little bit, it’s on point about using AI, I said before, the hardest thing is to come up with a title and a subtitle. I used AI to help me come up with the title. Like, this is what I’m trying to achieve, give me 10 suggestions, give me another 10, give me another 10. I think in the end, I had like about a hundred suggestions. And one of the suggestions was ‘Narrative Intelligence,’ and I actually don’t like the word narrative, I think people use the word narrative instead of story, and they’re very different. And I thought ‘Narrative Intelligence,’ I was like, I don’t like that. And then I thought, but I like ‘Story Intelligence.’ And it was like… so, AI didn’t come up with ‘Story Intelligence,’ it came up with ‘Narrative Intelligence.’ And I like the whole fact that ‘Story Intelligence’ is like emotional intelligence and they’re connected and I did a similar thing with the subtitle, used AI. I did use AI in the book. When it came to the definition of story intelligence, so I Googled it, is this a thing? There was no definition, as in there’s no dictionary explanation. So, I thought, well, I need to come up with one, I need to come up with what it actually means. It’s interesting working with my editor, like the conversation went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And she was saying, but don’t you need to put AI into the definition of story intelligence? Like you’ve got AI in the subtitle. And in the end, I had to make a decision. And I’m thinking, you know what? You can have brilliant story intelligence, you can be like the best storyteller and use stories really authentically, all it says, without ever using AI. I mean, seriously, I consider myself a good storyteller and two years ago, I’d never touched AI. So, it deliberately does not include AI in that title. And I say to people, the book, ‘Story Intelligence,’ it’s ultimately a storytelling book. Yes, there’s a chapter on how to use AI to help you find and refine stories. There’s also a chapter in there how to find and refine your stories without AI, so it’s ultimately a storytelling book. But yeah, even though I go, our stories are needed now more than ever in a world of AI-generated content, AI is not the enemy and you can still use AI, but just don’t lose your voice and don’t be lazy. And go, well, that sounds good, yeah, it might sound good, but it’s not you, it doesn’t sound like you.
WAYNE BROWN: I’m sure there’s many people listening who are guilty as charged like I am, that we tend to leverage AI as a time saver and we know that it’s going to be somehow untidy, maybe not 100%, maybe not exactly authentic, but we accept that it’s good enough in that instance. And I guess your message is, you really need to hang on to that human experience to make sure it does feel authentic.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah. And I think also on your saying, I’m all for good enough, it is okay. Like I just said, I’m a lazy student, so, good enough is okay. And I always say, an okay story is better than no story. But the thing with AI, if you’re just using AI as a way of being efficient and going, this is helping me, the end content is it’s all starting to sound the same. And you’re blending and therefore it’s not, it might be efficient, it won’t be effective and I think when it comes to communication, you actually want it to be effective, not efficient.
WAYNE BROWN: Right, yeah, I fully agree. One of the things I picked up on in the book, you talk about comparing story intelligence to emotional intelligence and you say that we can learn to be better in both areas. So, I just want to start with, are you seeing some common mistakes that leaders are making when it comes to storytelling? Like what area do you help them with the most?
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah, there’s lots of common mistakes, down to some, just real basic stuff, like the story goes too long. Like you literally… like, I will work with CEOs, and I go, a good story, we just need to cut it in half. So, my advice is, your story should be around about 60 seconds, maybe 90 seconds. But if you’re sharing a story and it has gone for two minutes, it’s just too long. And so, there’s a real discipline in deciding what information is in and what information is out. So, that’s a very common mistake I see.
[00:25:00]
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Another one I see is they’re not true. And I sort of go, well, I can help you find a real story that happened to you, why are we making up stories? Because you can just sort of sense, you know, and people, you know, as you would know, as it being an Australian, I think Australians have the highest BS detectors in the world. But everyone, you can sort of just get that, it just didn’t sound right or just there’s something that you don’t believe, and that’s if it’s made up, so that happens. Down to another really common one is the way people start their stories, they go, “let me tell you a story.” And you know when people go, “let me tell you a story,” it’s like, “oh, please don’t.” So, you know, starting your story in a way that’s like time and place, like, literally, if you said to me… you know, or if I said to you, I was like, “oh, that reminds me when I went on an African safari in my twenties,” you’ve registered that I’m about to tell you a story, but as opposed to say, “let me tell you a story,” it’s a little technique, but you start with time and place. Would it be useful, Wayne, if I gave you an example? Of, you know, we’ve talked about personal stories and then maybe then we can pick it apart why that was.
WAYNE BROWN: Yes, please.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: So, the one I like to share is literally I was doing some work with a risk team. So, it was the entire risk team and the head of risk, her name was Rosemary. And Rosemary said to me, one of the biggest challenges I have is when I’m talking about risk management to the business units that I support, they just go, “well, as the risk manager, that’s your job.” And she said, it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve told them, “I cannot manage your risk, all I can do is help you manage your risk when it pops up, I can’t help you do it.” She goes, I’ve given case study after case study, example after example, but the message doesn’t get through. And she said, I’ve tried everything. And she tried everything except a personal story. So, and what I mean by… I should say what I mean by a personal story, is it just didn’t happen at work, it’s something that didn’t happen at work, but how you… the skill in attaching it to the work message. So, the story she shared is, when I was a kid, I grew up on a farm and growing up on a farm, there was all these dangers that we need to be aware of. But mum would teach us what to do, so we knew what to do when we came across redback spiders in the timber heap. We knew about the potential traps in the dam after a heavy rain. And we knew what to do if we ever came across a snake in summer. And I remember this day, I was running down to get my bike and then I just froze because in front of my bike was this massive copperhead snake. But I remembered everything mum taught us to do, so I played statues and slowly walked backwards until there was enough space between me and the snake and I ran back to the house to tell mum. And I’m sharing this with you because it reminds me of the role we play in risk, all I can do is give you the skills, knowledge and advice. So, when you come across your own copperhead snake, regardless of what that looks like, you will know what to do. So, let me ask you a few questions, Wayne. Does that story help you understand the role of a risk manager better and the role you would play in risk? Does it help you understand the message better?
WAYNE BROWN: In your book and in your storytelling, I’m sensing you use a lot of personal situations. Is there a line that you shouldn’t cross as a leader in telling a story and introducing your own personal history, if you like, or career. How do you guide a leader?
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah. And there is a line you don’t want to cross. My advice when I work with leaders is we are a long way from that line, the line is way over there and we’re not going to do it. And so first of all, you don’t want to overshare, you don’t want to be the oversharer when you’re sharing stuff and like people sort of go, “ooh, I can’t unsee that,” type of thing. You don’t want to share stories that would go against your brand, so let’s say, I mean, let’s just say Wayne, you wanted to come up with a story around collaboration or teamwork, right? You could be thinking of this story when you were in your twenties and you and your mates decided to deal drugs to the kids at the school. It could be a great example of teamwork, but it’s probably not a story that you want to share, when you were a drug dealer, right? Maybe let’s find another story. So, you don’t want to do that. You also, I would talk about, heal before you reveal, so, share stories of stars, not wounds. And what I mean by that, it could be something quite traumatic that happened to you, but it happened like 30 years ago and you’re very comfortable talking about it.
[00:30:00]
GABRIELLE DOLAN: But if it happened three months ago and you’re still healing from that, then you probably don’t want to share the story. And the only reason is, it won’t be effective because people might feel sorry for you, but that’s not what you want, that’s not why you were sharing the story. So, there is a line, but I think in business we are a very long way from that line.
WAYNE BROWN: Yeah, very good. What do you hope readers can really take away from the book, is there something?
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah, my hope when I do my keynotes, when I do workshops and when I write the book is to show that storytelling is a really critical way to communicate and it almost gives people permission. So, I hope by reading the book, I give you permission. And what I mean by that is you sort of might go, oh, actually, I didn’t think it would be professional to share a personal story, or I didn’t think anyone would be interested in my stories to say that they are, that actually it’s really powerful so do it. I also then hope that I give you the capability, so, I teach you the framework of, get clear on your message, how to start your story, what to put in the middle, what to leave out of the middle, how to end it. And which I then hope gives you the confidence to do it. And like I said, an okay story is better than no story. So, don’t aim for perfection, I mean, don’t aim for perfection in anything really. The point is it’s about connection and it’ll help you communicate with clarity, as the dictionary definition now says, communicate with clarity and to connect, engage and/or inspire people around you.
WAYNE BROWN: We haven’t used the word jargon. So, I want to incorporate that now because this is one of the biggest issues that I see many leaders fall into the trap, they get caught up in the jargon. You’ve actually started a, I think it’s a global movement, it’s called Jargon Free Fridays, tell us a little bit about what that movement is trying to achieve.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah, Jargon Free Fridays, it was a fun way to raise awareness to what I think is a very serious problem and that is the excessive overuse of jargon and unnecessary acronyms. So, you know, jargon, you know, like we’re running things up flag poles and circling back and strategize and all this stuff. But an acronym, like, you know, for every acronym you use, there are multiple variations. Even in the same company, IT talking to finance, talking to marketing, talking to risk, they could be using the same acronym, but it means different things in different industries. I’m not against acronyms, but it’s just the excessive unnecessary use, just because something has three letters in it, doesn’t mean it needs to be reduced to an acronym. And we were talking, the overuse of AI, it can be quite lazy if we just go, “I’ll just get AI to write it.” Using acronyms, I think is actually pretty lazy as well, because if I’m just saying acronym after acronym, you as the listener has to, or the reader, has to interpret what I’m trying to say. And so, it’s putting the work onto you, but it’s also running the risk that, I could say an acronym that means one thing and you could think of it as another thing. I mean, you know, when I used to work in corporate many, many years ago, we’d had an acronym of STIs and they were short-term incentives. I mean, you ask someone, you know, what STIs they currently have, and they’re thinking it’s sexually transmitted infection, I was like, that’s a weird conversation.
WAYNE BROWN: Yeah. You end the book with karate. First of all, tell me a little bit about that story, if you don’t mind and then I want to make a parallel to AI.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah. I end the book with a karate story and I often in my training workshops about it. And the story sort of goes, when I left corporate world, I had a lot of time on my hands, so, I decided to take up karate. I had always wanted to learn karate, but didn’t have the time. And I talk about, you know, I’m one of eight children, so I knew how to punch, I knew how to punch before I took up karate. But when I learned how to hold my fist the right way, when I learned how to punch through a target, not at a target, and with lots of practice, practice, practice and refining my technique. Now, when I deliver a punch, it’s a lot more powerful than it was before. And I sort of ended by saying, I guarantee you the same will be with your stories. If you’re prepared to practice, practice, practice, and refine your technique, I guarantee your stories will be a lot more powerful and effective than they were before. And then I normally, in a training workshop, I end it and then I just stop and go, “see what I just did there.” And then the room goes, “oh, yeah.” So, I’ve used the story to get the message about the importance of practicing and refining your story, so, yeah, that’s…
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WAYNE BROWN: And you also say that AI can be like dojo, it helps you refine the technique.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah, you can use AI to help you refine your stories or not. You could practice them out loud, practice your stories in front of your partner or your kids and if they get the business message, then you’d probably know the story is effective.
WAYNE BROWN: A very nice metaphor and analogy. What’s something that our listeners can take away from the conversation, take away from the book, that they can put into practice tomorrow? Type of thing.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah, I would say the key thing is ask yourself, if you’re trying to deliver a message, say, would a story help me with this? Because that’s where it starts. If you don’t think your story will help, or if you don’t even say, “I got a story that will help you,” you won’t find one. So, I think it’s getting in the habit of going, would a story help me communicate this? And then once you’ve gone, yes, there’re different ways you can find stories that I talk about in the book, but then making sure you’re starting at the right time and place, making sure it’s not going too long, following the framework. And you know what? Then it’s just having the courage to give it a go, to just give it a go. And you would be surprised how effective it is.
WAYNE BROWN: Just thinking about AI, again, you made a comment, “Never let AI take the wheel,” do you see AI as purely a tool or are you more leading on the side, and AI can be a partner, but you have to know how to control it?
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah. And I talk about it in the book. I think AI is your creative partner, use it as one member of your team to get advice. I talk about… like, you know, Wayne, if you wanted to find a story on teamwork as we spoke about before, and you called me up, I would ask you a whole heap of questions to help you find the story, and then I’d work with you. So, use AI in that way to, like… You know, say, act as my storytelling coach and ask me questions around X to help me find a story, so do it that way. It’s one member of your creative team, one member. It’s not the best member, it’s not the right member, it’s one member. And I talk about treating AI as a very eager intern, where they’re very, very eager to help, very eager to help, but you know, maybe not necessarily right.
WAYNE BROWN: Is there a question that you find leaders ask you about AI in private, but they never dare to ask in public?
GABRIELLE DOLAN: A lot of it is, could I just use an AI-generated story, and I just go, “no, because your own stories will be more powerful than an AI-generated one.” And that just means it’s a made-up story, and you don’t want to be doing that. So, to me, my key thing with leaders around authenticity is almost on two levels; you have to believe in the message. So, you’ve got to actually… if you’re sharing a story about, I don’t know, the importance of work-life balance, for example, you actually have to believe in work-life balance or try to do it. So, you’ve got to believe in the message, and then the story has to be true. And I think if you get those two right then it is around… I think one of the most respectful ways to communicate and one of the most respectful ways to influence and inspire, if you don’t believe in the message and/or you’re making up the story, it starts to fall into manipulation and manipulation is different from influence. Nothing wrong with influence, that’s what we do, all the time, manipulation is where the line we don’t want to cross.
WAYNE BROWN: Right. Where is the best place that people can find what you’re doing next and follow or connect and where can they get ahold of your book?
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Yeah. So, the book is available online, just go to Amazon or any of the online bookstores, it’s there. It’s still sitting in the top category, number one in several categories, so, it’s clearly hitting the mark, I hope. And then I’m on LinkedIn, of course, so connect with me on LinkedIn and my website is gabrielledolan.com. And if you want to listen to my podcast, it’s ‘Keeping It Real with Jac and Ral’ as we spoke about earlier.
WAYNE BROWN: As a final question, perhaps, is there any story that you struggle with yourself to be able to tell effectively?
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GABRIELLE DOLAN: Sometimes I’ve started to tell stories I haven’t healed yet, it starts, you sort of think, oh, this is okay, on paper, and then you start to tell it, and it’s like, oh my God, it’s too emotional and I’m starting to get emotional. And so, I think they’re always the hardest stories to share and it’s probably because I’ve broken my own rule of heal before you reveal.
WAYNE BROWN: I love that expression. Ral, thank you so much for being on the ET project, I really enjoyed the conversation. I highly encourage everyone to go out and get ahold of the book, well worth the read, definitely lessons in it for every leader.
GABRIELLE DOLAN: Thanks, Wayne.
OUTRO: Thank you for joining us on the ET project, a show for executive talent development, until next time, check out our site for free videos, eBooks, webinars, and blogs at ‘coaching4companies.com.’
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