25 min

Council Fire: Finding common ground for change, with stories Q.west for good: Change leadership stories with Denise Withers

    • Management

The only way we’re going to make progress on complex environmental and social issues is through collaboration - bringing together groups with diverse perspectives, needs and skills. And the only way to do that is to find common ground as a place to start - something that’s getting tough to do in an increasingly polarized world. 
That’s why I’m so excited to have George Chmael II and Rachel Seba from Council Fire join me for this episode. As long-time leaders in sustainability consulting, they’ve recently integrated a more intentional approach to storytelling in their work, with impressive results. In particular, their recent film, Fishing for Data for the Net Gains Alliance offers a powerful case study of how to use stories to bring diverse stakeholders together to tackle a common problem.

In this conversation, we look at how they've used stories on multi-year projects to not only find ways to engage diverse communities in co-creating a better future together – but also address historical injustices along the way. In particular, they walk us through two powerful case studies - Fishing for Data, and the development of Masonville Cove - the first urban wildlife refuge partnership in the USA.

They also talk about their decision to develop their internal storytelling capacity to elevate the power of stories in their client work, as well as how they managed to build such a powerful creative team as a small business.

As George reminds us:
"We've got to get the word out. We have to tell the stories. We have to connect to people such that we can drive action in the masses. The activity of an individual company or an individual person can't get it done by itself. We have to do it at scale and storytelling is a key tool to help us do that."

 
***
If you like this episode, please subscribe, like and share it with your networks.

And if you want more great content like this to help you share knowledge, get support and grow your audience, join me on The Q.west for Good.

The only way we’re going to make progress on complex environmental and social issues is through collaboration - bringing together groups with diverse perspectives, needs and skills. And the only way to do that is to find common ground as a place to start - something that’s getting tough to do in an increasingly polarized world. 
That’s why I’m so excited to have George Chmael II and Rachel Seba from Council Fire join me for this episode. As long-time leaders in sustainability consulting, they’ve recently integrated a more intentional approach to storytelling in their work, with impressive results. In particular, their recent film, Fishing for Data for the Net Gains Alliance offers a powerful case study of how to use stories to bring diverse stakeholders together to tackle a common problem.

In this conversation, we look at how they've used stories on multi-year projects to not only find ways to engage diverse communities in co-creating a better future together – but also address historical injustices along the way. In particular, they walk us through two powerful case studies - Fishing for Data, and the development of Masonville Cove - the first urban wildlife refuge partnership in the USA.

They also talk about their decision to develop their internal storytelling capacity to elevate the power of stories in their client work, as well as how they managed to build such a powerful creative team as a small business.

As George reminds us:
"We've got to get the word out. We have to tell the stories. We have to connect to people such that we can drive action in the masses. The activity of an individual company or an individual person can't get it done by itself. We have to do it at scale and storytelling is a key tool to help us do that."

 
***
If you like this episode, please subscribe, like and share it with your networks.

And if you want more great content like this to help you share knowledge, get support and grow your audience, join me on The Q.west for Good.

25 min