The StoryBank

Indranil Chakraborty (IC)
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Management
  • Updated Biweekly

Stories have impact. When we use them in our business conversations, they make our messages clear and memorable. We are all great storytellers, but we can't be a one-story wonder. This podcast is designed to help you build your story collection.

  1. 6d ago

    Episode 168 – Everyone’s Doing It – The Sign That Made It Worse

    Send us Fan Mail Many years ago, an electric utility ran a simple experiment. It started telling households how their electricity use compared to their neighbours’ average. It worked. Heavy users cut back. But something unexpected happened as well. Households already using less energy than their neighbours saw the same comparison and started using more. If everyone around you is using more, then why hold back? The solution to the “boomerang” problem turned out to be almost embarrassingly small. The company added a smiley face to the bill of anyone using less than average, and that one addition wiped out the backfire completely. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein tell this story in their must-read book, Nudge. Telling people what’s normal is a powerful lever. It just moves behaviour in whichever direction you point it. This week’s story looks at two real attempts to pull that exact lever, one in a hotel bathroom, the other in a national park hundreds of miles away. One worked beautifully. The other nearly tripled the very problem it was trying to fix. These examples are from Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence. Listen on. For more #storiesatwork do have a look the playlists of stories on our website - https://bit.ly/SW_Stories Your friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11 Our website has a video version of this story.  https://storyworks.in/storybanks/ Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

    Episode 168 – Everyone’s Doing It – The Sign That Made It Worse

  2. Aug 3

    Episode 167 – The Roundabout – When Control is an Illusion

    Send us Fan Mail Like all of you, I have driven through a roundabout a thousand times. One rule makes it work: the driver entering gives way to traffic already moving inside. No stop sign, no one directing you. Just smoother, safer flow. Smoother, in fact, than four traffic lights at a crossroad. I never thought a roundabout could hold the answer to how we tackle Shadow AI. Today's story says otherwise. For more #storiesatwork do have a look the playlists of stories on our website - https://bit.ly/SW_Stories Your friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11 Our website has a video version of this story.  https://storyworks.in/storybanks/ Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

    Episode 167 – The Roundabout – When Control is an Illusion

  3. Jul 27

    Episode 166 – Many Believers. Zero Passengers – Belief is Cheap. Trust Costs.

    Send us Fan Mail "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."   Last Sunday, I chanced upon an interview with John Kim, author of the recent book ‘The Tao of Fundraising’, that brought this old adage alive.   Kim, an investment professional credited with raising more than $70 billion over his career, said something that stuck with me: most fundraisers are good at capturing attention and building interest. Many can even use logic to walk a prospect all the way to "yes, this makes sense" and still hear no.   The reason, he says, is the gap between belief and trust. That’s exactly what the IBM adage captured. Buyers often believed a competitor's product was better or cheaper, but they trusted that choosing IBM would never make them look reckless.   The interview sent me down an internet rabbit hole on the difference between belief and trust. And deep in that rabbit hole, I found a story, from a summer morning in 1859, that brings this gap alive like nothing else I've read. For more #storiesatwork do have a look the playlists of stories on our website - https://bit.ly/SW_Stories Your friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11 Our website has a video version of this story.  https://storyworks.in/storybanks/ Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

    Episode 166 – Many Believers. Zero Passengers – Belief is Cheap. Trust Costs.

  4. Jul 20

    Episode 165 - Act Now, Regret Later – The Instinct Every “AI or Die” Pitch Is Counting On.

    Send us Fan Mail A 1st of July CNBC article titled “Employers who laid off workers citing AI are already starting to regret it” It talks about how automaker Ford is rehiring hundreds of experienced human engineers to work on quality issues automated systems couldn’t address. The same article talk about similar reverses in companies like Commonwealth Bank of Australia and IBM.This is what happens when "now or never" replaces "let's actually think this through." Over the last year or so, I've watched almost every organisation I talk to say “AI or Die”. And it always sounds like the salesmen who say "this deal's only good for the next hour; act now or lose it." There is no doubt AI is changing the world but I also feel the urgency instinct is on a few gears too high. I am not alone. Forrester's 2026 Future of Work report found that 55% of employers who laid off staff citing AI now admit it was the wrong call. Gartner predicts half of all AI-driven layoffs will be reversed by 2027.Today’s story is a cautionary tale about our urgency instinct from Hans Rosling’s fabulous book - 'Factfulness'. For more #storiesatwork do have a look the playlists of stories on our website - https://bit.ly/SW_Stories Your friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11 Our website has a video version of this story.  https://storyworks.in/storybanks/ Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

    Episode 165 - Act Now, Regret Later – The Instinct Every “AI or Die” Pitch Is Counting On.

  5. Jul 13

    Episode 164 – The Storyboard Secret – What Disney Taught AirBnB

    Send us Fan Mail Back in the late 1990s, as a brand manager at Hindustan Unilever, I was in a briefing for a Jai soap ad shoot. The creative person from the agency was describing a beach volleyball scene — “and there’s a man in a hat, umpiring the game.” I sat there quietly thinking, who wears a hat to umpire beach volleyball?  It was only when he pulled out the storyboard that I saw what he actually meant — a baseball cap. I remember laughing about it later, but it stayed with me for a different reason: it showed me exactly why a storyboard matters.  The writer, the client and the cinematographer need to be picturing the exact same scene — not two versions of “a hat.” Today’s story is about storyboards, but a very different use case. Listen in. For more #storiesatwork do have a look the playlists of stories on our website - https://bit.ly/SW_Stories Your friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11 Our website has a video version of this story.  https://storyworks.in/storybanks/ Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

    Episode 164 – The Storyboard Secret – What Disney Taught AirBnB

  6. Jul 6

    Episode 163 – The Long Walk Back – Never Let Anyone Carry Failure Alone

    Send us Fan Mail For more than thirty years, I’ve held a belief that most football fans probably disagree with. I think penalty shootouts are fundamentally unfair. Football is the ultimate team sport. Every goal is built by eleven players. Yet when a World Cup final can’t be decided after 120 minutes, we suddenly ask one person to carry the burden of winning or losing for an entire nation. That belief began with one image from 1994. If you’re old enough to remember it, you probably know exactly which image I mean. Decades later, one manager who’d lived through his own version of that exact moment did something about it. Not to change the rules, but to change what happens to the player standing at that spot. Listen on. For more #storiesatwork do have a look the playlists of stories on our website - https://bit.ly/SW_Stories Your friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11 Our website has a video version of this story.  https://storyworks.in/storybanks/ Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

    Episode 163 – The Long Walk Back – Never Let Anyone Carry Failure Alone

  7. Jun 29

    Episode 162 – Curiosity Not Contempt – Zip Your Lips

    Send us Fan Mail All of us have met that person. The new leader. The consultant. The expert. The person who has barely arrived but already knows what’s wrong with everyone else’s work. Sometimes we’ve been that person ourselves. The strange thing is that the problem isn’t overconfidence. Fresh eyes are valuable. Organisations hire people precisely because they bring new ideas. The problem begins when curiosity quietly gives way to superiority. Years ago, on my very first day in my last corporate role, my CEO gave me a piece of advice that has stayed with me ever since. At the time, it felt like a lesson about leadership. Looking back, I realise it was actually a lesson about something far deeper. This week’s Stories at Work connects that advice with one of the most fascinating psychological studies I’ve ever come across—research that began with marriages but has profound implications for leaders, teams and workplace culture. For more #storiesatwork do have a look the playlists of stories on our website - https://bit.ly/SW_Stories Your friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11 Our website has a video version of this story.  https://storyworks.in/storybanks/ Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

    Episode 162 – Curiosity Not Contempt – Zip Your Lips

  8. Jun 22

    Episode 161 – Intuition or Analysis – Six Lives At Stake

    Send us Fan Mail In the world of business, full of buzzwords like brainstorming, analysis, rationality, is there still a role for instinct and intuition? Today’s story will convince you there is. It’s about a split-second decision, made with zero data and zero time to think it through. No spreadsheet. No team discussion. No “let’s weigh the options.” Just a feeling. A feeling so strong that it overrode everything the textbooks say a good leader should do in a crisis. And that feeling saved six lives. The strange part? The person who made that call couldn’t explain why he made it. Not at the time. Not for years afterward, until someone finally helped him figure it out. What he discovered changes how I think about every “gut call” I’ve ever made and probably every one you’ve made too. Listen on. For more #storiesatwork do have a look the playlists of stories on our website - https://bit.ly/SW_Stories Your friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11 Our website has a video version of this story.  https://storyworks.in/storybanks/ Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

    Episode 161 – Intuition or Analysis – Six Lives At Stake
See All (167)

Ratings & Reviews

About

Stories have impact. When we use them in our business conversations, they make our messages clear and memorable. We are all great storytellers, but we can't be a one-story wonder. This podcast is designed to help you build your story collection.

Information

  • Creator
    Indranil Chakraborty (IC)
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    167
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The StoryBank
  • Show Website
    The StoryBank