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. Episode 155 – No One Briefed The Gorilla – Prepare Then Let Go

    2D AGO

    Episode 155 – No One Briefed The Gorilla – Prepare Then Let Go

    Send us Fan Mail Yesterday, Sir David Attenborough turned one hundred years old. No one alive has done more to make ordinary people like me fall in love with the natural world. A man with a microphone and a camera crew and an extraordinary gift for telling stories that made you feel you were right there, in the rainforest, on the ocean floor, at the edge of the volcano. I have been thinking about what made him so different. And I keep coming back to one thing. It wasn’t just preparation. It wasn’t just passion. It was what he did when the moment stopped following the plan. Many leaders I work with are excellent at preparing. They craft their message, rehearse their delivery, anticipate the questions. And then something unexpected happens in the room. A question they didn’t see coming, a conversation that shifts direction, a moment that the agenda didn’t account for. And they freeze. Or worse, they ignore it and keep following the script. Today’s story is about one single afternoon in Sir David Attenborough’s life that became one of the most watched moments in television history. It nearly didn’t make it to air. And it holds, I think, two of the most important lessons a leader can carry into any meeting, presentation or conversation. Here is the link to the longer video sequence: https://bit.ly/DA_Go 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

    7 min
  2. Episode 154 – AI Needs Fresh Eyes – Walk out the door and come back in

    MAY 4

    Episode 154 – AI Needs Fresh Eyes – Walk out the door and come back in

    Send us Fan Mail Every good leader knows how to manage change. New processes, new structures, new tools etc. These are hard, but they're familiar. But AI is asking for something far more challenging. It's not asking us to learn a new tool. It's asking us to rethink how work itself gets done. And that's not a process change or a technology change, it's a CULTURE CHANGE. And culture change is the hardest kind there is. Satya Nadella put it well recently. He said the hardest part of AI isn't the technology. It's change management. It’s getting people to change how they work. He talked about four things organisations need to build: Mindset, Skillset, Toolset, and Dataset. Of the four, Mindset is the one that will determine whether the other three matter at all. The uncomfortable truth about mindset change is that the obstacle is usually not that people don't know what needs to change. The obstacle is attachment. Attachment to the processes that built our success. Attachment to the structures we're proud of. Attachment to the story we tell ourselves about who we are and what our organisation stands for. Until we find a way to step back from those attachments we stay stuck. Knowing what to do, but unable to do it. This week's story is about a leader who found a way to break free from exactly this kind of attachment. At a moment when his company's survival depended on it. The method he used is something every leader facing AI transformation can apply today. 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

    9 min
  3. Episode 153 – The Man Who Said No – Human in the loop

    APR 27

    Episode 153 – The Man Who Said No – Human in the loop

    Send us Fan Mail IC has been reading this book by Ethan Mollick called 'Co-Intelligence', and there's this really interesting paradox he talks about. You'd think that now that AI can look up facts, write code, summarise research, basically do all the "boring" foundational stuff, we wouldn't need to bother learning it ourselves anymore, right? Like, why memorize things when ChatGPT already knows it? But Mollick writes that it's actually the opposite. We need that foundational knowledge now MORE than ever. Because without it, how do you even know if the AI is giving you the right answer? He gives this great example. GPT-4 actually outscored first and second-year medical students on clinical reasoning exams. So the temptation is to just let the AI handle the basics. But only a skilled physician, with extensive knowledge of human anatomy and diseases, can scrutinise an AI-generated diagnosis or treatment plan and say, "Wait, that doesn't add up." A first-year student can't. You need real expertise to catch mistakes and think critically. The more AI becomes part of our work, the more we need genuinely skilled humans in the loop. Not just any human in the loop. We also need a culture that supports that human in the loop. Today’s story drives home this point. 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

    7 min
  4. Episode 152 – The Bad News Office – Don’t trust good news

    APR 20

    Episode 152 – The Bad News Office – Don’t trust good news

    Send us Fan Mail Most leaders I work with assume their teams tell them the truth. After all, they have open-door policies. They say, "Bring me bad news early”. And they mean it. Yet somehow, the bad news comes late. Or softened. Or not at all. Not because people are being dishonest. More often, they're doing something very human. Presenting reality in the best possible light. The system itself makes truth harder to tell. This week's story is about what Winston Churchill built during World War II to solve exactly this problem. And it changes the question every leader should be asking from "Are my people telling me the truth?" to "Have I created an environment where telling the truth feels easier than hiding it?" 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

    7 min
  5. Episode 151 – The Streetlamp Trap – The Harder Question

    APR 13

    Episode 151 – The Streetlamp Trap – The Harder Question

    Send us Fan Mail Is there a lesson we can learn from the demise of Encyclopaedia Britannica on how organisations should deal with AI? Since its first publication in 1768, until the early 1990s, Britannica ruled the encyclopaedia market. A 32-volume set, sold door-to-door by a salesforce of over 100,000 people at $1,500 to $2,200 a set. Each salesperson earned $500 to $600 in commission per sale. Then Microsoft released Encarta in 1993, a CD-ROM encyclopaedia priced at $99, later bundled free with computers. By any editorial measure, Britannica was the better product by far. But their response was a masterclass on the mistake we can make when we  bolt-on new technology onto an old business model. When they finally produced their own CD-ROM, they priced it at $995, ten times Encarta. Why? Because a $99 product could not generate the $500 commission a door-to-door salesperson needed to survive. So Britannica protected the salesforce and made the product uncompetitive. The technology existed. The content was superior. But the organisation was not redesigned around the new technology. The salesforce, a human infrastructure built for a different era, was left intact. And it strangled the new product before it could breathe. By 1994, print sales had halved. By 1995, the company was up for sale. The technology did not fail Britannica. It was the management decision to protect an existing structure rather than redesign around what the new technology demanded. There is surely a lesson here on the successful adoption of AI. 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

    7 min
  6. Episode 150 – Consequence Gets Compliance – The Yo-Yo Test

    APR 6

    Episode 150 – Consequence Gets Compliance – The Yo-Yo Test

    Send us Fan Mail I was talking to Joy Bhattacharjya yesterday about today's story, and it triggered one from his own memory bank. This was around 2008, when Joy was the Team Director of the Kolkata Knight Riders. A recurring problem had emerged: some of the senior cricketers weren't making it to the team bus on time, the one that took players from the hotel to the ground for practice. Someone suggested a monetary fine. But that was never going to work with seniors earning in crores during the IPL. So coach John Buchanan devised a system that had an immediate impact. If a senior player was late, the rest of the team, on reaching the ground, would have to run 5 laps or do 20 push-ups. The defaulter couldn't join in the punishment. He had to stand and watch. Oh, and he also had to be the one to choose, laps or push-ups. You can imagine what happened next. Once you've made your entire team suffer for your tardiness, you don't do it again. No one was late for the bus after that. This story is about creativity, yes, but it's really about something deeper: without consequence, you can't get compliance. Today's story explores this same lesson and continues our theme of Indian Cricket.   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

    6 min
  7. Episode 149 – The Doctor Who Prescribed Parakeets – Purpose Changes Behaviour

    MAR 30

    Episode 149 – The Doctor Who Prescribed Parakeets – Purpose Changes Behaviour

    Send us Fan Mail During my years in the corporate world, a question that had often been on my mind was what makes people want to bring more of themselves to work? Disengagement at work does not always look dramatic. People do not always rebel. They do not argue. They do not resign in protest. More often, they simply retreat into the minimum. They do what is required, avoid what is optional, and leave the rest of themselves outside the workplace. Many leaders respond to this with tighter reviews, sharper targets, better dashboards, and more frequent check-ins. All of which may have a role, but they alone don’t solve the problem. What does? Purpose. But not the kind that fits on a strategy slide. The kind that makes someone feel that showing up today matters — to something larger than a quarterly number, and larger than themselves. I came across a story recently, set in a nursing home of all places, that is the most vivid illustration of this I’ve ever found. A leader walked into a broken system, tried the conventional fix, watched it fail, and then did something so unconventional that management asked him if he’d lost his mind. What followed was one of the more remarkable turnarounds I’ve encountered in years of collecting leadership stories. If you lead a team, at any level, I think you’ll find it worth 6:32 minutes of your time. 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

    6 min
  8. Episode 148 – The Meter in the Basement – What Gets Measured Gets Managed

    MAR 23

    Episode 148 – The Meter in the Basement – What Gets Measured Gets Managed

    Send us Fan Mail “What gets measured gets managed”, has been one of my steadfast beliefs in both my personal and professional life. Good intentions and goals are not enough on their own. They have to be measured regularly to see if we are indeed on track to deliver. Today’s story is a beautiful illustration of what happens when we not only measure, but make the measure visible on a regular basis. One caveat though, we must make sure that we are measuring the right thing. Let me know what you think. 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

    6 min
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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
    154
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The StoryBank
  • Show Website
    The StoryBank