The trend toward Storytelling is an unmistakable force that is sweeping across organizational gatherings, meetings and presentations globally. With leaders becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the low engagement at their events, they are ditching the scripts and podiums in favour of more compelling and captivating content and style. 


This week on Inspiring Leaders, we chat with one of the most successful Storytellers in North America. Ed Bilat, aka “The Closer” is the President of StorytellingSales.com, a firm dedicated to helping organizational leaders and sales professionals sharpen the craft of storytelling. 


With over 24 years in Sales and Business Development, Ed is highly experienced in complex solution sales and has his own real stories to tell. A natural teacher and storyteller, Ed is passionate about empowering business leaders, entrepreneurs and sales teams to define and leverage their unique brand stories.


Hear how Ed’s career went from Telemarketing Agent to Vice President, working in industries like Telecom, Wireless, Software, Optics and High-tech. Learn how he closed multi-million dollar deals using storytelling as the backbone of his positioning. Take notes as Ed describes his simple, but effective STAR Model for Storytelling: 


S = Situation
T = Trouble
A = Action
R = Results


As a martial arts practitioner of 30 plus years, Ed is the creator of Aikido Selling and Negotiation method which gained him international recognition for its simplicity and effectiveness. Ed, his wife and 2 kids reside in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.


Links:
Ed Bilat on LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/edbilat
Ed’s Email ed.bilat@storytellingsales.com
Storytelling Sales www.storytellingsales.com
Storytelling for Professionals storytellingsales.com/storytelling-for-professionals/

This week we talk Innovation & People with Microsoft Canada's National Technology Officer, John Weigelt.


“Embrace the audacity of inexperience”


John Weigelt leads Microsoft Canada’s strategic policy and technology efforts.  Mr. Weigelt helps individual and organizations across Canada innovate with technology while avoiding the unintended consequences that might arise.  He leads Canadian outreach for a variety of technology policies including: Economic Development, Privacy, Security, Government 3.0, Accessibility, Environmental Sustainability and Interoperability. 


“You can live in a place that you love and you can project your know-how around the world”




LINKS
John Weigelt on LinkedIn 
John Weigelt on Twitter 
John Weigelt on Email 
Microsoft Canada 
Microsoft 
Beyond VR 




NEXT WEEK’S SHOW
Storytelling For Leaders with Trainer Ed Bilat

“Transformation is a natural, unrelenting force. It’s time we embraced radical change.”


Mark Twain said “The two most important dates in a person’s life are the day you are born and the day you find out why”. Today we explore the time between these two events and discover why it is important to “Remain Grounded”.


Stephen is an accomplished author and sought after consultant focusing on leadership and organizational performance.  He is engaged with organizations throughout the world, achieving breakthrough performance in today’s environment of accelerated change.  Among books Stephen has authored are: Work Miracles, The Trust Imperative, Transformational Leadership, Transformation Fieldbook, Leading Peak Performance, How to Coach Individuals, Teams and Organizations to Master Transformational Change, The Trust Memory Jogger, and soon to be released, Lead Self before Leading Others. He is passionate about delivering successful transformational initiatives and coaching leaders, as he has done with many companies, diverse organizations and governments across the globe….in more than 50 countries.  

“Complexity that is now becoming chaos is causing many leaders to misstep”

After completing his corporate career as a senior leader with Procter & Gamble, he served as the Executive Director of The Performance Center, a multi-university organization conducting action-research.  He is currently CEO and a founding partner of Transformation Systems International, LLC.  Stephen has been formally recognized time and again for his dynamic speaking, training, writing and leadership coaching skills.  He is an American Society for Quality (ASQ) Past Chair and Fellow, and holder of the R.A. Maass Award for his body of work Customer-Supplier Relationships.  Stephen lives in Bend, Oregon with his wife, Marla.


Join us for this 20 minute journey down one of leadership’s most important paths.


LINKS
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/stephen-hacker-42b87610
Personal Website www.stephenhacker.com
Transformational Systems Website www.tsi4results.com

On e056 we explore “Leading with Ai” with Mindbridge Ai CEO Eli Fathi. Why? Because PwC estimates that by 2030, Artificial Intelligence will contribute $15.7 Trillion to the World’s economy. That’s why.


“A.I. will have the same impact on this planet that electricity had.”


Eli Fathi is a serial entrepreneur who has launched several successful and innovative technology companies in North America that served a global customer base. Eli is passionate about personal growth as well, helping people see that challenging themselves and others to be held to a higher standard will serve everyone better, scaling up businesses around world class products that solve real world problems. 


“The rising tide raises old boats”


By defining ambitious goals and empowering teams to take on the challenges and accomplish them, Eli Fathi has founded or co-founded numerous companies. In fact, he has been the CEO of SIX technology companies, including Ottawa-based Mindbridge Ai. He has co-authored a book on software project management & had 12 publications.  Being a true leader, Eli has always made time to help other emerging leaders and entrepreneurs, including sharing his experiences in business on his blog. 


“It’s very important that you give back to the community”


MindBridge Ai provides advanced anomaly detection solutions based on easy to use human-centric Ai, machine learning and big data to provide the fastest, most flexible and affordable way for organizations of all sizes to effectively find new insights. This company is at the absolute forefront of the Artificial Intelligence curve, pushing boundaries that are changing the way businesses operate in Canada and around the globe.  


“Our intention is to put Ottawa on the map - plant the flag here that we are open to business in Ai, we have great companies and we can become a centre of excellence in this area.”


In June of last year, Eli’s company MindBridge secured $4.3M in seed funding and global VC’s have been buzzing around Mindbridge ever since. Join us by listening in on this excellent conversation with the Inspiring Eli Fathi. Press Play Now.




LINKS


Eli Fathi on LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/eli-fathi
Eli Fathi on Twitter https://twitter.com/oiqeli
Eli Fathi’s Blog  www.mytakeonbusiness.com
Mindbridge AI Website https://www.mindbridge.ai

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision” - Helen Keller

A Visionless boss, someone with no view of the future, can’t communicate about the future to their team. As a result, employeesoften have no clear path forward. It’s like being in a canoe, everyone has their paddles, but you have no idea where you are supposed to paddle toward because the captain doesn’t know. So when you are in that canoe as employees, you become reactive. You just do what is necessary to not capsize and drown, second-guessing where you are going even as the canoe picks out a route of its own. 
 
“Your future is not dependent on your boss’s lack of a vision of the future”
 
The second thing that makes the Visionless Bossan important topic to discuss is that it can be difficult to spot such a boss. Many organizations overlook this deficiency. It’s a little like carbon monoxide: It is colorless and odorless and can go on undetected for a long time until it is too late. The same goes for this style of leadership. This Manager’s Manager may not see it, and often peers don’t see it. One way to spot it, though, is that direct reports of this boss are confused. They are running around doing tasks just because they are tasks, staying busy. Their boss is running around being busy. But what for? 
 
So what can people who work for a Visionles Boss do to survive? Here are six tips to help you through the chaos that is created on a team that has no direction:
 
Tip #1: Don’t fight, argue or complain
Tip #2: Keep Objective Notes
Tip #3: Have a well-prepared, collaborative conversation with your boss
Tip #4: Take on an informal leadership role on your team
Tip #5: Share any and all credit with your team
Tip #6: Facilitate a Team strategic planning session
 
Want all the wonderful details for each suggestion? Listen tot he full podcast today!
 
“You are not a victim. None of us are. We can set and lead meaningful milestones for ourselves. Where do you want to be in five years?”
 
LINKS
Terry Lipovski’s Email terry@ubiquity.coach
Sophia Schweitzer’s Email: sophiaschweitzer@mac.com
Space Beyond Words Website: https://spacebeyondwords.com
 
SHOW SPONSOR
OTUS Group Website: www.otusgroup.com