The StoryBank

Hosted by Indranil Chakraborty (IC)

Business Management EducationInterviews guests

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Episodes

159

Latest episode

Jun 2026

Language

EN-US

About the show

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.

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60 recent

June 15, 2026Episode 1609 min

Episode 160 - Facts Inform. Stories Move - A Lesson from 9/11

Send us Fan MailYou’ve presented the data. Made the case. Shown the numbers. And still nothing moved. Sound familiar?The reason that happens is that logic and data alone is often not enough. Canadian neurologist Donald Calne spent his career studying how humans make decisions. In his book, Within Reason, he concluded: “The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions.”Logic gets you nodding heads. Not changed behaviour.Whether you’re leading a team, closing a sale, or trying to shift a culture, agreement isn’t enough. We need action. And the only reliable path to action runs through emotion, not data.The most powerful tool for that? A well-told story.In today’s episode, I’ll demonstrate it with a story from one of the darkest days in modern history.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_11Our website has a video version of this story. https://storyworks.in/storybanks/Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

June 8, 2026Episode 1596 min

Episode 159 – Bruno Fernandes, The Assist Maker – The Best Leaders Make Others Score

Send us Fan MailIn a world that worships the goal-scorer, this week’s story is about the man who made the goals possible.As a Manchester United fan of 32 years, Bruno Fernandes breaking the all-time Premier League assists record didn’t just make me smile — it reinforced a belief I’ve held for a long time.That the most valuable person in any team is not always the most visible one.Watch this week’s story. This one’s for every team player who deserves to get the credit they often don’t.For more #storiesatwork do have a look the playlists of stories on our website - https://bit.ly/SW_StoriesYour friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11Our website has a video version of this story. https://storyworks.in/storybanks/Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

June 1, 2026Episode 1585 min

Episode 158 - He Should Be My Boss - Satya Nadella’s Unexpected Move

Send us Fan MailA story that touched my heart about a CEO I admire and an act I never expected to happen in a dog eat dog world.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_11Our website has a video version of this story. https://storyworks.in/storybanks/Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

May 25, 2026Episode 1578 min

Episode 157 - The Rose That Changed History - Florence Nightingale’s Data Revolution

Send us Fan MailIs having data and sharing data enough to convince people to take action? Of course not. We need to help people see reality clearly enough that the right answer becomes obvious. While Data Storytelling is a very powerful way to do it, today's example from Tim Harford's book, ‘The Data Detective’, demonstrates an equally powerful and sometimes more powerful method.A story involving Florence Nightingale. But not the Florence Nightingale you think you know.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_11Our website has a video version of this story. https://storyworks.in/storybanks/Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

May 18, 2026Episode 1564 min

Episode 156 – Power without Mastery – The AI Blind Spot?

Send us Fan MailLike many of you, I'm navigating two very different emotions about AI — the excitement of a kid in a candy store and the fear of someone standing at the edge of a cliff. And with every new release, both are intensifying.Many of us are racing to harness AI's power. But are we asking a harder question: do we know how to stop it if things go wrong?Then I came across two tales in the prologue of Yuval Noah Harari's new book, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI.Listen on… and tell me if you feel the same tension.For more #storiesatwork do have a look the playlists of stories on our website - https://bit.ly/SW_StoriesYour friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11Our website has a video version of this story. https://storyworks.in/storybanks/Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

May 11, 2026Episode 1557 min

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

Send us Fan MailYesterday, 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_GoFor more #storiesatwork do have a look the playlists of stories on our website - https://bit.ly/SW_StoriesYour friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11Our website has a video version of this story. https://storyworks.in/storybanks/Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

May 4, 2026Episode 1548 min

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

Send us Fan MailEvery 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_StoriesYour friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11Our website has a video version of this story. https://storyworks.in/storybanks/Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

April 27, 2026Episode 1537 min

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

Send us Fan MailIC 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_StoriesYour friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11Our website has a video version of this story. https://storyworks.in/storybanks/Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

April 20, 2026Episode 1527 min

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

Send us Fan MailMost 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_StoriesYour friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11Our website has a video version of this story. https://storyworks.in/storybanks/Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic

April 13, 2026Episode 1517 min

Episode 151 – The Streetlamp Trap – The Harder Question

Send us Fan MailIs 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_StoriesYour friends and family can join our WhatsApp group to get copies of our videos. https://bit.ly/SW_WA_11Our website has a video version of this story. https://storyworks.in/storybanks/Follow me on LinkedIn -->linkedin.com/in/i-am-ic