As a bagpiper, I play at gatherings as varied as weddings and resorts at sunset. This winter a friend of mine, a funeral director asked me to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. No friend or family members could be found. My friend and a minister had kindly offered to provide a simple service at a pauper's cemetery in rural Kentucky.

They asked me to play. Yet I was not familiar with the backwoods. Driving out to the service I got lost and harried, looking for signs. I finally arrived an hour late. The minister had already left it.

Only the backhoe and the gravediggers remained. They were quietly eating lunch.  I felt badly and apologized to them for my tardiness. Yet I was resolved to honor this man in his death, thinking of the many forgotten people like him who had no one to acknowledge their life at the end.

I got out my bagpipes, walked to the side of the fresh grave and looked down.  The vault lid was already in place.

I paused, looked up at the sky, then held up my bagpipes and began to play.

After a few minutes of playing I glanced over and noticed that the workers had put down their lunches and were listening. Suddenly I felt the numinosity of this moment, a connection will this man and all those who are alone in their passing, so I played with all my heart.

Two songs later I started Amazing Grace, letting myself scan the countryside. That’s when I saw the diggers were quietly weeping. Soon, so was I. When I finished, I quietly packed up my bagpipes and started walking back to my car, feeling much more at peace with the world.

As I opened my car door I heard one of the workers exclaim, "Sweet Mother of Jesus, I never seen nothin' like that before... and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty-two years."

~ I adapted this from an oft-repeated, apparently anonymous story, shared with me by three subscribers to this blog.

Lesson: Tell a story with a poignant (or other emotion), unexpected twist at the end and it may stick in others’ minds so much that they can’t help sharing it with others.

See the Power of Surprise in Stories of Varying Lengths

1. Some stories with a twist at the end are told in a couple of sentences, sometimes evoking a humorous twist, as when Jon Stewart said, “I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”

2. Others are longer vignettes like the Bagpiper.

3. Some dip us into another world, in books like Blue Zone, short stories such as O. Henry's, especially his Cabbages and Kings and gripping movies such as Body Double, Body Heat, The Sixth Senseand (my favorite) The Usual Suspects.

Regardless of the length we loved to be surprisedand to share that experience.

Craft Your Repeatable Story to Live a Bigger, More Adventuresome Life in 2011

What phrase, vignette or story could you tell, with an authentic and surprising twist at the end to underpin your description of those you admire, the cause you back, or your profession or product or service you sell?

Make Yourself Memorable

Want to make your story or description so compelling it helps you get what you want in your work or life? By phone, let me help you craft that captivating message. See what others have accomplished in just one hour of coaching. Or consider bringing me to speak at your meeting.

If you found this post helpful you may also be interested in these:

• Become More Frequently-Quoted

• Clever, Kind and Connected (What's your slogan?)

• The Most Vivid Labelers’ Influence

• The Gift That Taught Me How to Design

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663156/the-gift-that-taught-me-how-to-design?par...

See rest of links to this post here http://sayitbetter.typepad.com/say_it_better/2010/01/want-them-to-remember-and-repeat-your-story-1.html

Research shows that Americans are most likely to trust and support someone who exhibits strong listening and inclusion skills. These traits matter even more than charisma. Those sought-after people - the major nodes on the invisible organizational chart that reflects the real centers of influence - are different than the leaders of just a decade ago.

"Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind
than in the one where they sprung up."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

In this Age of Engagement, the trait they are most likely to share is the capacity to speak to the sweet spot of mutual interest.

In most conversations they begin, not by talking about themselves but byaddressing the other person’s specific need or opportunity.

Then they move on to describe how there’s a shared interest or way of accomplishing something together that cannot be done alone.

While many experts on leadership such as Warren Bennis and Steve Covey offer valuable ideas on what leadership should look like, two research studies, one by the U.S. Air Force and another from M.I.T. show that people are more likely to seek out and support people who exhibited at least three of seven behavioral traits of what I’ve dubbed the “Synthesizer-Style Leader". Remarkably, these traits mattered more than ethnicity, sex, ethnicity, apparent wealth, physical size, education or even appearance.

“A true leader is not one you look up to because they are the best.
A true leader is one that draws the best out in you.”
~ Anne Warfield

These leaders succeed because they bring out the most productive side of their colleagues. While this new style of most valuable player (MVP) does make her presence felt in her organization, she is much less likely than old-style leaders to take center stage, voice an opinion early in a situation or take charge of projects. Instead she sets a single goal and a goal for each team and each person, leaving it to them to propose the smartest path forward Thus these leaders do not need total quality management programs because they set a goal for and reward self-organized teams.

“All value resides in individuals.
Value is distributed in individual space.
Relationship economics is the framework for wealth creation.
Deep support is the new metaproduct.”
~ Shoshanna Zuboff

The Synthesizer-Style Leaders' behavioral traits are described here as rules to work by. Often, I find them difficult to follow yet not as arduous as ignoring them:

1. "Go slow to go fast"
At the beginning of every task or interaction, do everything lower, slower less - in moving and speaking - so that you get "in sync" and can then establish a common direction and involvement so that when you pick up speed later on, everybody is eager to be on board.

2. Create the Common Vision
Vividly characterize the direct benefit to the listener up front, for providing support, even if it is a part of his job anyway. Then characterize how the expected support directly relates to one of the top goals of your organization, the upside and down side of doing the work.

3. Play Straight
Announce the rules upfront - penalities and rewards for participation in a team activity or project or job - and don't change them mid-stream without a compelling reason.

4. Play it Back
Seek and reward candid feedback on an ongoing basis, and respond specifically and soon to what you’ve been told, including the rational about the action you will or will not take, based upon that feedback.

5. Synthesize the Best
Listen, ask, ask more, then synthesize others' ideas as a way of proposing new action.

6. Give Third Party Endorsements
Offer specific, genuine praise for others' contributions from anywhere in the company; praise them to those who are important to them and in ways that reflect their highest self-image and values.

7. Walk Your Talk
Demonstrate a congruency in all that you do; make and keep agreements; reflect a clear set of core personal values that people can trust you'll keep, regardless of whether they share those values.

“In everybody’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.
It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.
We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner fire.”
~ Albert Schweitzer

See more ideas like this at http://sayitbetter.typepad.com

Like other public figures before him, Roger Clemens could not cover up his lying - if you knew how to recognize the clues.

Based on the trailblazing research on facial expressions conducted years ago by Paul Ekman, Dacher Keltner described the signs he saw when he watched Clemens tell Congress in February of 2008, that he did not use performance-enhancing drugs.

Keltner saw these clues when Clemens testified:

• Jiggling the legs.

• Touching the face.

• Speech hesitations.

• Stammering or repeating words.

• Nervously biting or licking the lip.

• Sudden rises in the pitch of their voice.

• Subtle facial expressions of negative emotion.

See, by comparison, what a universal and thus genuine display of contrition looks likewhen Andy Pettitte apologizes for using human growth hormone to recover from an elbow injury:

• Dropping his head down.

• Averting gaze, thus avoiding making eye contact with others.

• Muscle movements around the mouth display embarrassment and shame: “The mentalis muscle is moving his chin up and tightening his lip corners, and as a result, a crest is forming around the corners of his lips.”

To detect lying earlier find one tip at Six Off-Beat Ways to Get Along Better and to recognize a genuine smile read Told You Look Tired - But You Aren't?

See links here http://sayitbetter.typepad.com/say_it_better/change_minds/