CEOs who understand the power of stories enliven their presentations with tales that illustrate their points. Apple CEO Tim Cook uses another, related communication tool to help an audience understand the importance of what he’s saying: he uses analogies to put statistics in context.

For example, author and communication coach Carmine Gallo shares how Cook did this in a 2010 presentation. Telling the audience that the Mac business was still important to Apple even though the iPhone makes a lot more money, Cook said that if the Mac division were a separate company, its revenues of $22 billion would  place it #122 on the Fortune 500 list.

“I thought, ‘What a brilliant technique!” Gallo told a reporter for the Associated Press. “He does that all the time…. You can’t teach passion. Every great communicator is abundantly passionate about–not necessarily the product–but what the product means to society. And that is an attitude that pervades Apple’s executive office, and it starts with Tim Cook.”

The founder of Expedia and Zillow, who is also a venture capitalist, said in a recent talk that when he’s evaluating another entrepreneur’s pitch, “I look more for passion around a story and idea than I do around a spreadsheet.” As reported by Brier Dudley, technology columnist for The Seattle Times, Rich Barton went on to say, “I’m a PowerPoint guy, not an Excel guy.

“Spreadsheets never work out the way the entrepreneurs and the venture capitalists think they’re going to work out. We all know that,” Barton explained. “Rarely does the company end up being what the original idea was, anyway (and) it’s very difficult to plan the unplannable.”

A young Microsoft manager when he created Expedia, which later was spun off and became the world’s largest travel business, Rich Barton clearly knows what to look for when evaluating ideas for new tech companies. He’s now a partner in Silicon Valley’s Benchmark Capital, which owned 20 percent of Instagram before it was sold to Facebook for $1 billion.

As an information junkie and also a neatnik, I’m continuously waging a battle with the rogue waves of paper that inundate my office. I’m often rewarded, though, with surprising–and sometimes sobering–discoveries.

While recently cleaning out my files, I ran across a set of my notes from  a 2003 business event in Seattle where WAMU CEO Kerry Killinger was the featured speaker. In an interesting convergence of events, an article in the Seattle Times a few days later reported the financial settlement related to the demise of WAMU was, at last, final. A highly regarded institution for more than 100 years that represented Northwest reserve, stability and integrity and made us proud was no more, and it’s officially in the history books as the largest bank failure in the U.S.

My notes from just nine years ago reminded of the values Killinger was espousing even as he was leading the iconic institution to destruction. As he told us at the business event, the core values of WAMU were 1) honesty and integrity at all levels, 2) respect for employees and customers, 3) teamwork, 4) innovation, and 5) excellence. As both a customer and a stockholder, I wish that had been as true during the housing bubble as it had been for decades before. But instead of excellent performance based on integrity, honesty and respect for others, WAMU set out to write as many mortgages as possible, regardless of the viability of the deal.

It’s a sad reminder that adopting and espousing impressive core values comprises only the first step of good management. Just as importantly, the leaders of an organization need to demonstrate their commitment to their value through their actions.

If your organization finds communication and employee engagement challenging, especially when implementing change, a blitz strategy may be the answer.  According to an article in “Reliable Plant,” this approach is an easy way to comprehensively disseminate messages and to support change efforts.

Here are the steps of blitz communications as outlined by authors Joe Mike and Patricia Landry:

1. Senior leaders craft a succinct message
2. They then divide into groups and spread throughout work areas to discuss the message with supervisors, listen to their feedback, and check for retention
3. Supervisors meet with their employees in small groups and deliver the same message
4. Leaders document how well employees retain the message, with the goal being 40 percent of the employees able to clearly articulate it

Landry reminds leaders that messages can always be improved, so it’s important not to measure the success of their communication based on their own perception. Checking whether employees are able to repeat the message accurately is the only sure measure of the message’s effectiveness.

Making communication clear and concise during a big project is the single most important factor in successfully implementation of change, Landry says. At one organization where she spearheaded the blitz process, most of the feedback was positive–so much so that the company plans to use it again.

There are four distinct types of corporate culture, according to a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm, and the one preferred by employees surprised researchers. Also, the firm’s study confirms that a mismatch between the culture and the CEO is often the cause of a CEO’s “flame-out.”

LeadershipIQ says the four types of culture are

1. Hierarchical–built on tradition, rely on clearly defined roles
2. Dependable–focus on process, slow to change
3. Enterprising–value creativity, competition and meritocracy
4. Social–emphasize collaboration, trust and relationships

Which one do employees prefer? Not the one LeadershipIQ expected, as it turns out. The firm thought employees would favor a social company, but instead, they’re most engaged in an enterprising culture.

Understanding the type of culture you’re joining is important for any employee’s satisfaction, and it’s especially important for a new CEO. Otherwise, the leader is working at cross-purposes with the rest of the company. How good is the match between you and your company’s culture?

No doubt about it: trust matters! The most-trusted companies produce better results, including

• lower employee turnover
• higher revenue
• profitability, and
• shareholder returns

The Wall Street Journal reported these findings of recent research and, even more importantly, went on to explain the behavior that engenders a high level of trust. Essentially, managers whose employees and shareholders trust them  are skilled communicators. (No surprises there; many top management gurus agree that communication is the key skill required to be a great leadership.)

Specifically, here’s what high-trust managers communicate skillfully: 1) They make it clear that shareholders share the company’s interests, 2)  They show concerns for others, demonstrating that they will do what’s right despite the consequences, 3) They deliver on their promises, clearly exhibiting competence in doing so, 4) They “walk their talk,” demonstrating integrity and taking responsibility for any mistakes.

As The Journal’s article concludes, “The ability to align interests, show benevolence, accurately communicate one’s capabilities, and practice what one preaches all require strong communication skills.”

Online media get all the buzz, but according to a recent poll, direct mail–the paper in your mailbox–is consumers’ preferred marketing channel over e-mail. Conducted by Epsilon, a multichannel marketing company, the poll collected responses from 2,226 U.S. consumers last August. Of those, 65% strongly agreed that they get too many emails, and 75% said they receive “a lot of emails I don’t open.”

Epsilon’s report, “The Formula for Success: Preference and Trust,” says consumers would rather receive brand or product information via direct mail rather than email. That preference for marketing communication is true for almost every category, including financial services (36% to 8%), insurance (36% to 9%) and travel (21% to 13%).

Can you believe that paper still rules? Is that true for you? What’s been your experience?

I just discovered an interesting article on Jimmy Buffett, who by any measure is a skillful and wildly successful storyteller. Many songwriters are great storytellers, of course, but few have careers as enduring as Buffett’s.

Written by Karen Dietz, a colleague of mine based in San Diego, the article is based on an interview she conducted “years ago” when working for a national magazine. Describing Buffett’s diverse talents as visionary, businessman and airplane pilot, she elaborates on his top criteria for developing good stories:

1. Spend most of your time listening to others
2. Take time to develop interesting characters
3. Remember that the objective is to paint pictures with your words
4. Have fun!

In summary, Dietz says corporate storytelling can be challenging, but it’s easier if you follow Buffett’s advice. She says “the last piece of advice that Jimmy gave me…(was, ‘No matter what you do, just don’t forget to have fun with it. If you aren’t having fun, it makes for really long, boring days. And no one needs that.’ ”

The entire article is at http://tinyurl.com/77s5usb

Her early years in Illinois seemed to offer no hint that she would one day be a well-known New York fashion designer. For 12 years she wore uniforms to school–a requirement most students dislike intensely but she found freeing–and then declared a math major in college. Her plans for the future were a far cry from living in Tribeca and launching a fashion career. So how did Eileen Fisher discover that she had a vision and a talent for fashion design?

After admiring–and owning–a number of Eileen Fisher garments over the past 25 years or so, I was intrigued by an interview with her in Fortune describing how she got her start. As the article reveals, she actually developed sewing skills and a love of fabric while growing up in a household where her mother sewed much of the clothing for her six daughters. And when Fisher no longer needed to wear a uniform to school, she hated shopping because she couldn’t find what she wanted, and she found it very  time-consuming to decide what to wear each day. It seemed to her that finding, selecting and wearing well-coordinated outfits each day should be simpler.

The influence of a college roommate’s coursework in interior design led Fisher to realize she, too, loved working with fabric. She changed her major to home economics, then took the opportunity to move to New York’s Soho with a roommate, and struck up a friendship with a sculptor. Surrounded by creative minds and influenced by observations on a trip to Japan, she eventually formulated her vision for a fashion collection based on–no surprise here–the concept of simplicity!

Her first collection of four garments were displayed at a show in 1984 where she sold orders to eight stores. At the next show a year later she had doubled her collection to eight garments and had a line of buyers waiting to place orders. She was on her way!

“Keep it simple” is a mantra we all need to remember as we go through daily activities. Simplicity is the key to communications, the basis for many wonderful culinary creations, and the key to achieving work/life balance. What ideas do you have for simplifying life? How can you make your job a bit easier, or help other people simplify their lives? Who knows? You just may launch a new career!

“The Wall Street Journal” published an interesting but totally unsatisfactory explanation Monday of Micky Arison’s strange silence and elusiveness following the Costa Concordia’s tragic shipwreck off the coast of Italy. “Where is Micky Arison?” the newspaper asked, and it’s a question that must have been nagging at thousands, if not millions, of people around the globe as they read about the horrible outcome of the captain’s recklessness.

As the company’s ships lay partly submerged in a gut-wrenching position, divers carefully and heroically began the somber and dangerous task of searching for and recovering victims, and salvage operators pondered the best approach to safely recover the fuel and either right the ship or begin cutting in apart in place.

In the meantime, the ship’s captain and the CEO of Carnival’s Italian unit continued pointing fingers at one another, both shifting responsibility for the disastrous route the ship followed. All the while, Micky Arison, CEO of Carnival Corp., spoke nary a word about the tragedy, not even to offer condolences to passengers who survived the frightening, chaotic event, nor to those who lost loved ones, many of whom are still unaccounted for nearly two weeks later.

Owner of Carnival Cruise and a number of other well-known cruise lines, such as Holland America, Princess Cruises and Cunard, Carnival Corp. should have a well-thought-out, detailed crisis communication management plan at the ready, and it should be readily available to the captain on every ship.

Overall, cruises have proven to be an extremely safe form of transportation, particularly considering the huge number of passengers carried each year without a mishap. But no organization should be without a plan for handling unexpected events. To think  company doesn’t need an up-to-date action plan to quickly and effectively handle crises is at best ill-advised. When thousands of customers’ lives and limbs are at risk, it’s extremely careless, which is also an apt description of Mickey Arison’s behavior.

The WSJ’s story is at tinyurl.com/7mb2vwb