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Paul Smith, Principal

Paul Smith

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Lead With a StorySell With a Story10 Stories Great Leaders Tell

Paul Smith is one of the world’s leading experts on organizational storytelling. He’s one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers.  He’s the author of five books including the bestselling Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire. He’s also written Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale and The 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell. As part of his research on the effectiveness of storytelling, Paul has personally interviewed over 300 CEOs and executives in 25 countries and documented over 3,000 individual business stories. That’s allowed him to reverse engineer what works in storytelling and what doesn’t. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, Time, Forbes, and Success Magazine, among others.

Paul has trained executives at international giants like Google, Hewlett Packard, Ford Motor Company, Bayer Medical, Novartis, Abbott, Progressive Insurance, Luxottica, Walmart, Kaiser Permanente, among dozens of others.

A 20-year veteran of P&G, Paul was most recently director of consumer and communications research for the company’s $6 billion global paper business where he led a research team across four continents. He has also held leadership positions in corporate finance, manufacturing plants, and sales working closely with major retailers around the world like Walmart, Costco, Asda, and Sam’s Club.

Paul holds bachelor’s degrees in both astrophysics and economics, and a master’s in business from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives with his wife in Mason, Ohio.

Our Team of Instructors

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Check Out Our Courses

Our courses teach immediately applicable skills that have real impact on your business. From leadership to strategy and negotiation to conflict resolution, we have a broad set of course offerings that will drive immediate performance improvements.
OUR COURSES

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Our Course Offerings

Leadership Skills

Creating Your Leadership Maxims
Leading Inside the Box
Leading With Influence
Leading Through Change
Structured Problem Solving
Deliberate Decision Making
High Performing Teams
Simplified Strategic Planning
Strategic Business Planning
Coaching for Impact: Foundations
Coaching for Impact: Applications
Building Leadership Resilience
Engagement Management
Project Management Reality
Risk Management

Communication Skills

Communications: Foundations
Communications: Applications
Principles of Chart Design
Strategic Client Engagement
Storytelling for Leaders
Storytelling for Salespeople
Compelling Executive Presence
Advanced Meeting Leadership

Individual Skills

Conflict Resolution
Everything is Negotiable
Building a Growth Mindset
thoughtLEADERSHIP: Innovation
Building Personal Resilience
Time Management Mastery

Coaching & Consulting

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