Connection. Motivation. Engagement. Innovation.

All things you want in your organization — and all things that are much more likely to end up scribbled on a crumpled poster behind a filing cabinet than actually implemented in the day-to-day of the business.

Unless… you have a speaker who knows how to get your employees excited about connecting to each other and the business, thrilled that they finally get a chance to innovate, and absolutely bubbling over with engagement.

I’m Marsha Shandur, and I help organizations and businesses get their clients and their employees excited about what they do.

I give engaging, funny and exceptionally informative training to employees, management and executives on the one thing that gets people fired up about their work more than anything else — which happens to be the thing I’m best at:

Storytelling.

As humans, we connect to each other through stories on the most fundamental, primal levels. We can’t help it! Our brains are wired to mirror each other through stories, to empathize through anecdotes, and to feel really, really good when we’re able to interact in such a way that we feel heard. When you know how to make storytelling a part of your business culture, that’s when things can really take off.

Suddenly, people are talking to each other and (much more importantly) actually caring what everybody else has to say. Meetings run more smoothly because everyone’s getting on with each other, gridlocks tend to resolve themselves, and communication between management and staff goes from a boring lecture to a productive conversation.

All this translates into:

• Greater levels of employee engagement, whether the company’s soaring or struggling
• Higher motivation that lasts much longer than the effects of a three day motivational seminar
• Increased employee retention — happy people who feel connected to each other are much more likely to stay at their jobs
• Developing a culture of innovation that can propel your business to new levels of success.

It’s not your typical training event.

All of my work with corporates — from 20 minute speeches to 3 day events — are incredibly informative and practical. You practice everything you learn while I’m right there with you because (1) it’s one of the best ways to learn anything and (2) it beats the pants off of sitting around a conference table watching someone click through slides for a day.

(Full disclosure: I do have slides. But they have clips of Dirty Dancing on them, not badly formatted bullet points.)

So how does this actually play out?

It depends on what your business needs. If you’re having a particular issue — say around communication between management and staff — I can teach your managers how to use stories to connect right across the hierarchy. If you could do with some more innovation, I can help you create that all-too-elusive culture of vulnerability that innovation requires using storytelling as a low-stakes way to open up.

These things always happen though:

• People walk away feeling genuinely excited about working in your business.
• Those awkward tangles of bad feeling and miscommunication get washed away in a flood of oxytocin.
• Everyone learns actionable strategies they’ll actually use to keep things ticking along as a team, even when things are stressful.
• People create the kind of bonds over the course of the workshop that often take years and endless “team building exercises” to form otherwise.
• And your company gets the kind of forward momentum that can only happen when everyone’s excited about pulling in the same direction.

The bottom line: stories can be absolutely transformational for your bottom line.

And I’d love to prove it to you. To learn more about how you can book me to up the bonding in your business, click here or email me at hello@yesyesmarsha.com.

Clients include:

“Presenting to 500 people in the room and many more watching remotely online, Marsha’s training was engaging, entertaining and — most importantly — full of advice that participants were able to put into practice during the workshop itself. She was able to get even shy members of our audience to engage in the exercises — and actually enjoy it! The feedback from the event has been very positive. I would highly recommend Marsha’s workshops.”
— Tanya Hanrahan, Director Transformation, Technology Infrastructure at RBC, Toronto, ON

Want to find out how to create a culture where staff are excited to come to work, will go the extra mile and will stay loyal out of choice? Let’s talk. To book in a call, click below or email me at hello@yesyesmarsha.com.