Skills
About
Michael Margolis is the CEO and founder of Storied; a leading authority on narratives for disruption. Storied is the first and only strategic messaging firm that focuses on the internal story for hyper-growth and transformation. Storied is the first and only strategic messaging firm that focuses on the internal story for hyper-growth and transformation: fom selling a vision to change management to scaling your culture. Michael has built a reputation for solving complex riddles at the biggest scale imaginable. He’s advised hundreds of organizations including Facebook, Google, Hulu, Shopify, Uber, Dolby, Visa, Roche, and NASA on some of their most strategic and ambitious growth initiatives. Michael spends most of his time working with Silicon Valley and Fortune 500s: especially the functional disciplines of product, design, marketing, engineering, and talent. Basically, any team that’s responsible for building the future. At every growth-inflection point, a company needs to change its narrative. Whether you’re solving for category disruption, platform creation or recruiting velocity - the story is the strategy. As a leader, you will be judged on the power of your communications: your ability to inspire, influence and motivate others through a shared, single source of truth. Michael is deeply devoted to global systems change and transformation; working with the biggest platforms, tools, and interfaces that are reimagining every quadrant of life. The son of a mad scientist and a teacher/artist, Michael is obsessed with how to translate new ideas into cultural acceptance. As a social entrepreneur in his early twenties, Michael was funded by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations for his pioneering work on tech workforce development and the Digital Divide. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, he is a student of esoteric Tibetan buddhism, the conscious life of stories, and how words create worlds. For almost 20 years, Michael has pioneered the field of storytelling and narrative as a management discipline. He balances scientific first-principles with deep craft and intuitive decision-making. His storytelling methods and tools have been taught to tens of thousands around the world, across 15 countries and 6 continents. As a bestselling author and two-time TEDx speaker, he delivers dozens of storytelling keynotes and trainings every year. Michael’s work and ideas have been featured in Fast Company, TIME, Inc, Brandweek, and NPR. His latest book, Story 10x: Turn the Impossible Into the Inevitable, is 5-star rated, and available in bookstores, Kindle, and Audible. Michael is left-handed, color-blind, and eats more chocolate than the average human. A recovering global nomad, Michael lives in Los Angeles, CA.
Michael Margolis
Published content
expert panel
No matter what kind of day or week you're having, there are some simple ways to keep your energy and performance high at work. Everyone has dips in their energy and productivity. However, when you're trying to lead a business, it's tough to lose valuable work time to a slump in motivation. The key to maintaining high energy levels and positivity at work isn't resolving to "power through" the slump and burn yourself out; rather, it's about integrating small, simple habits that may help reduce the likelihood of that slump in the first place. To help you stay in optimal performance mode, a panel of Fast Company Executive Board members would like to share how they manage to keep themselves at their peak, regardless of what's happening throughout the week.
expert panel
Embolden your introverted employees to make their voices heard. When you are leading a diverse group of employees who vary in personality, learning styles, and how they participate in the business settings, it's important to tune in to their needs and make sure your entire team is feeling valued in the workplace and given ample opportunities to be heard. Developing multiple lines of communication to enable feedback from every employee on your team is ideal. Doing this will help guide your decision-making process and build on those team suggestions to move the company one step forward in the marketplace. Below, 12 Fast Company Executive Board members share ideas to encourage introverted team members to speak up during group collaborations, or their preferred method of communication. This is key if you want to avoid always hearing from the same extroverted contributors.
expert panel
Here's how to build business stamina and even increase alliances in uncertain times. When times are hard and business is slow, it's easy to become overwhelmed and lose clarity about your purpose and position. On the contrary, that's the time when you need to dig deeper and get creative to remind yourself, your team, and the external stakeholders who invest their time and money in your brand why you got into this industry in the first place. Be transparent, share your story, and come up with an alternative action plan that will get others excited again, paving the way for your company to secure a brighter and sustainable future, come what may. Below, 9 experts from Fast Company Executive Board provide leaders with strategies they can implement today to satisfy their stakeholders with performance.
expert panel
13 tips to improve your social engagement skills and build better alliances. How do you define the art of networking? Is it a stepping stone to close your next business deal, or are you intentional about nurturing new relations that will build a pathway and benefit all? A panel of experts from Fast Company Executive Board agree that being an active listener—focused less on brand promotion and more focused on following through on promises made—is key to leaving a great impression on potential clients and colleagues in the long term. Below, the 13 council members share how by changing bad habits formed in social settings, they've also created more meaningful connections.
expert panel
Feb 22, 2022
Setting targets can help set your team up for long-term success. In the business world, it's important to set and achieve quarterly goals if you want your company to experience success with its clients, in the marketplace, and remain in business. It's also necessary for leaders to make those milestones realistic enough for the team to attain them and avoid burnout or attrition from the heavy workload. Below, 15 Fast Company Executive Board members share their advice on how to tackle quarterly goals in 2022 without feeling overwhelmed, under pressure, and fatigued.
expert panel
Your business isn’t wholly powerless to stop the impact of “The Big Quit.” “The Great Resignation,” also known as “The Big Quit,” is making headlines as millions of Americans quit their current jobs to find “something better.” While it’s true that workers are rethinking their priorities and desires in the workplace, it doesn’t necessarily mean your company is doomed to lose its top talent: There’s still hope for leaders who value their employees and are willing to do what it takes to retain their workforce. If you want to keep your team intact through this period of mass workforce turnover, it’s important to be proactive and take steps toward employee retention. Below, 16 members of Fast Company Executive Board each share one thing a business owner can do to make staying on the most attractive option for their workers.
Company details
Storied
Company bio
Storied specializes in disruption. Storied is the first and only strategic messaging firm that focuses on the internal story for hyper-growth and transformation: from selling a vision to change management to scaling your culture. Clients include Facebook, Google, Hulu, Shopify, Uber, Dolby, Visa, Roche, and NASA. At every growth-inflection point, a company needs to change its narrative. Whether you’re solving for category disruption, platform creation or recruiting velocity - the story is the strategy. We offer a range of services from strategic narratives to voice of the people research to training in our storytelling methods and tools. If you're not telling your story, someone else is telling it for you. Learn more by visiting www.getstoried.com