Storytelling ... and Client Service
It is amazing how one well-written sentence can communicate volumes and engage the reader to think beyond the sentence. My friend Dan Hull writes my favorite blog, What About Clients?. He had a post the other day with the simple title, Storytelling. The entirety of the post was this quote from Anton Chekhov:
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
One sentence. Huge imagery. Huge.
I immediately posted a comment to the effect that Dan must be one hell of a trial lawyer. But I continued to marvel at the sentence, and I started wondering about my dealings with clients and colleagues. Do I tell them the moon is shining or do I show them the glint of light on broken glass? Do my clients see in their mind's eye the reflection of moonlight on a shimmering lake or do they hear my voice declaring that they must believe the moon is shining. Am I creating the image, the feeling, that I want or am I simply passing along information. Imagine one client telling a friend, "my lawyer shows me the glint of light on broken class." That lawyer is who I want to be.