Blarney Castle, Ireland: What brings an Israeli – and millions of tourists – to this 15th C. castle? 

A strange and highly improbable story that is attached to it.

Over 400 years ago, Queen Elizabeth I (the “Virgin Queen”) lost patience with Lord Blarney, owner and occupant of the castle, because he sweet-talked her endlessly, without ever doing what she wanted.  

“He’s talking Blarney!” she said, exasperated. [See below].
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Baloney? Or Blarney?
Baloney: When you tell an unattractive women that she is beautiful.
Blarney: When you tell the same woman that her wisdom and experience enhance her striking features. 
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Some 200 years ago, a marketing genius invented a legend that if you kissed the Blarney Stone atop the castle, you instantly acquire the ‘gift of the gap’ – the ability to talk blarney. 

Now millions (including Winston Churchill) come here for that purpose. Clearly, it worked for him, right? 

What can we learn from the Blarney Stone? Mainly, the truly amazing power of a great story.  

At Blarney Catsle, we watched people laugh and chatter, imagining themselves as eloquent as Churchill after kissing the stone.  We saw how they suspended their disbelief and cynicism and surrendered to a compelling fairy tale. We realized too how this tiny nation of only 4 m. people survived famine, hardship and oppression, and kept alive their history, values and culture, in part by their story-telling skills. We understood why Ireland produced so many great writers, all of them wonderful story-tellers – Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels), J.M. Synge (Playboy of the Western World), Sean O’Casey (Juno and the Paycock), G.B. Shaw (Man and Superman), James Joyce (Ulysses), and W.B. Yeats (Innisfree). 

But mostly, we understood how Ireland has transformed itself from one of Europe’s poorest, perpetually poor, nations, into one of the richest, through an improbable story first told in 1988: “We will become the choice site in Europe for investment by the world’s leading global companies.” Remember: an improbable story that is believed by a critical mass of people becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Finally, we asked: Israel too was born as a result of an improbable story – returning to our ancestral homeland after 2000 years. After all, wasn’t it Herzl who said, If you will it – it is no Blarney!

Stories, like business models, sometimes need renewal.   

So – what is Israel’s story today?     
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Further reading: Kate Sweetman & Shlomo Maital. “The Power of Stories”,  Int. J. of Technology & Innovation Management Education, vol. 1 2006.  

ACTION LEARNING
Reader, ask yourself:
     •  What is my story? Do I have one? Does it inspire and energize me and those I love? 
     •  What is my organization’s story? Does it have one? Does it inspire and energize me and all those whom I lead?