Why Business Storytelling Makes Leaders More Compelling

Business storytelling helps leaders turn information into ideas people can understand, remember and share.

Facts, recommendations and business results are important. But information alone does not always help an audience recognize why something matters. A well-chosen story gives that information context. It connects the speaker’s message to the listener’s needs, experiences and interests.

That is why business storytelling for leaders is more than an engagement technique. It is a communication skill that can help a leader explain strategy, illustrate an opportunity, build support for change or make a complex idea feel relevant.

The strongest business storytelling is not long, theatrical or disconnected from the point. They have a clear purpose. They lead the audience toward an insight and reinforce what the communicator wants listeners to understand or do.

The following excerpt from Sally Williamson’s book, *Storylines & Storytelling*, explores the difference between a competent communicator and a compelling storyteller. It begins in a familiar business setting: a large conference filled with energy, anticipation and an audience waiting for a leader to make the message matter.

Chapter One: Why Storytelling?

It’s Thursday, 8am. Pretty early for someone who was up after midnight, but that’s common practice at industry conferences and large company meetings, because colleagues and peers mingle late into the night—networking, reconnecting, and building relationships that will prove fruitful in the months ahead.

You’re feeling a little sluggish as you head into the massive ballroom for the opening session, but the room is anything but tired. The pulse of the music is electric and infectious. A thousand audience members begin to fill the seats, their energy visibly rising with anticipation.

It’s your first look at the conference setup and it’s clear the coordinators have spared no expense. Screens wrap from one end of the massive stage to the other and splash light and color on the audience. The stage is set with sleek white leather chairs.

The bells and whistles are all in place. The music is interrupted as the host announces the conference will kick off in five minutes. You settle in with a fresh cup of coffee and high expectations, and begin perusing the conference app.

You might be surprised to know that the one person who is not as ready to go as the setting suggests is the senior leader. He’s backstage passing off changes to visuals and skimming the teleprompter script over the operator’s shoulder to ensure that he has remembered every detail. When the host announces that the conference is about to start, he moves toward the back steps and waits for his cue to join the MC on stage.

He steps up to the podium and launches into a keynote that covers the company’s plans for the year ahead, calls out the trends that he is betting on and the big wins they expect, and then unveils some new concepts that customers can expect to see soon.

This isn’t what you were hoping for. The dynamics of the room promised energy and entertainment—something memorable. But within the first five minutes of his speech, the energy in the room evaporates. You hear the details, but you don’t really feel moved by them. The speaker clearly doesn’t either. He’s reading sound bites off a screen on the floor and seems to be working harder to read it right than to say it well.

What’s worse, he’s not saying anything you didn’t already hear at his competitor’s conference last month. You mentally check out and scan the app to see what’s coming next.

The second speaker is Julie, a senior manager on the leader’s strategy team. You don’t know much about her, but the topic intrigues you so you resolve to be patient and see if the energy changes. You slouch a little further into your seat and skim through emails until the keynote wraps up. After what feels like an eternity, the speaker winds down and the MC brings back the energy with audience participation and the highly charged music returns. You adjust your posture as the MC announces the next speaker.

Julie’s posture is different from the moment she walks out. No slides appear behind her. She seems completely at ease as she scans the room and begins to tell a story about an experience she had six months ago at a conference just like this one. She expresses exactly how you felt this morning after the late-night networking and early morning call for caffeine. In short order, she makes you feel as if she knows how you are feeling at that exact moment.

From there, she seamlessly transitions into why certain strategy insights can reset the direction of managers just like you.

If you weren’t so engrossed in her talk, you might notice that you’ve shifted forward in your seat and begun to listen with a whole new level of attention. In fact, the whole audience looks rapt. She’s funny, witty, and at total ease with what she’s saying and what she wants you to get out of it. Julie’s not just a speaker; she’s a storyteller.

Instead of listing evidence to prove her point, she leads a room of 1,000 listeners on a journey to show why competitors are collaborating and what innovations she believes will change the marketplace. She weaves in industry examples and insights, but she never wavers from the journey. It’s clear where she wants to take you and, like every other listener in the room, you gladly go along for the ride.

Her presentation ends the way it started—back at the conference she attended six months ago. She takes a long pause, nails a closing tagline, and walks off the stage.

The lights come up, and everyone looks around. You overhear some audience members talking about the examples she shared and others talking about her. You can tell that others are thinking the same thing you are: it’s an interesting idea. It’s worth considering. Who in this room could make a difference in my business?

What you don’t hear is any mention of the CEO of the company who was the opening keynote speaker. His remarks were forgotten the moment they were spoken.

The Difference Between Competent and Compelling Communication in Business Storytelling

The speaker’s impact isn’t because she’s a well-paid professional speaker. It’s because Julie knows how to connect to people through storytelling. She’s a compelling communicator…and you will hear her name time and time again as her career advances.

Why Business Storytelling Matters

There is a difference between a competent communicator and a compelling one. We don’t just look for the storytellers once a year at the industry conference. We hope for them in every meeting, on every conference call, and in the monthly town hall meetings.

Stories make information relevant, relatable, and applicable to what we do. They make it easier to pass along strategies and inspire others to get on board with changes or a new focus. And yes, we like to be entertained as we process all the information coming at us.

How Business Storytelling Makes Ideas Memorable

Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of communication known to mankind. Cavemen drew stories on walls; Egyptians depicted them in hieroglyphics. Before written history, cultures used stories to pass their customs from one generation to the next. Religious and political leaders have always used stories to build a following.

Stories are the common thread that link us to what has already happened and what is still to come. Stories throughout history have been able to make great things memorable. We remember that:

• Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492…and started American history.
• Santa Claus leveraged the nose of a reindeer…and delivered presents on a magical night.
• The tortoise outran the hare…and taught us that slow and steady wins the race.
• Martin Luther King pulled all of us into a dream…and we can still hear it today.
• Scarlet O’Hara told us to “Think about it Tomorrow”…and helped us see hope in devastation
• Rocky Balboa turned a boxing match…into a theme song for every physical challenge.

Through parables and fables, novels and ballads, all of us have learned lessons and shared them with others. Chances are you can trace many of your life values back to stories.

Why Leaders Avoid Storytelling

Yet somewhere along the way, communicators stopped using stories in business settings. That’s where our story picks up. As we did our research into the impact of storytelling in business settings, we were hit with a surprising truth: few business people use stories in their communications. Our research uncovered any number of reasons:

• Some say business storytelling places a higher expectation on a communicator…(it does).
• Some question whether storytelling is appropriate in business…(it is).
• Most say telling stories requires animation and vulnerability…(it does).
• All say that business storytelling has a clear pass/fail effect on a group…(it can).

Maybe that’s why it isn’t always easy to find great business storytellers.Cultures that have storytellers lean heavily on them to set vision, drive influence, and empower others to bring their best talents forward. Our research participants thought that most storytellers are leaders. But the truth is, there are storytellers all over organizations. They just aren’t good at it yet. But they can be.

Storytelling Begins with the Listener

Storytelling starts with a basic concept. The role of communication is simple and difficult. Communication occurs when the speaker’s intentions connect to the listener’s needs and interests.

If you’ve ever presented to a distracted team or disenchanted audience, you understand the difficult part of communication. This is why most people aren’t likely to take the risk of adding storytelling to an already stressful situation.

Communicators understand the power of the listener, but they don’t always understand the interest. They’re told, “Be direct and get to the point,” and they take it to heart. It’s true that communication has to be clear, but our research shows that listeners also want those thoughts to connect to each other. They prefer thoughts to be woven together rather than listed point-by-point.

In our exploration of business storytelling, the listener will be front and center because the more it is understood how others respond to communication the easier it is to deliver on those expectations.

Is Business Storytelling an Art or a Science?

At some point, you might wonder if storytelling is an art or a science. The truth is, it’s a little of both. In our workshops, we teach the science and structure of the storyline and we also teach the art of engagement—how to pull listeners in.

In the chapters ahead, you’ll read about both the art and the science of storytelling. You’ll also read insights from listeners about what makes information memorable and repeatable. You’ll read stories—of course!—about how managers and leaders have developed their business storytelling skills over time.

But ultimately, I hope this book will inspire you and start you on your own journey to becoming a great storyteller.

Excerpt Ends. To learn the three-step formula to reach compelling communication, order your copy of Storylines & Storytelling. Or, you can learn more about our Connecting Stories to Storylines program that introduces and coaches the fundamentals of a compelling storyline and a memorable story.

How Leaders Can Use Storytelling at Work

Business storytelling is not limited to conferences, keynote addresses or major company announcements. Leaders can use stories in everyday situations where an audience needs to understand why an idea matters.

Business storytelling can help a leader introduce a strategy, explain a change, bring customer needs into a product conversation or show employees what an organizational value looks like in practice.

The purpose is not to entertain for the sake of entertainment. Business storytelling should help the audience see the point more clearly.

Leaders can use business stories when they need to:

• Create urgency around a business priority
• Explain why a strategy is changing
• Make complex information easier to understand
• Illustrate the impact of a customer problem
• Build support for a recommendation
• Recognize an employee or team
• Share a lesson from a success or failure
• Help an audience imagine a future outcome
• Make organizational values more concrete
• Inspire people to take action

The situation determines which story will be most useful.

Begin with the Audience, Not the Story

Leaders sometimes start with a favorite personal experience and then search for a reason to include it. That approach can produce a story that is entertaining but disconnected from the message.

A stronger process begins with the listener.

Before selecting a story, consider:

• What does this audience already understand?
• What do they need to understand differently?
• What concern or resistance could prevent them from listening?
• What should they remember after the conversation?
• What action or decision should follow?

Once the intended outcome is clear, the communicator can identify a story that helps move the audience toward it.

This keeps business storytelling connected to the business purpose.

Use a Story to Illustrate the Message

A business story should not replace the leader’s point. It should illustrate it.

The audience still needs clarity about the recommendation, decision or action. The story creates a relatable path into that information and gives listeners a way to remember it.

A leader discussing customer experience might tell a story about one customer whose frustration revealed a larger problem. A leader introducing a new strategy might share the moment the organization realized its old approach was no longer sufficient. A manager discussing accountability might describe a situation in which clear ownership changed an outcome.

Each story helps the audience see the idea in action. That is business storytelling.

Build a Business Storytelling Bank

Many leaders believe they do not have stories to tell. More often, they have not developed a habit of noticing and capturing them.

Business storytelling is present throughout an organization:

• Customer successes and frustrations
• Employee breakthroughs
• Difficult decisions
• Unexpected outcomes
• Lessons learned from mistakes
• Moments that changed a leader’s perspective
• Examples of company values in action
• Experiences that reveal why the work matters

Leaders can build a story bank by recording a few notes whenever one of these moments occurs. Capture what happened, who was involved, what changed and why the experience matters.

Over time, those notes become a useful collection of examples that can support leadership, sales, change and strategic communication.

Make the Story Easy to Retell

Strong business storytelling should be easy for the audience to follow and repeat.

Too much background can hide the point. Too many characters can create confusion. Excessive detail can turn a story into a report.

Focus on the details that help listeners understand the situation, recognize the challenge and see the outcome. Then connect the story directly to the message.

The goal is not for the audience to remember every detail. It is for listeners to remember what the story helped them understand.

SW&A helps leaders and teams develop compelling storylines, identify relevant stories and communicate them with clarity, confidence and purpose. That is business storytelling. Through Connecting Stories to Storylines, tailored programs and executive coaching, communicators learn how to turn business information into business storytelling messages that listeners understand, remember and act on.

A competent communicator can deliver the information. A compelling storyteller helps the audience experience why it matters.

Ready to strengthen your business storytelling skills?

Explore Storylines & Storytelling to learn Sally Williamson’s business storytelling approach to building compelling communication through business storytelling. Or bring the concepts to life through Connecting Stories to Storylines, a practical program that helps leaders and teams organize ideas, develop memorable stories and connect with the audiences they need to influence through impactful business storytelling.