Think about the last time you were inspired by a presentation.
Chances are, the presenter didn’t just throw facts and figures at you. They told a story – one that grabbed your attention, touched your emotions, and compelled you to act.
That’s the power of storytelling.
A power every aspiring Product Leader must have.
But what exactly makes a great story? What’s the difference between a presentation that falls flat and one that drives real change?
That’s what we’re going to explore today.
I’ll share with you the three core principles of great storytelling. The principles I’ve used throughout my career to drive change, inspire teams, and build successful products.
The Key to Great Storytelling
Focus your audience on a compelling message they can trust.
This sentence sums up the three core principles of great storytelling: focus, a compelling message, and trust.
It distinguishes a presentation that’s quickly forgotten from one that inspires change.
When you master these principles, magic happens. Stakeholders align with your vision. Teams rally around your goals. Resources are allocated to your projects. Users love your products.
The three core principles of storytelling are simple. But they’re not easy to implement.
Let’s look at each in detail and see how you can bring them to life in your presentations.
The 3 Core Principles of Great Storytelling
As Nancy Duarte teaches us, storytelling happens in a spectrum. It goes from technical reports full of facts and figures to dramatic stories that allude to our emotions. Presentations are a mix of the two ends of the spectrum.
They’re also where PMs and Product Leaders spend most of their time.
The core storytelling principles we’re about to analyze apply to presentations. But they also apply to the entire spectrum. Feel free to use them in any context you see relevant.
1. Focus
Great storytelling keeps your audience laser-focused on your key message
It removes all distractions and prevents your key message from getting diluted. Let’s look at an example:
Imagine the glass on the left is your key message. It’s the critical information and CTA your audience needs to make transformative changes.
The bottle of water represents everything else. Information that is not relevant to your key message but you want to include.
Maybe you’re not sure who will be in your audience and want to include everything to be safe. Or you just want to show you really know your stuff.
But here’s the problem: if you combine your key message with everything else, it gets diluted.
The audience will have a hard time experiencing and appreciating your key argument.
So remember: focus on the key message, and nothing more than the key message.
2. Compelling Message
The only thing more powerful than an audience who has to listen to your message is an audience who wants to.
Your message has to matter to them. It needs to connect emotionally, making your audience feel something.
Let me show why.
In 2004, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University wanted to find out what kind of message encourages people to donate to charity. In the study, half of the participants were sent a letter with facts and figures about poverty in Africa. The letter sent to the other half of the people told the story of Rokia, one out of the millions of children impacted by poverty.
Guess who donated more?
The participants who read Rokia’s story donated, on average, double the amount!
This is because people connected with Rokia on an emotional level. Someone’s personal story is a much more powerful driver than faceless statistics.
Simply understanding the message isn’t enough. Great storytelling evokes emotions that convince your audience to care. And caring leads to the transformation you seek with your presentation.
3. Trust
Congratulations, by now you have a clear and emotional presentation.
But if your audience doesn’t trust you, your message will fail. Every time.
Don’t trust me on this?
Imagine you lead two teams. An engineer from each team pitches you. They want to pause feature development and have a sprint dedicated to technical debt.
Both give you the exact same arguments.
The first engineer has a reputation for delivering on time and meeting deadlines. They always keep you well-informed along the way. But the second is known for missing goals and being too optimistic about what his team can do.
Exact same pitch. Exact same story. Which one are you likely to consider?
I bet you would take the first engineer’s proposal more seriously.
Trust can make or break your story. But it isn’t built in a single presentation. It’s the result of consistent action over time.
Final Thoughts
Great storytelling is about focus, a compelling message, and a sense of trust.
Improving your storytelling skills and creating clear, focused, and compelling messages helps you build the foundation of trust. That leads to more opportunities to tell stories, which leads to more trust, in a virtuous cycle.
If you’re ready to master these principles, my course Next-Level Storytelling helps you get started today.
Storytelling is a superpower – one you can learn.
What are you waiting for?
