10. Who Needs to Be a Storyteller at Work?

[0:00] Vinod
Picture this scenario: new hires just joined the team.
Three weeks in, the leader pulls you aside and says, "Something's off. It feels like they just don't align with what we do here."

Or this one: a program manager is presenting a new project kickoff. She's energized, passionate about the initiative, but as she looks around the room, the cross-functional team seems... well, let's just say they're not matching her enthusiasm.

Here's another: the HR manager just finished interviewing a perfect candidate. Skills? Check. Experience? Check. Culture fit seems great. Offer extended. But two days later, the candidate comes back: "Thanks, but I'm not sure the role resonated with me."

What's missing from all these scenarios? A story. And who can fix this? A storyteller.

[1:02]
Welcome to the Storytelling at Work Podcast. I'm your host, Vinod Krishna, and here we explore storytelling, communication, leadership, and more.

[1:15]
Think about your typical workday: meetings back-to-back, presentations filled with bullet points, performance metrics flying around, Slack notifications pinging constantly. We're drowning in information, but somehow the important stuff isn't sticking.

Here's what's happening: we have got plenty of communication channels, but we are failing at the quality of communication. We are not cutting through the noise. We are not making our ideas relatable. And we are definitely not connecting people to purpose.

That's exactly where workplace storytellers come in.

I believe everyone in an organization should develop storytelling skills, but today let's focus on five key roles where storytelling isn't just helpful, it's absolutely essential.

[2:06]
# First up: people managers.
If you're a team lead or a mid-level manager, you're essentially the bridge between senior leadership and your team. Your day revolves around motivation, alignment, and feedback. But here's the thing: you can't accomplish any of that effectively by just providing instructions.

Think about it. When you need to explain why a new goal matters, you could say, "We need to increase customer satisfaction scores by 15% this quarter." That's information. Or you could be the storyteller who brings the right stories to play, in this case, about a loyal customer who was on the verge of switching to a competitor.

As a storytelling manager, you provide context, highlight learning, share values in ways that actually stick. You help your team understand not just what needs to happen, but why it matters.

[3:01]
# The second role: project leads and functional heads.
On the surface, you might think you're just managing projects or domain-specific operations. But zoom out and you will see what you're really doing: it's actually providing clarity, leading change, navigating uncertainty, and getting buy-in from stakeholders who have different priorities and pressures.

In all of these situations, clarity is crucial, and so is emotional resonance.

I once worked with a project lead who was struggling to get executive support for a digital transformation initiative. Her presentations were packed with data, timelines, and technical information- all accurate, all necessary- but nothing was happening.

Then she shifted her approach. She embraced the avatar of a storyteller. Her next presentation started with a story about a frustrated customer who was bounced around five times by the customer service rep, all because their systems couldn't talk to each other.

Suddenly, the executives weren't looking at spreadsheets. They were able to feel and understand the customer impact this initiative would have. She had the budget approved within a week.

[4:16]
# Third role: product teams and product managers.

If you're working on products, you're not just dealing with features and release cycles. You're solving problems for real people - users and customers who have genuine needs and frustrations.

Product managers especially need to be storytellers, and they need to master the art of storytelling around user pain points. You need your story to be compelling when you're negotiating for resources or trying to shift priorities.

Without a good storyteller, product teams get lost in the day-to-day routine and lose sight of the bigger product development journey.

I've seen product teams spend months perfecting a feature that users barely noticed, while ignoring a simple fix that would have saved customers hours of frustration. The team working on the complex feature had a compelling story about technical illumination. The team needed a storyteller to tell the story of customer impact.

Strong storytelling keeps product teams focused on what actually matters.

[5:23]
#Fourth role: HR and Learning and Development professionals.

This one's huge because your influence has a wider impact across the entire organization. When you're dealing with culture, values, and learning initiatives, you're working with concepts that people can interpret in different ways.

Corporate jargon doesn't help here. Training decks and policy documents won't cut it either. Stories shape how people think, act, and perform. And HR professionals, as well as L&D professionals, need to be storytellers.

Consider onboarding: you could hand new hires a company values document that says, "We value innovation and collaboration." Or you could be the storyteller and tell them about the time two developers from different teams helped to solve a customer's urgent problem, even though it wasn't technically either of their responsibilities.

You could describe how they not only fixed the issue but created a process that prevented similar problems for thousands of other customers. Same values, completely different impact.

[6:27]
#The fifth and final role that we're going to talk about today: anyone who communicates within the organization.

Here's the reality: if your job involves communicating with other people, you need to be a storyteller. Do you lead meetings? Then you're setting the tone for how that time gets used. Do you pitch ideas? You're crafting a story about possibility and impact. Do you present your work? In that case, you're telling the story of your process, your challenges, and your results.

There are opportunities every single day to ensure your communication actually does its job and your messages land the way you intend them to.

[7:07]
So let's recap: who needs to be a storyteller at the workplace?

- People managers who want to truly motivate and align their teams
- Project leads and functional heads who need to drive change and get buy-in
- Product managers and teams who are solving real problems for people
- HR and L&D professionals who are shaping organizational culture and people development
- And anyone whose job involves communicating with others

[7:32]
Storytellers help people make sense of all that happens at the workplace. They connect the dots between what is being done and why it matters. They turn information into insight, and insight into action.

Storytelling is a communication superpower, and building this skill will get you to become that impactful storyteller at the workplace.

[7:55]
I hope this gives you a new lens for seeing the storytelling opportunities right in front of you at your workplace.

This is the Storytelling at Work Podcast. If you found this useful, please subscribe and share it with someone who might benefit. And if you've got a storytelling challenge at work you'd like to discuss, reach out, I'd love to help.

Until next time, remember: every conversation is a chance to tell a story.