What I Learned About Business Storytelling Over the Last Six Months

Six months ago, I dove headfirst into teaching leaders the art of business storytelling. Having founded Turwa By Fadwa just three months earlier, I wanted to perfect this critical skill for executives. While I had some success applying storytelling during my tech career over the past five years, I mistakenly thought those lessons could easily transfer to a broader geography and industry. I quickly learned that wasn’t the case.

Here’s what stood out from my journey.

Scene 1: The Power of Empathy

Imagine you’re an executive standing on stage, about to deliver a keynote to an audience of 100 clients. The lights are bright, the room is expectant—and you don’t have a prepared presentation. You begin by asking the audience, “What do you want to hear?” They respond, “Solve our problems.” But your brain draws a blank as you struggle to connect your company’s capabilities to their issues.

This is where empathy comes in. The first step in business storytelling is joining the conversation already happening in your audience’s mind.

Take real estate, for example. CEOs in this industry often start their presentations with metrics: the size of their developments, the awards they’ve won, or their ESG impact. But their audience is silently wondering: “Why should I care? How does this connect to me?”

If the CEO empathized with the audience, they’d start by painting a picture of the life their developments enable: safety, community, cherished memories, schools for their children, and a neighborhood that feels like home. By solving not only the audience’s practical needs but also their emotional desires, they position the audience as the hero of the story. Only then do they share metrics and accolades—showing how their company enables those dreams.

Scene 2: Silos Don’t Tell Stories

The month before that keynote, chaos often reigns behind the scenes. Leaders are too busy to craft their own pitches, leaving it to chiefs of staff or communications teams to cobble together slides from various departments. While everyone works hard, their efforts often lack a cohesive direction.

I’ve seen this play out repeatedly: beautifully designed slides and on-point messaging, but no overarching narrative to tie it all together.

What’s the solution? One approach, borrowed from the tech world, is appointing a dedicated chief storyteller—someone responsible for crafting the narrative. Another is training teams—especially chiefs of staff and marketing teams—to think like storytellers. Business storytelling isn’t just about making presentations pretty; it’s about influencing and building empathy across the workplace.

Scene 3: Start Small, Test Often

Now, let’s rewind a quarter before the keynote. The truth is, nobody becomes stage-ready overnight. Like comedians refining their material in small clubs before headlining arenas, executives need opportunities to test and refine their stories.

I call this the “story circuit” approach. Leaders should use all-hands meetings, smaller client presentations, or even team updates as testing grounds for their narratives. These smaller venues allow them to try out concepts, refine delivery, and build confidence. By the time they step onto the big stage, they’ve already honed their message through practice.