Business Storytelling Tactics: Can You Make a Story Up?

One question that often comes up in a Business Storytelling Training workshop is, “Can you make something up when telling stories at work?” My answer is always yes, as long as the intent behind your fabrication or embellishment is genuine and strategic. I will then walk them through four unique situations (outlined below, after the funny story about my mom) in which taking some creative liberties with business storytelling would be appropriate.

However, if the intent behind fabrication or embellishment is self-serving, attempting to spin or manipulate, driving your own agenda versus sharing something meaningful with your audience, you should reconsider your approach. Let me give you an example.

A Self-Serving Story that Didn’t Fool My Mom

In the latter years of her life, my mother excelled at catalogue shopping, taking it to Olympic levels. She would find something she liked, then buy dozens of the same thing to distribute as gifts: to family, friends, anyone who crossed her line of sight. One year it was weighted blankets: another, it was dancing Santas. Then in 2021, small tabletop water features became her passion.

As she did with all her catalogue shopping, she leaned into this new obsession with her usual fervour. At one point before Christmas, my older brother, Hal (who lives in the same Pennsylvania town), came into her apartment to find 67 boxed water features stacked floor to ceiling. “What in God’s name do you plan to do with all of these?” he asked.

“I’m giving them away as Christmas presents,” she responded.

“To who? You don’t know this many people.”

“Just mind your own business.”

Her four children were, naturally, on the gift list for this babbling piece of décor. So, when I was visiting her in March 2022, she forced mine upon me, insisting I take the microwave-sized box home to Vancouver. “Mom, I’m flying for work and have carry-on. I can’t possibly take this,” I told her. “Well, then take it to your brother’s and mail it from there.” Not wanting to argue with her, I picked-up the box and said my goodbyes.

Walking to my rental car, I passed the trash area for my mom’s retirement community: an enclosed area with a large trash compactor and recycling bins within it. So, instead of putting the boxed water feature into my car and relegating it to the purgatory of my brother’s basement, I decided to throw it away. But rather than go the final step and put it into the trash compactor for destruction, I thought, “Maybe someone will want this,” and placed it generously on the ground next to the compactor for adoption, by one of the maintenance workers or the people who collect the trash.

When I got to my brother’s house and told him and his wife what I had done, my brother shook his head and remarked, “That was a mistake.”

“Why? What could happen? How would she possibly know?” I protested.

“I don’t know, but I am certain that’s going to bite you in the ass somehow. There is no limit to this woman’s powers,” he observed, presciently.

Four days later, and I’m in Lagos, Nigeria for work. My phone rings, and I see that it’s my mother calling. “Hi Mom.”

“Billy,“ she launched right in, skipping all the normal niceties of phone etiquette. “Someone found a new, fully-packaged indoor water feature next to the trash compactor here at Country Meadows. And knowing that I am fond of those and have given many of them to people as Christmas presents, they asked me if this might be mine. You wouldn’t know anything about this, would you?”

I panicked.

“Mom,” I stammered, the wheels of my mind whirling frantically. “I am so sorry, but when I got to my rental car, I put the box down next to it and was planning to put it into the trunk once I got the car running. But I forgot I had done that and drove away without it. And by the time I got to Hal’s house and realized what I’d done and drove back to Country Meadows, it was gone. I feel awful, but I didn’t want to tell you about it because I didn’t want to upset you.”

Feeling rather pleased with my on-demand burst of creativity, I paused and waited for her response. And waited.

“Oh Billy,” my mother finally said, breaking the awkward silence in her classic deadpan delivery, “You can do better than that.”

My story, as spontaneously brilliant as it was (or at least I thought so), was not genuine in its intent. And my mother, perceptive as she was, sniffed that out from 5,400 miles away and called me on it. The story I made up was told to serve my own agenda, not hers.

This is not to say that you can’t make a story up or take some creative liberties with a story rooted in actual experience. But you must always remember that storytelling in business, storytelling at work, or storytelling in leadership situations should be motivated by your desire to bring meaning to your audience, not glory to yourself or immunity to your actions, communications, or decisions. Keeping this in mind, here are four scenarios where applying some creativity to your business storytelling or embellishing it would be appropriate.

ONE: Making your story more reflective of its point and more relatable to your audience

Taking some creative liberties with a story can be appropriate if there is an authentically strategic reason for doing so. That said, you shouldn’t lie from start to finish. You shouldn’t say something someone could Google-fact-check on you. But I will sometimes embellish elements of my story plot to better demonstrate and bring to life my story point, making it more pronounced and apparent.

More often, I will apply some strategic embellishments to my story to make it more reflective of my workplace audience and what they’re thinking and feeling about a situation they’re facing. For example, I might tell a story about a similar situation I found myself in years before, sharing what was going on in my head and my heart as I went through it. Honestly, I can’t remember if I actually thought or felt that way because own experience was so long ago; but I know my audience is thinking and feeling that way right now. They recognize themselves in the mental and emotional drama of my story, relate better to it, and therefore draw more meaning from it. In these cases, a little embellishment that can make a big difference.

TWO: Course-correcting or coaching a team member

Some strategic embellishment can be especially effective and appropriate when I, as a manager, have had to get someone on my team to change their behaviour, perspective or attitude, and I know they will have difficulty in fully grasping why or how they’re going to do so. I could be blunt with my communications. simply telling that team member, “Listen, you’re doing this. It’s wrong. And you have to stop doing it.” However, that approach could also put that person on the defensive or shut them down because they are feeling reprimanded, lectured to, or judged.

So, instead of directly telling my team member the message, I decide it would be more effective to share a personal story that brings that message to life. More specifically, I decide to tell a story of when I was in a similar situation, but how I overcame it, and what I learned or realized as a result.

In crafting this personal story, I am very clear on its strategic intent: the desired impact I want it to have on the audience. But the actual experience I had doesn’t align perfectly with my intent. So, I embellish a bit to make it fit, refining my coaching story to make my past experience more reflective of my audience’s current situation. In doing so, I am better able to put myself in their shoes, conveying “I get what you’re going through” understanding with that team member. I’m sharing instead of lecturing: empathizing instead of judging.

THREE: Creating “informed fiction” about a potential future state

Business storytelling is often effective in helping a workplace audience fully appreciate a current problem that customers, employees, or other stakeholders are facing: the negative experience they are having. And in telling a story that demonstrates that problem—an actual story with plot and drama, not a case study or report—the business storyteller can effectively use it to set-up a business case or initiative that will address it.

But before the storyteller dives into the details of their proposed business case or initiative, they might continue their business storytelling a bit longer. “Now, I want you to imagine a different story,” as they bring to life what a positive experience could look like for that key stakeholder once this initiative or business case has been implemented. In telling these contrasting stories—one based in reality, one not yet—the business storyteller will help their audience better understand the positive difference their initiative could make and why it’s worth pursuing.

FOUR: Amalgamating many stories into a fictitiously representative one

The last situation in which I will embellish is in creating a fictitious story that is inspired and shaped by various true stories or anecdotes I’ve heard about a specific situation. More specifically, I will craft a story that is authentically representative of those other stories, but it is clearly fiction and presented and delivered as such. For example:

“As we look to improve our customer service and retention, I want to share a story with you that is, unfortunately, reflective of and informed by actual stories that we hear every day. I want you to imagine one of our customers. We’ll call her Jennifer. She’s a mother of three, works full time in marketing for a big company, and is the primary shopper for her family…”

The story is clearly made up, and the audience knows it is. But it is rooted in truth, so the audience is open to and receptive of it. Even though the story is fabricated, it is still relevant and enlightening because it is being told to reflect a very real problem or opportunity in need of addressing.

The great American storyteller, Mark Twain, once said, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” While I appreciate the sentiment and creative motivation behind that thought, I wouldn’t go as far as to abandon the truth altogether. That said, taking some creative liberties or making up some informed fiction can be effective as long it’s strategic, rooted in some truth, and genuine in its intent.

 

Bill Baker is the founder and principal of BB&Co Strategic Storytelling. For over 15 years, BB&Co has been providing Business Storytelling and Effective Presentation Skills training to organizations such as Coca-Cola, Cisco, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, GE Healthcare, Dell, Novartis, ICF International, and others.

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