Executive Education Insights: Eric Harris, TCU Neeley Executive Education faculty leader and founder of GatherRound, explores how storytelling helps leaders cut through distractions, inspire teams, and make messages stick.
February 17, 2025
By Eric Harris
TCU Neeley Executive Education faculty leader and founder of GatherRound
In an era where attention is the ultimate currency, leaders face an uphill battle in making messages stick. The modern workplace overflows with information – Slack and Teams notifications, endless emails, back-to-back meetings – all competing for precious mental bandwidth. As a result, leaders struggle to command attention, align teams, and inspire action.
For too long, business has relied on slides and data-heavy presentations as the default mode of communications. But this approach has diminishing returns. We live in a world where people skim, swipe, and scroll; where cognitive overload causes even the most carefully crafted decks to be forgotten the moment the meeting ends.
The solution? Story.
The Addiction to Decks: Why Leaders Lean on Slides
Most modern presenters are addicted to PowerPoint and other presentation software. Whether it’s a strategy meeting, an all-hands update, or a sales pitch, slides are a crutch leaders can lean on, believing it helps structure their thoughts and deliver information. But this dependence is worse than ineffective. It’s counterproductive.
Presentation software (like all software), is designed to be addictive. To keep the user using it. PowerPoint and its competitors lure people into spending hours fine-tuning slides, believing a perfect deck will lead to a persuasive presentation. But the reality is slides don’t create connections with the humans yearning for them. Storytelling does.
Slide-heavy presentations are often packed with bullet points, charts, and jargon, overwhelming the audience with information rather than engaging them emotionally. Instead of inspiring belief, they encourage passive consumption. Instead of creating clarity, they often add complexity. Leaders who want to stand out in today’s distracted world must break free from this addiction and embrace storytelling as their primary communication tool.
Why Storytelling Cuts Through the Noise
The science behind storytelling reveals why it’s so effective. Neuroscience shows when we hear a story, our brains release oxytocin, a chemical associated with trust and empathy. Stories activate multiple regions of the brain, making information more memorable and easier to process. Unlike raw data, which engages only the rational mind, stories engage both logic and emotion, creating a deeper connection.
Consider the difference between presenting a quarterly performance update with a slide full of numbers versus framing it as a narrative:
- Without a story: “Revenue increased by 12% this quarter, customer churn dropped by 8%, and our NPS score improved by 5 points.”
- Framed by story: “At the beginning of the year, we set out to improve our customer experience. It wasn’t easy. We faced setbacks. We had to rethink our approach. We invested in new strategies. But today, the results are clear: More customers are staying, more are recommending us, and we’re seeing the impact of our efforts in the numbers.”
The second approach gives context, builds suspense, and humanizes the data, making it far more engaging and memorable.
How Leaders Can Replace Decks with Stories
Breaking free from slide addiction doesn’t mean eliminating visuals altogether, but it does mean prioritizing storytelling over information dumps. Here’s how leaders can make the shift:
1. Start with the Why, Not the WhatBefore diving into details, frame your message with a compelling reason. Why should your audience care? What’s at stake? Great stories begin with tension—a challenge, an obstacle, or a conflict that needs to be resolved.
2. Use a Narrative StructureEvery great story follows a structure. These structures are time-tested and utilized by successful storytellers from Hollywood writers’ rooms to Wall Street board rooms. Here’s an example of a story structure that checks the boxes on how audiences prefer to communicate:
- The Setup: Introduce the situation or challenge.
- The Struggle: Show what’s at risk or what obstacles exist.
- The Solution: Present the idea, decision, or action that leads to resolution.
- The Impact: End with the result or insight gained.
People relate to people, not abstract concepts. Whether sharing a business insight or pitching a new strategy, weaving in personal experiences makes the message more relatable. A CEO explaining the importance of resilience might talk about a failure and how it shaped their leadership philosophy.
4. Engage, Don’t LectureGreat storytelling is interactive. Instead of clicking through slide after slide, invite participation. Ask questions, encourage discussion, and make room for the audience to see themselves in the story.
5. Limit Slides to Visual SupportIf slides are necessary, they should serve as enhancements, not substitutes for storytelling. Use images, single-word prompts, or data visualizations that reinforce the narrative rather than distract from it.
Storytelling Leaders Gain a Competitive Edge
Leaders who master storytelling gain a competitive advantage. They communicate vision in a way that energizes teams, secures buy-in with greater ease, and builds trust through authenticity. In contrast, those who rely on decks risk being just another forgettable voice in an already noisy world. The shift away from slide addiction isn’t just about better presentations—it’s about reclaiming the art of human connection. Enlightened leaders will remember their most powerful tool isn’t a slide—it’s a story.
