If you cant make the point dont tell the story

Over the years, I’ve learnt something the hard way.

In corporate settings, you are allowed to tell a story only if you can make a point.

Not in a philosophical way.

Not in an abstract way.

But in a way where the listener can clearly say, “Okay, I get why you told me this.”

If that doesn’t happen, the story is seen as a distraction, no matter how interesting it was.

The meeting that went on too long

I was once in a leadership meeting where someone was passionately narrating a customer incident.

It had characters.

It had a conflict.

It even had humour.

Ten minutes in, someone interrupted and asked the inevitable question:

So what’s the point?

The room went silent.

Not because the story was bad. But because the point hadn’t arrived yet.

The storyteller rushed to wrap it up.

The moment was gone.

That meeting taught me something important.

In corporate storytelling, people are patient, but only up to a point.

And that patience is directly linked to how confident they are that a point is on the way.

The point is the last thing, but it cannot be an afterthought.

Here’s the paradox.

The point is usually the last sentence of the story.

But it cannot be something you discover after telling the story.

If you don’t know the point before you start speaking, the listener can sense it.

The story starts to wander.

The tension flattens.

People mentally check out.

So, when I work on a story, I do something very deliberate.

I lock the point first. Then I hide it.

The presentation that worked only because of one line

Years ago, I was presenting a post-mortem of a project that had technically succeeded.

• All the metrics were green.
• The delivery was on time.
• The client hadn’t complained.

Yet something felt off.

Halfway through the presentation, I shared a small incident.

I mentioned how the customer had stopped calling us directly and started routing everything through email instead.

I ended that story with one line:

That’s when I realised success had made us inaccessible.

The discussion changed instantly.

The slides didn’t matter anymore.

The charts didn’t matter.

That one line became the anchor for the entire conversation.

Not because it was dramatic, but because it clarified everything.

That’s what making the point really does.

How do I begin a story if the point comes last?

I never begin with the insight.

I begin with normalcy.

I start at a moment that feels familiar:

• A routine meeting
• A decision everyone agreed with
• A plan that looked perfect on paper

Why?

Because people don’t connect with insights, they connect with situations they’ve lived through.

Once they see themselves in the setup, they stay for the ending.

How I visualize stories now

I don’t visualize stories as timelines.

I visualize them as pressure.

Every detail should slightly increase discomfort:

• Something that didn’t feel right
• A question that wasn’t asked
• A signal that was ignored

Nothing explodes.

Nothing collapses.

And then, at the end, the pressure releases, not with drama, but with clarity.

The point should feel obvious in hindsight.

That’s when you know it has landed.

Making the point is not about sounding smart.

This is another trap.

The point is not:

• A clever insight
• A leadership quote
• A lesson wrapped in jargon

The point is usually very simple and slightly uncomfortable.

It often sounds like:

• We solved the wrong problem.
• We optimised for speed and lost trust.
• We thought the customer was the issue. We were.

If the point feels neat, it’s probably weak.

If it makes people pause, it’s probably right.

What I remind myself of before telling any corporate story

Before I tell a story now, I ask myself three questions:

• What do I want the listener to realise, not understand, but realise?
• What moments need to happen for that realisation to feel earned?
• Where should I start so the ending doesn’t feel forced?

If I can answer these, I tell the story.

If I can’t, I don’t.

Here is the closing thought

In corporate environments, stories don’t survive because they’re interesting.

They survive because they’re useful.

And usefulness comes down to one thing.

Did you make the point?

If you did, people remember the story.

If you didn’t, they remember the time it took.