Paul BarnhurstFP&A Expert Empowering Finance Professionals to Excel Everday

Truth makes your story actually stick.

15 May 2026 · 1 min

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In this short talk, the speaker stresses that effective storytelling in a data‑driven organization must be rooted in truth and genuine belief, not in manipulation or exaggeration. He argues that a story should reflect the actual data and the speaker’s sincere conviction about the message, because authenticity makes the narrative "sticky"—easy for people to understand and remember. While data remains essential for decision‑making, the story is the vehicle that translates complex information into a compelling, memorable explanation of why a particular direction is needed.

Chapters

Don't make up stories or exaggerate stories. It has to be true. And the other thing is that you've got to believe in the message. So this isn't about manipulation. You don't have this data that doesn't make sense, but you're trying to convince people it does. It's not doing that. It's sort of like, I truly believe in the message. We've got all this data and information, and so I truly believe that this is where we need to go. But you're just using a story to do that because you truly believe in it. Talking about data, I had one happen a couple of months ago about data and storytelling, and he goes, but we're a company that makes decisions based on data, and I would hope so. I would hope you're making decisions based on data, but this is about how you communicate why we're doing this. So you still need the data, but a story is sticky. It's what people will get and understand.