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Storytelling Workshops
Hands-on storytelling workshops that help teams and leaders turn ideas and data into stories people remember and act on.
Why Smart Teams Still Struggle to Get Their Message Across
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The Cost of Poor Communication
Leaders and teams spend an enormous number of hours every week in meetings, presentations, and one-on-one conversations. Very little of that time goes toward building the actual skill of communicating well.
Left unaddressed, that gap adds up: unclear communication slows decisions, stalls change, and becomes a real, ongoing cost to the organization, even though it never shows up as a line item.
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More Data, Less Insight
Organizations have more data available to them than ever, and fewer reliable ways to turn that data into meaning.
They're data rich and insight poor, yet that doesn't stop them from sharing row-by-row data without a clear takeaway.
When a data story isn't landing, the instinct is usually to add another chart, another slide, another layer of detail. That rarely fixes it.
The real gap usually isn't the data. It's that the audience never built the same understanding of what it means.
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Storytelling is a Skill, Not a Talent
In our work with leaders and teams, we’ve found they’re often allergic to telling stories. They’re not sure where to find them or how to tell them. They think they have to present data and there’s no room to tell a story. Or they assume it’s a natural gift they don't have.
None of that holds up. Storytelling is a skill, not a talent reserved for a few people who happen to be good at it, and it can be learned and applied by anyone willing to build it.
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Communication Is One of the Most Valuable Business Skills. It's Also One of the Least Developed.
Karen Eber's Storytelling Workshop and Storytelling with Data Workshop are designed to solve these challenges.
Based on the methodology from her best-selling book, The Perfect Story, and the neuroscience behind her TED Talk, each workshop gives participants a repeatable method for finding, structuring, and delivering stories that build understanding
Storytelling Workshop:
Telling Stories that Inform, Influence, and Inspire
Clear and meaningful communication is more critical than ever. Those who can tell compelling stories gain a significant advantage in building trust, influencing decisions, and inspiring change. Important messages often go unheard because they aren't told in a way that captures attention or drives action.
This workshop gives participants a science-backed framework for crafting and telling stories that build trust, drive decisions, and move people to action, for any audience and setting.
What Participants Walk Away With
A foundation in brain science that explains and reinforces every technique they learn.
A personal toolkit of story ideas ready to deploy, built during the session.
An approach for tailoring communications and stories for each audience.
A repeatable structure and process for crafting stories with clarity and emotional resonance.
The ability to identify the right story for the right moment, and know why it will land.
Confidence in delivery: how to use voice, pace, and presence to make stories memorable.
IDEAL SIZE
Up to 25 for maximum coaching; scalable for larger groups.
DURATION
Full-day, half-days, or a series of virtual sessions.
INCLUDES
Prework, in-session coaching, and storytelling methodology. In-person sessions include a hardcopy of The Perfect Story.
THE EXPERIENCE
Interactive, hands-on experience. Participants practice telling stories 5 to 10 times with peer feedback and coaching, applied to a real story they need to tell.
BEST FOR
Teams, annual retreats, leadership cohorts, pending organizational change, leadership development programs, career milestones.
FORMAT
In-person or virtual. Tailored to your team size, duration, and goals
Storytelling With Data Workshop:
Data doesn't change behavior; emotions do. Most data presentations bury the insight under complexity.
This workshop always opens with the same storytelling foundation taught in Telling Stories that Inform, Influence, and Inspire, because that foundation is what makes a data story work in the first place.
Building on those concepts, participants learn to find the story in their data and deliver it in a way that drives understanding, decision-making, and action.
In practice, this most often runs as the second half of a full day, storytelling in the morning, data in the afternoon, building directly on the story each participant already developed. It can also be delivered as its own dedicated day for teams that already have the storytelling foundation.
What Participants Walk Away With
The ability to identify the narrative inside a data set, before determining any visual necessary.
A clear structure for presenting data that leads an audience to insight, not confusion.
Techniques for framing data so it's understood, and remembered, by decision-makers.
Confidence presenting data verbally, without relying on slides as a crutch.
An understanding of the leader's role in shaping how data is communicated across their team.
Telling Stories With Data: From Insights to Impacts
FORMAT
Most often paired with the Storytelling Workshop as one full day. Can be delivered in-person or virtually, and across multiple days.
INCLUDES
Hands-on practice translating real data into a spoken narrative. No slides required.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Leaders routinely ask teams to “show the data” and routinely get charts that inform no one. This workshop changes the default from visualization to communication, giving teams a shared language for turning numbers into decisions.
BEST FOR
Analytics teams, finance and ops leaders, anyone who regularly presents data to stakeholders.
Every Workshop is Tailored for You Organization
Once we know your team's goals, audience, and the time you have, the experience gets built around that, not the other way around.
Prework: a short assignment before the session helps participants identify a real opportunity to tell a story in the weeks ahead, so they walk in with something specific to work on.
Repetition with coaching: participants pair up and tell their stories out loud multiple times, five to ten times depending on length and format, with feedback after each round.
The Five Factory Settings of the Brain: Karen's proprietary framework that explains how the brain processes information and why some communication creates understanding while other messages are forgotten.
Built around your goals: the specific content, pacing, and depth are set once we know what you're trying to accomplish, not templated in advance.
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Who It's For?
Leadership teams preparing for a change, restructure, or new strategy rollout.
Sales and account teams who need to move a story, not just a deck.
Analytics, finance, and ops teams who present data to decision-makers.
HR and L&D teams building storytelling into a broader leadership development program.
Intact teams at a career milestone, offsite, or retreat.
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What Makes This Different?
Twenty years of leadership experience from both sides of the desk: Karen led culture and leadership development inside General Electric and Deloitte before teaching it, not just around it.
A neuroscience foundation, the Five Factory Settings of the Brain, that explains why each technique works, not just what to do.
Built for application, not retention of trivia: every participant leaves with a story built during the session, ready to tell.
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Up to 25 participants allows for individual and group coaching.
Larger groups can be accommodated with less one-on-one attention.
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Both. In-person allows more coaching and collaboration in one day; virtual is broken into multiple sessions to prevent screen fatigue.
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This workshop is for intact teams, career milestones, annual retreats, and ongoing development, across every industry and level, from frontline employees to the C-suite.
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There is twenty minutes of prework that includes short videos and identifying a real story opportunity to bring into the session.
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They're named as two workshops because that's the clearest way to talk about what a group needs, but Storytelling with Data always opens with the same storytelling foundation; there isn't a version that skips it.
In practice, there are many ways to combine the underlying content into a one-day experience depending on a group's goals; storytelling alone and storytelling plus data are simply the two most common.
Frequently Asked Questions about Storytelling Workshops
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"So many a-has on what makes a great story and how they influence purchasing decisions."
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"This clicked more than other storytelling experiences: excellent information, tools, and techniques."
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"This was the best storytelling experience: clear structure, tools, and insights!"
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"Exceptional speaker with storytelling techniques that resonated across all levels."
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"Phenomenal interactive session that felt intimate despite a large group."
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"Hugely impactful presentation that understood our messaging and business."
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"Keynote was the "talk of the town" with people discussing incorporating the strategies."
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"Karen's presentation was a highlight of our conference."
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"Karen infuses you with confidence while making storytelling approachable and relatable."
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"One of the highest-rated sessions ever!"
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A delightful to work with from start to finish!
Brain Food Articles on Storytelling
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