“Absolutely not,” my manager at the time said about my Red Team Strategy. The presentation was supposed to outline the direction I planned to take the team under my leadership. Unfortunately, it was a mixture of technical jargon and graphics that could only be understood by a Red Teamer. She followed up with “You cannot show this to an executive audience.” I was lacking any information that truly told the story of the path I would walk with my team. I was not only lacking storytelling, but I had absolutely no clue what that even meant.

Storytelling, by my own definition, is the conversion of information (frequently large amounts) into a format that can be understood by a general audience. It’s important to remove all information that isn’t necessary for the receiver to understand why they should care. I’ll give an example: Coca-Cola commercials are not comprised of videos and information depicting how the product is made in the factory. Instead, they present us with a cold product dripping with condensation, in a fun atmosphere where people are smiling and enjoying life. The story they’re telling the audience is that Coca-Cola will increase your enjoyment on any occasion. None of the ingredients are listed, nor is the process of creating it even mentioned.

So what should happen in between a deeply technical process and delivering the final product to the audience? I call this the “Communication Gateway” mentioned in my previous brief, because traffic is traveling between one network, “technical,” and another, “executive.” During this process, you need to uplevel the information from the Red Team exercise and translate it for executive audiences. If this is done well, the outcomes of your Red Team exercises can have a significant impact. When this is not done well, you will lose the positive momentum from your efforts, which can be used to drive a significant change in the organization.

So how do you acquire these storytelling skills? Personally, I was strongly encouraged to take a certification from IDEO U called Communicating for Impact, which consists of two classes: Storytelling for Influence and Impactful Presentations. However, these are by no means the only classes on this topic, and I encourage you to explore your options. What I took away from this certification was life-changing for how I create presentations, speak, and write about Red Team work. You’re probably wondering what the outcome of my story is. I uplevelled the Red Team Strategy, presented it to my audience, and was rewarded with the trust and support to carry the team forward.

You can look forward to more content about Red Team storytelling in the future…