The biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
— George Bernard Shaw
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A few weeks ago, I ran two back-to-back workshops for a team that believed their biggest problem was “communication.” Turns out, communication wasn’t the problem.
The real issue was more subtle: People weren’t noticing the signals that a conversation needed to happen — until things had already gone off the rails.
Someone would be frustrated for three weeks. Someone else would assume a decision had been made. A third person would believe they were “kept out of the loop.” All because nobody caught the early cues.
It reminded me of something I’ve seen in hundreds of teams:
Better storytelling doesn’t begin with telling. It begins with noticing.
And that leads to the core theme of this issue.
The Quiet Skill That Changes How You Communicate
Great communicators aren’t necessarily the loudest or the most charismatic. They’re the ones who can read the moment before the moment. They notice the tiny signs that a conversation is needed:
A teammate suddenly goes silent
A stakeholder’s email tone changes
A meeting ends with people saying “yes” but meaning “I’m not convinced”
A deliverable is technically correct but emotionally off
A request sounds simple but carries hidden anxiety
This is the space where conversations are either made or missed. And the people who notice it don’t just tell stories — they let stories emerge. Those are the people who lead better, align faster, and influence more consistently.
This Week’s Framework: The Signal Scan
Here’s a 60-second way to identify which conversation you need before you start telling the story. When something feels “off,” pause and ask:
What’s rising? Emotion, frustration, confusion, urgency?
What’s missing? Information, expectation, clarity, alignment?
What’s drifting? Timelines, commitments, ownership, trust?
These three questions help you decide which of the four core conversation types to initiate:
Initiative → when something is rising
Understanding → when something is missing
Performance → when something is drifting
Closure → when something must be ended (or reset)
Once you identify which conversation is needed, choosing the right story or framework becomes simple and almost automatic.
So what does that mean for you?
In one workshop, a product manager said: “I keep giving status updates to my stakeholders, but they still feel blindsided.”
After doing a quick Signal Scan, she realized the problem wasn’t the updates. It was that her stakeholders were actually anxious.
She was giving information, while they needed reassurance. She needed to have a different conversation and her story needed to be different.
Once she recognised the anxiety, she changed how she opened her updates.
She’d start with something like, “Here’s what we know, here’s what we don’t know yet, and here’s what we’re doing next.”
It became a steadier story — one her stakeholders could finally relax into.
Try This Week
A 3-minute exercise: For the next seven days, do this once a day:
Recall one conversation that didn’t go well.
Identify one signal you missed.
Ask:
What was rising?
What was missing?
What was drifting?
By the end of the week, you’ll have a personal “signal library.” Your conversations will shift — fast, and so will your storytelling.
A Note from Us
At Zebu, we’re starting something new in the year ahead — a small, warm community for people who want to practice the craft of storytelling together.
If you’d like to be part of it, or if you want a simple checklist to start a storytelling group of your own at work or with friends, reply to this email or click here.
Storytelling grows when it’s told.
Storytellers grow when they’re heard.