Turning Employees Into Advocates: Employee Storytelling in Internal Comms

Emma Fischer: Hi, and welcome to the You’ve Got Comms podcast. In today’s episode, we’re going to dive into both employee storytelling and digital advocacy. I have Nicholas Bruneau here. He’s a communications powerhouse, and he has worked for some of the most purpose-driven organizations in the world. I’m talking the World Bank, the UN, and the EU.

From turning data impact into human stories to launching global campaigns, he’s a communications strategist and the author of Engage with Impact. Today, I am really eager to pick your brain because we have a lot of storytelling topics to dive into. 

Nicholas Bruneau: Thank you very much for the introduction. I like the word “powerhouse.” I’ve never heard that used in that way. Thank you very much for having me.

Emma Fischer: We’re really happy to have you, but I’m going to have to start out with a hot topic because it’s what everyone’s talking about is we’re flooded with AI, we’re flooded with misinformation. I think we live in a world where things are so uncannily artificial, we don’t know what’s real, what’s fake. You’re somebody who champions personal, authentic storytelling over this big corporate picture. Can you let us know, why does human-centered storytelling matter so much today?

Nicholas Bruneau: First of all, if we take a look back a couple of years ago, you may remember that the word “authentic” was the most searched word of, I think it was 2023. Why is that? Just because this is the year that all this AI-driven content, this fake or me-too content started coming out. People really wanted to find out, “How can I be authentic? What does that mean, really?”

As far as communications is concerned and internal comms, it’s the same thing where you want to create that trust and you want to be able to create some authentic content that really, really connects with people in the first person. One of the ways I think that you’re able to break through the noise and really to pierce through all of this content that is online nowadays is really to tell stories, but also to tell personal stories.

I think that’s one of the key things. For example, when I was working with the Global Partnership for Education we looked at, how can we improve our storytelling, but also how can we improve our video? Then we actually realized that video was not only getting maybe 10–20% more engagement, but the videos that had talking heads, people speaking, people really talking about their challenges, those are the ones that really resonated with their audiences.

I think it’s trying to set up a system that allows you to tell stories internally and working internally, and finding champions that can tell their story from their point of view about key issues that are important for your company, and not trying to control, necessarily, the outcome. Of course, I think we all have to give some guidance and we all have to make sure that it aligns with the brand values of the organization, but trying to give people the ability to really speak from the heart.

One of the examples actually in my book was, in the Canadian, British Columbia wildfires, there was a communications team that was helping the wildfire first-respondent team. He did all these slick videos and it didn’t really, really connect. What really worked was the handheld mobile phone videos that really showed the struggles of the firemen. That’s what I would say. My key takeaway here is, focus on authenticity over perfection. Try to really, really galvanize your staff to give them the mic and to allow them to speak on key issues and work with them on that.

Emma Fischer: I love that because it’s something we’re actually exploring in my team at Staffbase. We are looking into what videos work. A lot of us have been really hesitant about getting on camera, recording ourselves, and then I look at your career and you’ve helped all these people in intergovernmental agencies tell their stories. I imagine there’s a lot of pressure under this and I think there’s also maybe regulation. I’m really curious, how do you help people find the confidence to share their voice and then to do that within perhaps the regulations of the company?

Nicholas Bruneau: Being on camera isn’t always something very natural. It’s a muscle that you have to keep practicing. Sometimes it will be helping people just with a picture as opposed to a video or a story as opposed to something where they are actually on camera. There’s plenty of ways in which you can tell authentic stories without necessarily having to have that video that is from a person speaking.

Having said that, there’s plenty of ways if you’re able to repurpose different content when people are speaking, when people are on, basically, an internal communications call, to try to take the best bits. For example, with this podcast I’m sure you’ll be taking the best bits of this podcast and repurposing that. That is an opportunity for something that is going to be relevant for the audience, but without having to have a long video of someone speaking.

I really think that if you give people the tools, if you give them a structure that allows them to easily tell their story, then they’re going to be much more open. For example, I don’t know if you’ve heard of the car sequence. The car sequence is really a three-step way of telling a story which is very simple. C is for Challenge. What’s the challenge that I’m facing? A is for Action. What are the actions I’m taking, or how am I trying to overcome that challenge? Then what’s the Result? That’s the R of the car sequence, talking about what is the result or desired result.

You could be talking about something relative to your company, a challenge that you’re facing, and then talking about how you’re trying to solve it, and then of course, we’re not perfect, so trying to show that human element as well. Having that structure makes it a lot easier for people to then maybe, I guess, get their feet wet in the employee advocacy space.

Emma Fischer: I think that’s a really beautiful and simple structure. I think when people start from something completely blank, this is really intimidating. So to have a structure in place, it can help you to generate ideas. One of the things I really love about what you’ve said is that people are connecting with people and not with logos. I was thinking about that and I was like, “The companies that have a good reputation like Patagonia, for example, people aren’t like, ‘Oh, I love the way the logo looks.'” It’s the message, the sustainability drive behind the company. Do you have any examples of that where you really see the human connection shining through?

Nicholas Bruneau: Of course, depending on the key issue, it’s trying to find some people that want to tell their story. First of all, internally talking with colleagues and employees, perhaps having . . . At one organization, I used to do a brown bag lunch where we talked about social media and then helped them, gave them tips. Those people that were more involved, right away you could see that they would be interested in perhaps doing something more.

While at the Global Partnership for Education, which is a fund that’s part of the World Bank, we organized an Instagram takeover by our youth leaders. Every year we work with youth leaders from around the world. What we wanted was to give the mic to them and to give them the opportunity to speak about the issues that are important to them. What did that do, is that it helped them to talk in an unvarnished way and it helped the organization as well showcase the voices of these young leaders.

You’re putting yourself in a position where you’re a facilitator, therefore it’s not your corporate speak, it’s not your corporate message that is coming out, it’s the message of people that are important for your cause or for a specific topic. That’s where, for example, for the Global Partners for Education, we had all these great videos. There was a heart-wrenching one of a girl talking about child marriage in Ethiopia. There was another one talking about access to education in Nigeria. I think that’s the way that you’re really going to get some really, really interesting content that is unvarnished.

Of course, we did it as an Instagram takeover but we still worked with them to make sure that what they were saying was aligned with the values of the organization. We posted it ourselves. Basically we asked for the videos and posted it ourselves onto Instagram and gave them the opportunity to do it. You’re still maintaining that control because I know that for a lot of big organizations, maintaining control is going to be one of the challenges here.

Emma Fischer: I know, but when things are so scripted or media trained, I know that comes across as completely inauthentic, which this just reminded me, you brought up a point and it was called Fuckup Nights, and I want to ask you about this. It reminded me, I was reading one of Matt Abraham’s books. He said that he worked with a company and this was all about . . . you would sit down every Friday and discuss your biggest failure, and whoever had the biggest failure of the week would win. The only rule is you can’t repeat a failure because you have to learn from your mistakes. It can’t ever win if this was something that already happened.

I read this and then I heard you talking about this and I was like, “This idea of sitting down and talking about failure together I think is so taboo, still, and it’s really refreshing.”

Nicholas Bruneau: Just think, in your next communication campaign, probably you’ll be doing a beautiful PowerPoint with all the best statistics about how you reach your objectives and X number of people engaged with your posts. You probably won’t be talking about the problems or the challenges you had just because I think, by nature, we want to show only the good side.

Having said that, this is where we are able to learn. We’re able to learn about what went well, what went wrong, so that in the next campaign or in the next project we’re able to improve from that.

In communications in particular, things are moving so fast. The social media channels are . . . algorithms are changing almost every couple of months. There’s either new platforms or new formats. We need to experiment. By nature, to experiment means you’re going to have some fuckups. I did really like that series of events called Fuckup Nights, which is organized around the world. I used to go to some of those events in Brussels when I used to live there. Those are mostly entrepreneurs talking about their greatest fuck-ups and what they learned from it.

Also it was great that when I talked about it in my book, someone was inspired and did the same thing in Brussels as well, but for European institutions talking about some of the challenges that they faced. I think it’s great that we open up that dialogue about not always showing the perfect side of things but trying to learn from our mistakes.

Emma Fischer: I love that because it also, I think, enforces a better sense of community when someone makes a mistake, you talk about it, you learn from it. I really think that’s very helpful. Speaking of helpful things, I now have four quick questions. It’s about comms, so we’re going to do a little quickfire round for this. The first one is what is one comms trend that excites you right now?

Nicholas Bruneau: For me, it’s really looking at AI and how it’s impacting our industry, how communications may be changing. As long as there’s a human involved in the process, as long as we’re not leaving AI on autopilot and we’re using it as a tool, just like I use this computer, just like any other tool that we use, that’s really exciting. I think we all have to learn and try to use and experiment with AI, following up on that comment of yours as well.

Emma Fischer: I think that is an essential aspect of our jobs now. What is one trend that scares you, makes you nervous?

Nicholas Bruneau: I would say probably the same thing, and the fact that AI done badly can really, really harm your brand. It can really have some very negative impacts on the organization. Particularly, if we all start to sound robotic and we all use the same content online, our organizations are going to lose their own personality. It’s trying to keep our hand on the wheel and make sure that we are maintaining that personality, and also, we are making sure that everything is checked more than once.

I think one of the issues, and I read this recently, was that numerous organizations . . . I think there was a survey by . . . it was a messaging app that basically said that 43% hadn’t received guidance on AI internally about how to use AI at work. What are some corporate guidelines as far as using AI? Little by little, I think we’re getting there, where some organizations are bringing in a suite of AI tools, but there has to be education in the process. I think as internal comms leaders, that is our role to educate everyone internally about using AI, using it in a sustainable way, and in a way that preserves our brand value. That’s, I think, an important takeaway.

Emma Fischer: I completely agree. One thing, I feel like AI has brought in so much repetitive sentence structure, and I noticed the em dash. ChatGPT is obsessed with this, and I’ve just started seeing it everywhere now. I’m like, “These things sound repetitive.” I think using it as a starting point is really helpful, but then giving it your own flair. Like what you said, it has to meet the company standards and it has to be consistent for your company. The answer could also be AI to this question, but what is one tool that you think could also be a strategy every communicator should have right now?

Nicholas Bruneau: I think I’m a big proponent of not reinventing the wheel and trying to create, basically, messaging that is going to help everybody work together without having to, like I said, reinvent the wheel every time. For example, with Staffbase, if you have a position on, let’s say, climate change, what is that position and why? What are some of the things that you’re doing to be carbon neutral, for example? This should be something that you’re able to communicate with confidence, that is already well-researched and has, ideally, some case studies so that anyone in the organization can speak on key issues that are important for your brand.

Once again, when I was at the Global Partnership for Education, they developed an on-message tool. They did it primarily because of the pandemic, because things were going so fast during the pandemic, and they needed something that had the updated facts and figures on COVID and showed really how the organization was dealing with it. It was so popular that then they branched it out to other topics, so girls’ education, climate change, DEI, all these key issues that are, sometimes, complex, so trying to summarize that into maybe one or two pages so that everyone across the organization is able to speak with the same voice on these very sensitive issues.

That, I think, would really help. I even know that there’s a crisis comms company that is also developing an app that has a similar ethos where the app helps senior executives from the company to have, at the touch of a button, information on key issues that are relevant so that when they’re on the go, they have that briefing, for example.

Emma Fischer: I love that. That’s something we work on all the time and talk about is, we have an SMS system, so it’s like, crisis, what happens. You can geolocation it, you can target it. Personally, I’m not a leader, I’m a content creator for my company, but I think it’s so important when something bad happens, you just say it right away, you involve everybody and you’re transparent. I think having a playbook, I know we’re going to talk about this in a second, something in place is just essential, because when people go rogue, this is when there’s a cover-up, there’s something not said. The, “Inform everybody at once,” is a huge aspect of communications.

Nicholas Bruneau: Yes, especially when you need to be agile.

Emma Fischer: Now for the last quick question, and then I can’t wait to ask about the playbook. What is a fail that you have personally learned from with storytelling?

Nicholas Bruneau: For me, the first thing about storytelling is it has to be a collaborative approach. You may think that there’s a great story to tell, but if, internally, there isn’t support for that story or for that topic, then your story is going to probably be left in the file folders and never get published if it doesn’t align with the priorities of the organization or with the resources available. Sometimes, there’s no time for people to really participate or take part in that story.

I have written quite a few stories that never saw the light of day and so that’s unfortunate. Now what I try to do is try to make sure that there’s an internal buy-in and then there’s also the resources to publish that story. It’s not always that easy. Sometimes you want to be creative and do something new. Anyways, I guess it’s trying to see what is the support for that?

Another thing was, I remember a story that we worked on and it’s only afterwards that we realized that the tactic used by the advocate didn’t align with our values, didn’t align with our brand and the messaging that we wanted. We even had someone that went all the way to Kenya to film and to take pictures. We had to try to see, “How do we save this story?” We were able to, I guess, do some clever wordsmithing to try to save the story and make sure that it was aligned with our goals as an organization. I think sometimes you do have some surprises and that makes you work double time.

Emma Fischer: Oh, I know this. I’ve worked as a ghostwriter. I’m like, “I have these amazing ideas for somebody,” and I’ve written lots of pieces and they’re like, “No, I don’t want to talk about this.” I’m like, “I think people would love to hear it.” What I’ve learned is you can try to convince somebody what they should talk about, but you just have to listen. It’s a no from somebody and go with what they want to do.

Nicholas Bruneau: Yes, or at least, have that conversation first and then see if there’s support for that idea. Exactly. The more we can work collaboratively on storytelling, the better it is because then you’re really involving people from the bottom up and then they really feel part of the stories.

Emma Fischer: I think we’ve definitely established why storytelling is important, but now I’d like to switch things so we could talk about how to do it a bit. I know you’ve led trainings, you’ve built tools, and you’ve helped employees share their stories, but one idea you talked about that we didn’t touch upon totally is the advocacy playbook. I’d love to know what should go in an employee advocacy playbook, and then how do you get people to pay attention to it?

Nicholas Bruneau: First of all, it shouldn’t be a playbook that just sits on a shelf. It should be something that is alive and that changes. Like I said, if you’re able to organize informal meetings like brown-bag lunches organized in one organization, or training sessions for different teams on communications, then you’re already able to hit the ground running, but you need a structure.

If you have an employee advocacy playbook, that allows you to then talk about, what are the key priorities, how employees can get involved, and leaving their door open, I think trying to give them the opportunity to feed into that playbook so that it’s not just something that is seen as a big corporate brand guidelines that is very rigid, but something where you can have that conversation.

First it’s maybe trying to then work with colleagues to. . . . Let’s say you have a major event, to see who’s going to the event, to work with them to see who would like to participate or create content, or at least take pictures, or give anecdotes at that event. I worked with Owens Corning a while back, which is the composite side of Owens Corning. They were going to a lot of B2B events and a lot of trade shows, but they realized that they weren’t having an impact on social media because their employees weren’t engaged and it was very difficult for them to create content about and during the event.

I organized workshops internally, I got everybody involved. Whoever was going to an event was part of this small team that was participating in communication, so everybody from the sales people to the technical people to, of course, the comms people. Everybody felt involved, and with the WhatsApp group, everybody was sharing. It creates a virtuous circle where people are encouraged because they see that their colleague is also doing something and position themselves as a thought leader.

Other people may think, “Well, how can I do that as well?” It’s setting the tone and getting people involved that way. Having that employee playbook that is going to have things like, of course, do’s and don’ts, what we should and shouldn’t be talking about. Of course, nowadays, maybe avoid speaking about politics, and also to give advice about how to be a thought leader on these key issues. What are the key issues that are important for the organization? How can employees really position themselves as thought leaders?

Not necessarily just parroting what the organization is saying or the new product version or things like that. I think that maybe that’s fine, but it’s really for them to talk about, what is their point of view on a specific topic? It’s helping them, really guiding them. Having advice in that playbook about that, and, of course, having some FAQs about different things that they may be interested to know, some contact details, and then maybe even a central hashtag.

For example, I know that for your events, you use the Comms Club hashtag. That allows you whenever there’s a Comms Club event to really rally everybody around those hashtags, making people aware of those hashtags so that they’re participating in it. If you want, maybe creating a specific hashtag for a specific type of post, like maybe Staffbase life or something that really shows the employee experience at Staffbase. I think there’s plenty of different ways in which you can do it and then just have fun with it.

Emma Fischer: I know at Staffbase we have Staffluencers, so little Staffbase influencers. When it comes to that, is it kind of the go-to way to do this? You find the people who are making the most waves or have the strongest voice and then you work from them to try to bring other people in?

Nicholas Bruneau: Yes, definitely. They will be showing the way and galvanizing others. It shouldn’t be something where people are obliged like, “If you’re going to this event, you need to boast about our new launch.” No, on the contrary, it’s just something where, if they feel inclined to share something. Different people will have different levels. I think that it should be something where they really feel engaged on a personal level.

Emma Fischer: From there, you grow that to an authentic movement. I really like that because I think if you’re forced to do something, it’s really obvious, it’s minimal effort. One thing I don’t like is if everyone’s posting the same thing, if there’s a template and nobody is changing it up. You see the same template ten times and then you wonder, “Does anyone even believe anything they’re saying?”

Nicholas Bruneau: Yes, exactly. I think you have to give people the flexibility to adapt their messaging and their posts so that it’s not just basically a cut-and-paste.

Emma Fischer: I know still a lot of people are nervous about telling their stories. They don’t know, I guess, how personal to get with things. It’s a line between, do people want to share this because it’s things we don’t talk about, or is it too much to share in a professional environment? Do you have any guidance or advice maybe from the past when you’ve helped all these professional people tell their stories if someone’s nervous?

Nicholas Bruneau: This is part of the employee guidebook where basically, you have to ask yourself before you post something, before you hit publish, “Is this something that I would be happy to say in a public environment and not just to a friend? Is this something that would not be frowned upon?”

I think it’s trying to find that middle ground where we are conscious about the fact that if we want to be part of this employee advocacy program, then of course you have to post content that is going to be aligned with the organization. Having said that, it shouldn’t be, as we said, something that is prescribed and very limited. It’s really trying to give that flexibility, but still helping them to really show their expertise.

Emma Fischer: I think when you work for a company that embraces failure, you have a lot more freedom to explore that when you’re not as worried all the time. I do think that’s why it ties into talking about your failures because it encourages people to be more innovative, to share more. I know on the other end, with the internet and everything, I see sometimes, not as often because I’m not on Facebook, I’m on LinkedIn, it’s better, but I’m like, “I can’t believe people put this on the internet. It lives there forever. You didn’t have to post that.” There’s that issue. So, I think taking a minute, thinking it over, making sure I want to put my name to this, my name and my company’s branding. I think that is a smart move.

Nicholas Bruneau: If it would be something that it would be okay to say in a company meeting, then of course. No, I think the litmus test was, if you would be okay saying this to a journalist, for example. That was the litmus test. Now I remember. If you feel like you’re okay saying that to a journalist, then that means that it should be okay to go.

Emma Fischer: I worked in journalism before this position. Sometimes I would be investigating someone on a city council and then I would look at their Facebook, and I would just be like, “I can’t believe a public figure has all of this publicly.” I think they should consider, “Hey, well, journalism.” Then people are like, “It’s their personal life,” but it’s like, you’re making it your public life and you’re tying that into your career. I think that’s really good advice.

Before we talk about our final topics, I would love to bring up the statistic — because I think this is really important for listeners — did you quote that it was 500% more likely if somebody posts something on their personal page to get views than on the brand page?

Nicholas Bruneau: Absolutely. That’s a statistic that is a well-known stat.

Emma Fischer: We talk about this a lot.

Nicholas Bruneau: It’s really impressive, and that can include, as well, the CEO, it can include C-suite. Essentially, people will be much more open to sharing and engaging with posts from employees about the company as opposed to just the usual company posts. There are some other ways as well, by trying to have a personality online, as well, so that your company has a personality, but there’s nothing that is going to beat that employee engagement. As that statistic shows, 500% more engagement is really something that we should all pay attention to. If done right, it really, really makes a difference.

Emma Fischer: I think that it is essential. We found what works really well is the classic selfie or a group photo of people, as opposed, of course, stock photos, AI, any of that stuff. When you see someone’s face and you can connect with them, this is working so well for us, what we can tell.

Nicholas Bruneau: I think that, have fun if you’re able to have fun with it, and if you’ve already set those guidelines as we talked about, then it all will come together.

Emma Fischer: As we’re winding down, I wanted to touch back. You said the virtuous circle of sharing. I think this sounds like a really beautiful concept because people are seen, they’re supported, and this definitely would foster psychological safety, which is a big topic that we’ve been exploring as well. What does this look like in practice? Is it somewhere where, like I said, it’s like safety, you can feel safe to speak up, and you feel safe to be heard?

Nicholas Bruneau: if the comms team is really a resource, if they’re really helping employees to find their voice as well, it’s not always natural, if they’re able to be risen up and taken through that process, then I think that’s where you can really take somebody on a journey where they really feel like they’re part of this movement, or this community where they can really share their views, and they’re being supported by the comms team.

I do think that the more participative we do it, the better it is. I always say, I don’t know if you know the saying, if you feed a man a fish, you feed him for a day, and if you teach a man to fish, then you feed him for a lifetime. It’s the same thing with storytelling. If you’re able to help people to teach them how to tell stories, then they will be much more open to participating, they will be much more participative, and you’ll really, really have something that will really showcase the personality of your organization.

Emma Fischer: I love what you said, that comms people help build people up because I think it’s a duality. They’re shaping the company narrative, but then they’re building the narrative for individuals, and then, like you said, empowering them.

That reminds me. We did a study with USC Annenberg. We saw that 61% of people would consider leaving their job because of poor internal communications. This really showed me it’s a leading factor in people being disengaged and wanting to leave a company. I think when you’re building people up person by person, and then setting off that snowball effect, it really makes the company culture so much stronger. It’s a retention strategy now, I think.

Nicholas Bruneau: Absolutely. That research, I remember, talked about the hybrid environment and how internal comms is even more important in a hybrid environment or a remote environment, where people are yearning for that kind of internal comms that will help them understand and participate in the company culture.

Emma Fischer: Speaking of the comms trends I’m afraid of, I saw that there’s an AI to make your eyes look forward so that you can just space out during calls, so I’m like, if people are in hybrid environments, they have the AI eyes on. You really have to come up with these new ways for people to connect with each other. Storytelling, I know it makes things, I think, 22 times more memorable if you tell something in a story than if you just tell something as a fact. I think this is a really good way to connect with people and build something authentic.

Nicholas Bruneau: If I can take a step back as well, I’m not against AI. I think that, as well, there’s also a new trend, which is the AI personalities, these AI avatars that are now becoming more and more lifelike. A lot of them are being used by brands to showcase, basically, lifestyles or different trends.

I do think that perhaps that is also something that if you want to be able to have an AI personality that is going to talk about your brand in a certain way, if you have a specific audience, let’s say Staffbase wanted to tap into a very young audience, then there’s no reason why they wouldn’t be able to have a Staffbase avatar that would be more free and more relaxed, and to use that as a way to speak differently with different audiences. That is a trend that is growing.

Having said that, it’s important to do it well. It’s important if you do something like that, that it’s going to be something that supports your message, that doesn’t deter or basically, become a story in itself. There’s an example in my book, which is the campaign from Italy, which is “Open to Meraviglia,” and they have this virtual influencer that looks like one of the paintings of Botticelli. She’s eating pizza, driving a Vespa, and just doing selfies in the middle of Sanremo in Rome.

Emma Fischer: Is it the Venus?

Nicholas Bruneau: Exactly, yes. She looks just like Venus. It really was very unoriginal. Actually, they were, in the video, even using stock footage that wasn’t even from Italy. When it’s not done well, I think that you have to really, really make sure that whatever you do, that it’s really aligned with your messaging and can really support your communications.

Emma Fischer: Oh, I love AI as well. I use ChatGPT all the time, especially in personal writing. I’m putting in my writing and I get amazing feedback like, “Work on this, this, this.” I ask for a thorough analysis and it really helps me to grow as a writer. I think it’s what you mentioned earlier. It’s your first step and then the second step is the human touch. I can see, I feel like, examples and people just do the first step and it’s so repetitive, the sentence structure, the wording. It’s invigorating, it inspires. I love when people give it their own personality and their own play to it.

Nicholas Bruneau: For example, when I was writing my book, I wanted to listen to it, and so I used text-to-voice to hear my book spoken to me. That actually helped me to see that some of the sentences were a little bit long or some of the words were a little bit too complicated. By using AI, sometimes it can actually help you to sound more human, if that makes sense.

Emma Fischer: I can’t believe I never thought of that. That’s really helpful. AI really actually helped me to see where I can make my sentences smoother. They’re always . . . I say “they.” I know it’s an it, but it’s interesting. I think it passed the Turing Test for feeling quite realistic these days. If you think of that as a companion, but at the same time, don’t be afraid to share things with your team.

Nicholas Bruneau: Definitely.

Emma Fischer: Is there a final takeaway you would want to tell viewers about storytelling? Why is storytelling essential in 2025?

Nicholas Bruneau: I’d say that, let’s try to be more authentic, but let’s do it in a collaborative way. That’s my message: set some guidelines, help people to tell their stories, and then you’ll see 500% results. 

Emma Fischer: I think that is a really good line. People can repeat that line to anyone to really try to get the C-suite on board, to get people involved, tell your story for the company and for yourself too, I think. Thank you so much for this conversation. Where can we find more about your work? We’re going to link everything in the notes, but I know you have a website.

Nicholas Bruneau: Yes, it’s pretty simple. My book, Engage with Impact, can be found at engagewithimpact.com. That’s really easy. There’s also a free guide, which outlines the key areas of the book and the key framework that I talk about in the book. You’re also welcome to follow me on LinkedIn. It’s Nicholas Bruneau with E-A-U at the end.

Emma Fischer: Thank you so much. I’m really excited to share this conversation with everybody.

Nicholas Bruneau: Thank you very much, Emma.