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Most business stories have a problem. They just don’t always sound like they do.
Someone stands up to give a presentation and tells us, “We launched a new service, the team worked really hard, our clients loved it and we achieved excellent results.” That may all be true, but it isn’t much of a story.
What’s missing is conflict.
I don’t mean shouting, arguments or dramatic confrontations. In storytelling, conflict simply means that something gets in the way. Someone wants something, but it isn’t easy to get. There’s uncertainty, resistance, a mistake, a difficult decision or a problem that needs solving.
Without that, stories tend to become a sequence of events rather than something an audience actually wants to follow.
Why we often remove the most interesting part
In business, we’re often trained to present the polished version. We show the successful project, the impressive result, the happy client and the lesson learned.
What we’re less comfortable talking about is everything that happened in the middle: the moment we thought the idea might fail, the client objection we didn’t know how to answer, the presentation that went badly, the decision we agonised over or the conversation we didn’t want to have.
Yet those are often the moments an audience finds most interesting. They are also the moments that make us relatable.
If everything worked perfectly from the beginning, there’s very little for an audience to emotionally connect with.
There are two kinds of conflict
There are two broad types of conflict: external and internal.
External conflict is the obstacle we can see. A deadline is brought forward. A major client pulls out. The technology fails five minutes before a presentation. A competitor launches something similar. A member of the team suddenly leaves.
Internal conflict is what happens inside the person experiencing it. Do I speak up? What if I fail? Should I take the risk? Am I good enough to do this? What if I make the wrong decision?
Very often, the most compelling stories contain both.
Imagine someone about to deliver the biggest presentation of their career. The external conflict might be that the projector stops working. But the deeper internal conflict is that they already doubt whether they belong in that room.
Now we have something much more interesting.
The projector is the problem. Confidence is the real story.
Conflict creates tension
A good story doesn’t rush straight from the problem to the solution. Something gets harder, the stakes increase or another obstacle appears.
That doesn’t mean exaggerating what happened. Your story still needs to be truthful. It simply means resisting the temptation to tidy everything up too quickly.
This happens constantly in business storytelling. We hear, “We had a challenge, so we introduced a new process and everything improved.”
But what happened between those two things?
Did people resist the change? Did the first attempt fail? Was there a moment when you nearly abandoned the idea? Were you forced to rethink your original assumptions?
That middle section is usually where the story lives.
The conflict must be relatable
Conflict on its own isn’t enough. The audience needs to care about it.
Your audience might never have run your particular business, managed your particular project or stood in your exact situation. But they almost certainly know what it feels like to be uncertain, to make a mistake, to feel under pressure, to worry about disappointing someone or to have to choose between two imperfect options.
That’s why a very specific story can still connect with a very broad audience.
The circumstances belong to you. The emotion belongs to everyone.
This matters beyond keynote speaking
Conflict isn’t just useful when you’re standing on a stage telling a dramatic personal story. It can strengthen all kinds of business communication.
If you’re presenting a case study, don’t just explain the result. Show us the obstacle. If you’re talking about organisational change, explain what wasn’t working beforehand. If you’re introducing a new idea to your team, show them the problem it solves. If you’re speaking about your company’s history, don’t just list milestones. Tell us about the moments when success wasn’t guaranteed.
Conflict creates contrast, and contrast helps people understand why the outcome matters.
Don’t hide the struggle
One of the biggest misconceptions about professional communication is that credibility comes from appearing to have everything under control.
In reality, stories about problems, uncertainty and mistakes can often increase credibility when they are used well.
Instead of simply telling your audience that you have experience, you are showing them what that experience has taught you. You are demonstrating judgement, learning and resilience rather than just presenting a polished result.
So next time you’re preparing a story for a presentation, don’t only ask, “What happened?”
Ask, “What got in the way?”
Because very often, that is where your audience starts listening.
