Story Business: Conversation with Gavin McMahon

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Loading...

  Gavin McMahon is a founder and Chief Content Officer for fassforward consulting group. He leads the design and product development of fassforward’s services. This crosses diverse topics, including Leadership, culture, decision-making, information design, storytelling, and learning design.

In this interview, Gavin talks about his new book, Story Business.

Geetesh: Gavin, Story Business grew out of your work in strategy, leadership, and consulting. What kept going wrong in the way good ideas were communicated, and why did that make you want to write the book?

Gavin: I kept seeing the same problem through different doors. Clients would come to us with a strategy people weren’t executing, a leadership message that wasn’t landing, or a capability they needed to build. On the surface, these looked like different problems. Underneath, they are all translation problems.

Leaders had good ideas, solid data, and plenty of PowerPoint. Yet people couldn’t see what the idea meant for them or what they were supposed to do next. The strategy stayed in the boardroom, and people went back to doing yesterday’s work. That is the gap I wanted to address.

Story Business treats storytelling as a practical business skill. It helps people package ideas so others can understand them, believe them, remember them, and act on them. The central idea is simple: It’s not the best idea that wins; it’s the best-packaged idea.

When you ask, “Why now?” I would say storytelling is humanity’s oldest technology. It matters now more than ever as frontier technologies produce more information, more channels, and more content than we know what to do with.

Meaning is still scarce. Leaders need a better way to take complexity and make it simple. To share context. To frame the way people see the world and move them to action.

Geetesh: Story Business has won Gold in the Business & Career category at the 2026 IBPA Book Awards and earned praise from Ken Blanchard and other respected leaders. What does that recognition mean to you, and what do you hope it signals to readers?

Gavin: Thank you. The book has also been shortlisted for Business Book of the Year and nominated for other awards. The good news is that someone has read it. When you’re in the middle of writing a book, the thought that no one might read it crosses your mind…

The awards and accolades mean a great deal. A book begins as a private act. It is years of work, experience, and ideas rattling around in your head. Recognition like this tells me those ideas have made their journey out into the world and connected with people.

Ken Blanchard’s praise is especially meaningful. And a huge surprise. He has spent a career taking management ideas and making them simple, memorable, and useful. That is what I wanted Story Business to do. For readers, I hope the recognition acts as a signal. Storytelling belongs to the center of how we lead, sell, build products, shape culture, and create value. It shapes how we think. It’s part of the human condition.

Hopefully, an award helps someone pick up the book. If you’re reading this, I hope you do. The real success comes when that reader takes one idea from the book to make a strategy clearer, a presentation stronger, or a decision easier. That is the win.

Geetesh: Indezine readers know PowerPoint inside out. What is the one change you hope they make in their next presentation after reading Story Business?

Gavin: I would say, don’t open PowerPoint first.

Start with the audience. Write down three things:

1. What do they feel now?
2. What do they need to know?
3. What do you want them to do?

That small pause changes the whole deck. It’s the start of your storytelling journey. It’s the beginning of making your audience the hero of the story.

Most presentations begin in the presenter’s world: the title, the company, the agenda, and everything we want to say.

A strong presentation begins in the audience’s world: the decision they face, the problem in their way, and the better future they can see. Make them the hero.

Then build a clear path: a Hook that earns attention, enough Meat to make the case, and a Payoff that makes the next move obvious.

In practice, replace “Q3 transformation update” with something like “Three decisions that will get the transformation back on track.” Same material. Better headline. Better story. Clearer action. You can tell great stories in PowerPoint, but first you have to tell them in your mind.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.