As part of our Insight Communication Experts (ICE) series, I spoke with Gary Strudwick, Head of Performance and Insight at West Sussex County Council, to explore how insight storytelling shows up once teams leave the training workshop and return to the day job. The ICE conversations are shaping our upcoming white paper on insight communication and activation, capturing what helps insight move beyond reporting to really drive action.
Gary leads a team responsible for turning complex performance and operational data into insights that inform senior leaders and service teams across the council. Like every team I speak with, the team at WSCC need to manage busy workloads and delivery pressures alongside any behaviour and cultural changes.
What shifted quickly after the training?
Immediately after the training, Gary noticed a familiar pattern: a burst of enthusiasm and experimentation.
Team members were keen to apply the storytelling frameworks they had learned, experimenting with new ways of structuring dashboards, presentations, and insight outputs. Storytelling adoption varied across individuals within the team, with some team members embracing it enthusiastically, while others adopting it more gradually, sometimes even without realising it. But as operational pressures increase, some individuals naturally slipped back into their previous ways of working, meaning regular reinforcement is necessary.
“This is a real culture shift – and culture shifts always take time.”
Rather than treating storytelling as a one-off skills-based initiative, Gary began reinforcing it in everyday conversations. In meetings with the team, he repeatedly challenged them with the same questions:
- What question are we trying to answer?
- What story are we trying to tell?
- How are we going to engage our audience?
Over time, this repetition began to shift expectations – both within the team and among stakeholders.
What habits have really stuck?
One of the most effective ways Gary reinforced storytelling was by embedding it into existing organisational processes, rather than treating it as a standalone skill. Storytelling was incorporated into the team’s performance operating model, ensuring it became part of how insight work was delivered, rather than an optional enhancement.
He also linked storytelling development to personal development plans, creating what he describes as a “golden thread” between training, day-to-day work and professional growth. Every team member now has an objective related to developing storytelling capability.
This approach helped signal that storytelling wasn’t simply a communication technique, it was a core capability expected of the insight function.
What mindset shift made the biggest difference?
The biggest shift wasn’t technical but psychological: confidence.
For some team members, presenting insights to senior leaders or service professionals felt daunting. Gary described how junior analysts often produced the analysis but were not given the opportunity to deliver the story themselves.
When team members were encouraged to present their work directly, the impact was significant.
“The biggest change we’ve seen is confidence. When analysts deliver the story themselves, everything changes.”
One senior analyst, initially lacking confidence when presenting insights to experienced operational leaders, was tasked with delivering a key output. Using storytelling techniques to explain the purpose behind metrics and changes made to the framework, he positioned the message as a journey with a clear beginning, middle and end. When he delivered the presentation himself, he saw first-hand that the audience engaged differently with the insight story. The result was transformative. Feedback from stakeholders was overwhelmingly positive, and the analyst’s confidence grew dramatically.
In another example, team members were encouraged to present locality insights to elected council members – an audience quite different from internal colleagues. By triangulating population data, economic indicators and service information, they were able to tell clearer stories about local conditions and priorities.
These experiences helped demonstrate that storytelling wasn’t about presentation style, it was about helping their audience understand the bigger picture.
What impact is this having on decisions and senior engagement?
As storytelling began to embed, Gary noticed several shifts in how insights were received.
First, presentations became more engaging. Rather than simply reporting performance metrics, the team started framing insights around the purpose behind the analysis and the implications for decision-making.
Second, storytelling helped create more meaningful conversations with leadership teams. Gary shared an example from a discussion on productivity, where instead of presenting a single performance metric, the team used storytelling to explain the complexity behind the data, highlighting how different service contexts required different interpretations.
By walking leaders through the context and implications, the conversation shifted from simply reviewing numbers and setting targets in an arbitrary way, to exploring what the data meant and what actions might follow. In this way, storytelling helped create space for reflection rather than simply delivering information.
Where does embedding storytelling remain a challenge?
Despite progress, several challenges remain. The biggest constraint is time.
Like many organisations, Gary’s team operates in an environment of constant delivery pressure. Meetings are back-to-back, requests are frequent, and analysts often feel the need to produce outputs quickly rather than taking time to reflect and shape the story.
Gary observes that many analysts feel uncomfortable stepping away from producing dashboards or spreadsheets to think more deeply about the message they want to convey.
There is also a cultural challenge around recognising and sharing success. Team members often view good presentations as simply “doing their job,” rather than opportunities to reflect on what worked and share learning with colleagues.
What needs to change next?
To sustain momentum, Gary is experimenting with several approaches.
One is adopting a coaching mindset with his leadership team. Rather than providing answers, he encourages managers to ask questions that prompt reflection:
- What would success look like?
- How should we tell this story?
- What do our stakeholders need to understand?
This coaching approach helps team members develop their own storytelling capability rather than relying on managerial direction.
Gary is also encouraging analysts to step forward and present their work directly to stakeholders, building confidence and ownership.
Finally, he is promoting greater awareness of communication styles and stakeholder preferences through ‘Insights profiling’, helping the team adapt how they tell stories depending on their audience needs and preferences.
What does this tell us about insight communication in practice?
Gary’s reflections reinforce several themes emerging across this interview series:
- Storytelling is not about developing skills but a cultural shift
- Embedding storytelling requires leadership reinforcement and repetition
- Confidence grows when analysts present their own insights directly
- Time to think and reflect is essential for good storytelling
- Linking storytelling to performance processes helps it stick
Ultimately, storytelling becomes sustainable when it is woven into everyday work rather than treated as a separate skill.
These themes are echoed across multiple interviews and form the backbone of our upcoming white paper on insight communication and activation in practice.
We will be sharing more insights from the interviews and the white paper over the coming months…so watch this space.