Nancy Duarte

CEO @Duarte & best-selling author. Passionate about persuasion and visual stories used in business. Love hugs from hubby, three kids, and two grandsons.

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

Hubby just asked if when Fable 5 messes up, do I call it "Dirt Claude". He's so cute. I confess that when it's having a super smart smart day, I call it Claudia.

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

Leaders today have a seemingly impossible task (especially given how fast AI is advancing).

You’re supposed to provide your team with clarity and direction in what is easily one of the most uncertain eras in history.

We have no idea what is coming in the next few years, let alone what jobs will look like.

But your people are looking to you for a sense of certainty.

And the “traditional” ways of communicating change won’t cut it anymore in this new world.

That’s why 20+ experts got together and wrote Leading for Tomorrow. It’s a complete guide for leading in the age of AI and constant change.

I’m honored to have had the opportunity to write one of the chapters, and I can confidently say this should be required reading for any leader.

It covers everything from how to use AI to getting your team to adopt it.

Order you pre-order your copy here: https://t.co/4OcbdDO4RR

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

Is being a great presenter a talent you’re born with, or a skill anyone can learn?

I’ve analyzed hundreds of the world’s most iconic speeches, carefully identifying where the speaker pauses, where the audience laughs, and the specific moments that change the feeling in the room.

And what I noticed was that all of the best presentations fit the same general shape. They kept moving the audience between two places:

The world as it is, and the world as it could be.

Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until the gap between the two was impossible to ignore.

It was repeated across different speakers, different decades, different topics, and different circumstances entirely.

But the same underlying pattern kept appearing.

That’s when I realized that structure is what moves an audience.

And a structure can be studied, practiced, and repeated by anyone willing to put in the work.

(This is what led to me creating the Presentation Sparkline™.)

So if you’ve ever watched a brilliant speaker and thought, “I could never do that,” you’re only half right.

Maybe you couldn’t do it exactly their way.

But you can absolutely follow the pattern and do it YOUR way.

Great presenting is a learnable skill.

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

Duarte has a lot of great tactics for handling objections. This one is my favorite:

Say the objection before they do.

When your audience feels like you haven’t thought through their main objection, they shut down. But when they feel understood, they open up.

So when you name the resistance your audience is already thinking (before they do), they relax, which is what you want in a presentation.

If you know your team is going to worry about bandwidth, you might say:

“Now if I were you, I’d probably be thinking: ‘Do we have the people for this?’ I was worried about the very same thing. That’s exactly why I designed a small pilot first.”

If credibility is the issue:

“You might be feeling skeptical. And you know what? That’s fair. Let me show you what’s different this time…”

That’s it.

Just say the thing everyone is thinking out loud, and address it briefly, but directly.

It shows confidence. It shows preparation. And it shows your audience something they probably don’t see nearly enough in presentations like this:

Respect.

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

After coaching executives for decades, Duarte can usually tell in the first 90 seconds of a presentation whether it’s going to move the room or not.

A big part of it depends on who they’ve cast as the hero of the story.

It’s often:

Executive= main character
Audience = supporting cast

But it should be the opposite:

The audience is made up of the heroes.
And the exec is the mentor.

Think Yoda to Luke. Gandalf to Frodo.

The mentor has the wisdom, the context, the tools. But they’re not the one who has to walk through the fire to reach the goal. The hero is.

When you make yourself the smartest person in the room, you take the agency away from your audience. They become recipients of your brilliance instead of protagonists of their own story.

The question isn’t:

“What do I want them to know?”
It’s “who do I want them to become?”

Ask yourself:
Who are they when they walk in?
Who do I want them to be when they leave?

That changes the structure of your presentation, the data you choose, the language you use, and the call to action. All of it.

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

This is a great episode of The Curiosity Shop with @BreneBrown and @AdamMGrant.

So many of our best decisions require us to tell the truth about what is, while still believing in what could be.
https://t.co/DED72BEJVa

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

A statistic by itself doesn't move anyone.
“Customer churn is up 12% this quarter.”
So what?

That’s not a story. That’s a fact. And facts don’t drive decisions.

Here’s a simple three-act structure we teach at Duarte to shape data into something that actually moves people (this is a great place to start):

Act 1: State the insight.
This is where most people start and stop. “Customer churn is up 12% this quarter.”

Act 2: State where the trajectory needs to change.
What does this number need to do? Go up? Go down? By how much, by when?
“We need churn back under 7% by the end of Q3.”

Act 3: State the verb.
What’s the action that makes the trajectory change? A specific verb someone can act on. “We’re going to interview the last 50 churned customers and rebuild onboarding around what we learn.”

That’s the difference between a number on a slide and a decision in a room.

You can do this in one sentence. You can do it in three. You can do it in an executive summary.

The structure is the same:

1. State what you found.
2. State where it needs to go.
3. State the verb that gets it there.

That’s how you start using data to actually drive change.

#DataStorytelling #BusinessStorytelling #PresentationSkills

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

@sriramk Congrats Sriram! So few people could’ve done what you did. Thank you.

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

“Storytelling isn’t really my job.”

I hear it from finance leaders. From engineers. From HR. From the people who think story is just spin, fiction, or fluff you add at the end to make things sound nice.

But every job influences someone.

Finance is trying to get funding approved.
HR is trying to change behavior across an organization.
Engineering is trying to get a project across the finish line.

That’s all influence. And influence is storytelling. You’re moving someone from one belief to another. From one decision to a different one. From inaction to action.

That’s the work of a story.

You don’t need to stand on a stage or start with “once upon a time.” But you do need to understand where your audience is right now, where you need them to go, and what they need to hear to get there.

So if your job involves moving a human being from one behavior to another, then yes. Storytelling is your job.

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

When decision makers say this phrase, it usually means you got a “no”...

“We’ll circle back.”

You’ve probably seen it happen.

A leader walks into a meeting with solid data, a clear ROI, and months of work behind them. Their recommendation seems like a no-brainer, but stakeholders still pass on it.

When this happens, it’s usually not the idea itself that failed them. Decision makers don’t accept ideas just because they’re good. If that were the case, you wouldn’t have this problem.

They accept ideas that solve their problems and advance their goals.

Most leaders walk into high-stakes meetings unknowingly making themselves the “hero” of their presentation. They focus mostly on their idea, their research, and their solution.

But the leaders who consistently get “yeses” make the stakeholders the hero.

They tailor their presentations to what the people in the room need to hear, how they need to hear it, why it matters to them personally, and how it helps them accomplish their goals.

We recently made an entire course revealing our full framework for creating presentations that convince stakeholders. It gives you the same framework we’ve used to help leaders secure 9-figure deals, rally teams around massive change initiatives, and win millions in budget approvals.

Link to the course: https://t.co/E42C6pnsJD

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

Many leaders spend so much time “perfecting” their presentations that they overlook what actually determines buy-in…

The conversations in meetings where tough issues are being discussed.

That’s where even some of the most skilled leaders see their communication break down. Even with sound thinking and an air-tight case, the room can still go quiet, and decisions can stall.

When this happens, leaders usually look for a flaw in their execution. But they rarely examine one of the most common causes:

Pressure.

When the stakes rise in a meeting, leaders lean harder into the thinking process that made them successful. And what usually serves them starts working against them in the room.

The leader who values precision gets tighter. Their team concludes their input isn’t welcome.

The leader who values speed gets more decisive. Their team assumes the outcome is already determined.

The leader who values exploration opens up more options. Their team struggles to understand what’s actually been decided.

In each case, the leader leaves the room confident, but the team leaves confused.

Leaders who handle these high-stakes moments best don’t try to overhaul how they communicate. They learn to recognize how their thinking shifts under pressure and make small, deliberate adjustments before the room goes sideways.

I wrote about this in detail for @mitsmr, and I included a self-diagnosis framework for identifying which pattern you default to (and how to course-correct in the moment).

Link to the article: https://t.co/mki0R9orvu

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

@TrustVanta Great job! We <3 Vanta!

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

If your teams struggle to get buy-in from stakeholders, the problem is rarely what they’re pitching…

It’s how they’re pitching it.

I’ve watched this play out across organizations for decades.

Leaders do thorough analysis, have airtight recommendations, and pack their presentations with tons of data.

But stakeholders still say, “We’ll circle back.”

(And that usually means “No.”)

The disconnect often comes down to this…

Data by itself rarely convinces someone to take action. It needs a storyteller to shape it, connect the dots, and give it meaning for a specific audience.

Don’t assume that stakeholders will just “get it” if your leaders show them all the data.

Your leaders need to make their insights clear, provide a clear recommendation, and make the path forward feel obvious to everyone in the room.

This is the essence of data storytelling, and it is one of the highest-leverage skills your teams can learn.

If you want help figuring out where you or your team stands when it comes to data storytelling skills and get specific recommendations for how to improve, here is a link to a quick assessment: https://t.co/TIDNHaL3ly

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

@nateparrott It’s like a Christmas miracle! So happy about this.

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

@Microsoft365 Am loving all these SMART moves @microsoft365 and Copilot Cowork is a game-changer!

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

After decades of working with leaders at companies like Apple, Salesforce, and Cisco, we've identified 4 storytelling techniques that consistently work to deliver important messages in high-stakes settings:

1. Start with the unexpected

Don’t begin your presentation with context. Instead, begin with the moment that makes people think, “Wait…what?”

Instead of something like:
“Here’s an update on our September campaign…”

Try starting with the most interesting detail:
“I broke our biggest marketing rule last month, and it worked.”

Lead with the surprise. You can add context later.

2. Let people feel the tension

After the surprise, don’t rewind to the beginning. Take your audience to the moment where things weren’t working.

Flat numbers.
Missed goals.
Stalled progress.

Instead of:
“The campaign was underperforming, and our team went back to the drawing board.”

Try:
"We were two weeks out from the end of the quarter. The campaign wasn’t producing results, and the team was out of ideas. That’s when I decided to take a risk...”

You don’t need to explain the problem. You need to make people feel it.

3. Use real dialogue

When your audience hears what was actually said, they stop listening to you and start visualizing the moment. This helps them connect emotionally with what you’re saying.

Instead of:
“The campaign manager said team morale was low and they were struggling to find a solution.”

Try:
“My campaign manager pulled me aside in the hallway and said, ‘We’ve tried everything. The team has been working overtime, and we don’t know what else to do.’”

Dialogue brings listeners into the moment with you. It makes the story real.

4. Share the lesson

Never assume people will infer the meaning you intended.

End your story by answering:

- What does this mean?
- How should someone act differently now?

Example:
“Breaking our biggest marketing rule helped us turn this campaign around and hit our numbers. I strongly suggest we revisit our marketing guidelines. We could be leaving a ton of revenue on the table.”

Without the lesson being clear, even a good story feels unfinished.

These are the same techniques we teach to our clients at Duarte. Try them out during your next presentation and watch how people lean forward and tune in to your message

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

Years ago, I was at a private TED event, and what I heard about presentations has stuck with me ever since…

After slide:ology came out, Duarte was asked to help transform slides and speakers as they launched https://t.co/bh2YIFAP9y

About 3 years later, I was at a curated table with several big deal TEDsters.

And I asked this question:

What do you miss most about the old way TED delivered presentations?

Their answer surprised me…

They said they missed the early days when they’d have a world-renowned scientist on stage who was so nervous they’d be shaking. Everyone in the audience would be cheering them on, and they would push through the fear to deliver incredible insights.

There was something special about that level of authenticity.

It was uniquely human. Unpolished.

It helped the audience feel a real connection with the speaker.

And it gave everyone an experience they’d never forget.

Every high-stakes presentation needs to have some level of “polish”. The deck needs to be visually clear. Your message should follow a clear structure. You need to practice your delivery.

But NONE of that will help you move your audience if you don’t develop an authentic connection with them.

Your conviction about your topic, your vulnerability to be your true self, and your genuine belief in what you’re sharing are what your audience will remember.

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

I used to believe leaders should always show up as their authentic, natural selves.

I don’t believe that anymore.

As a leader, you need to be a chameleon at times, changing your approach depending on what the situation needs.

For a long time, I thought my role was to show up, discern, and decide. I assumed that was what good leadership looked like.

Discern & decide…

Discern & decide…

That’s the job (or so I thought).

But what I started to notice is that many people needed something else first.

They needed warming up.
They needed reassurance.
They needed empathy.

And in order to provide those things, I had to slow down. I had to stop assuming my natural way of showing up was the right way.

I had to change my approach from:
“What needs to get done?”

To:
- How is everyone feeling right now?
- What do they need?
- Am I actually meeting them where they are? Or just where I’m comfortable?

Leadership, at its best, isn’t about being yourself 100% of the time.

It’s about being who others need you to be when they need it.

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

@toddmckinnon @okta We love your vision! Great work to you and the team.

[Nancy Duarte @nancyduarte]

If you look at the story structure most movies use, you'll notice that roughly 10% of the time is for the beginning, 10% is for the ending, and 80% is the “messy middle”... which is the part leaders prefer to edit out.

Why?

Because most of us prefer telling a polished version of our stories:

- Here was the challenge.
- Here was the solution.
- Here was the success.

But when we do that, we miss the opportunity to give our audience something to deeply connect with.

The messy middle is where the roadblocks show up, where we fall to our knees and question whether we're on the right path after all.

It's usually the part that is the least fun for us to talk about...

But the most meaningful for the audience to hear.

When you share the messy middle, you become relatable. You become human.

There’s neuroscience behind this.

When someone tells a story, the listener’s brain fires in the same sequence as the speaker’s. You’re not just transferring information, you’re creating a shared experience.

And shared experience builds empathy.

That doesn’t mean oversharing. It just means acknowledging that the path wasn’t linear and that the struggle was real.

Hat tip to Syd Field’s work, who writes about this in his book Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting.