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A trip to Egypt offered a useful reminder for CMOs: Storytelling is not just about rushing to the point. The best stories come from listening longer, noticing what endures, and asking better questions. For leaders, that pause can be the difference between another slide and a story worth remembering.
“Enjoy Egypt. You’ll come back a storyteller,” a friend said as I was packing.
Wait, what?
Aren’t I already one?
I mean, I spend most Saturdays turning CMO confessions into cautionary tales. I have heard enough stories about broken pipelines, boardroom surprises, and Q4 panic to fill the fabled library of Alexandria. How much more storytelling could a person possibly need?
Also, practical concern: There are no penguins on the Nile.
No huddles. No Antarctic metaphors. Just 5,000 years of history, stone, gods with animal heads, and a river that has been quietly doing its thing since before “go to market” was a phrase.
So I was not entirely sure what my friend meant.
Yet.
Maybe it is this: When you stand in front of something truly old, you stop rushing to the point.
You listen longer. You notice what endured and what did not. Kingdoms rose. Others vanished. The Nile kept moving. And none of them had dashboards, unless hieroglyphics count.
That perspective is useful for leaders.
The urgent thing is not always the important thing. The measured thing is not always the meaningful thing. The story worth telling may not be the first data point on the slide.
In marketing, it is easy to confuse explanation with meaning. We explain the campaign. We explain the funnel. We explain the forecast. We explain why the thing that was supposed to happen did not happen, which is a storytelling genre all its own.
But better stories often begin before the explanation.
They begin with attention.
Travel strips away some of the noise. No Slack. Fewer alerts. Less phone twitching.
It creates room to remember that stories are not slides. They are moments, details, pauses, and human texture. They are what people notice, what they choose to preserve, and what they finally understand when they stop trying to explain everything too quickly.
That is also what good leadership requires.
CMOs are under constant pressure to turn insight into action. That pressure is real. But if every observation becomes an action item before it becomes a story, something gets lost.
People do not remember the full strategy deck. They remember the moment that made the strategy make sense.
Better storytelling often starts with better questions.
What are we missing? What has endured? What changed? What did the customer actually say? What are we measuring because it matters, and what are we measuring because it is easy? Where are we rushing to a conclusion because the room is uncomfortable with ambiguity?
The goal is not fewer answers forever. The goal is better questions first.
That is what good storytelling does. It creates meaning before motion.
And if nothing else, let the record show: No penguin was forced into Egypt.
Probably.
CMOs need to make strategy memorable. A good story helps teams, customers, and executives understand why something matters.
Specific moments, useful tension, human detail, and a clear question are often stronger than polished slogans.
Listen longer, notice more, and resist rushing to the point before the meaning is clear.
Better stories help people align around change, remember the strategy, and act with more conviction.