You Shared the Data. Why Didn’t It Land?

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

A quiet truth about presenting information in the modern workplace.

You spent hours on the report. Pulled charts, reviewed numbers, built a beautiful dashboard. Everything lined up—accurate, up to date, comprehensive.

And yet… after the meeting, someone asked, "So… what am I supposed to take away from this?”

You’ve probably been on the other side too—sitting in a meeting where the slides were packed, the data looked impressive, but the message never quite came through.

Not wrong. Not boring. Just… unclear.

The invisible problem no one names

It’s not about how “good” the data is. It’s about whether the story is clear.

But in most workplaces, we don’t talk about that. We talk about charts. About metrics. About making things “data-driven.”

And somewhere along the way, we forget that people don’t make decisions from data alone. They make decisions from meaning.

That meaning has to be guided. Crafted. Told.

And once you see it, you start noticing it everywhere.

In project updates that make the team’s effort invisible. In leadership reviews that miss the why behind the performance. In training decks filled with information, but no connection. In strategy presentations that never quite get a “yes.”

Sometimes, the report is so packed with numbers that the core issue gets buried three pages deep. Sometimes, the message is spread across 20 slides—but the punchline never lands. Sometimes, you only realize in the Q&A that everyone’s takeaway is different from what you intended.

And yes—it definitely happens to data teams. Often the most.

Because when you live inside the numbers, it's hard to remember how they look to someone who doesn’t. Harder still to zoom out and ask: What am I really trying to say?

Let’s be clear—this isn’t about adding drama to your slides.

Storytelling, in this context, isn’t fluff. It’s structure.

It’s about:

• Choosing what matters

• Grouping ideas into a logical flow

• And landing the point that matters most

It’s what gives your information a beginning, middle, and end.

Not just:

“Here are the numbers.”But:“Here’s the shift you need to know about—and what to do with it.”

Because that’s what most audiences need—not everything you know, but just enough to understand, decide, or act.

Who struggles most with this?

Analysts. Project leads. Even seasoned leaders.

One analyst I worked with once told me, "I feel like I’m dumping everything I know into my reports, but people keep asking for ‘more context.’ I thought context was the data.”

It wasn’t a lack of skill.It was a lack of storytelling.

And then there are leaders who are so close to the business, they skip right to the conclusion. Their audience is left wondering: Wait, how did we get here?

And presenters who try to "cover everything just in case"…End up saying nothing anyone remembers.

It’s a quiet, widespread problem—affecting people across roles, industries, and levels of experience.

The turning point

The moment someone learns to do this, things change. Presentations become clearer. Audiences stay with you longer. And decisions start to happen faster—not because you shouted louder, but because people finally understood you.

A well-told story doesn’t need loud slides or long explanations. It needs flow. It needs focus. It needs a human thread.

And that moment? It’s teachable.

That’s why we created the Data Storytelling Workshop—to help professionals at every level turn data, ideas, and insights into something people actually hear, remember, and act on.

Because sometimes the missing piece isn’t more data—It’s how you shape the story around it.