As part of the ProductX conference board, one of my roles each year is helping speakers prepare their talks. They all arrive with strong content and clear professional lessons, but my job is to bring a different layer. With my background in theater, storytelling, and stagecraft, I help them make their talks not only useful but also interesting, memorable, and emotionally real. Because in a two-day conference, sitting through talk after talk, people will not stay engaged unless the story is human. They need to feel the struggle behind the insight, not just hear the facts.
And as I guide speakers to uncover that human story, I realized I do the same work with my clients in three other places. In product, we often talk only at the professional level – goals, needs, timeline – but even in our everyday work, understanding the human story behind these well-defined artifacts is crucial for any progress to be made. Here are three human stories you must be able to tell if you want to make a real impact and avoid hitting too many walls as you go.
What I mean by a human story
When I say ‘human story,’ most people immediately think of personas. They hear my words and translate them into the familiar work of defining a target audience, speaking from their point of view, and mapping their needs. And of course, that work is essential. If you do not understand your persona, nothing else will land. But it does not stop there.
Too often, the persona becomes a checklist. A summary of demographics, responsibilities, pains, and functional goals. Useful, but shallow. The human story I am talking about is deeper. It is not what they need to do. It is what they need to go through. The psychological journey behind every decision. The thoughts that run through their mind, the hidden concerns and emotions that tighten or loosen their willingness to move, and the internal narrative that your product or idea must work with, not against.
When you understand that layer, you stop designing for the tasks people perform and start designing for the story they are living.
The human story of your buyer
This is the first story you must learn to tell, even though most product managers are not asked to start here. They are usually pulled straight into features and user workflows, and those matter, but without the buyer’s story, you are operating without the bigger context. As you grow into product leadership, you may not own the buyer journey, but you must deeply understand it (and if you are working on a new product, you must also shape it for others). Otherwise, you might build a great product that doesn’t sell.
Some of the buyer’s story is functional (they want a better ROI or faster something), but that’s just the background. You need to ask the harder questions. Why now. Why us. Why this approach and not another. What happened in their world that made them even willing to talk to you. When you uncover those answers, the entire product strategy becomes clearer, because you finally see the psychological journey that makes a buyer move.
The human story of your user
The second story is the user’s story, and I do not mean the content of your JIRA ticket. I mean the story behind it. We all know how to describe what a user is trying to achieve in a jobs-to-be-done sense, but that still captures only the functional layer. The real leverage comes from understanding what happens in their head in the moment they choose to use your product. Where does it meet them in their everyday work. What do they tell themselves before they click anything. What expectation or hesitation do they bring with them. What will make them feel confident, and what will make them close the tab.
You need to be able to narrate their inner voice. If you can articulate their internal dialogue, you can design a product that meets not only their tasks, but their psychology. That can make the difference between a tool people can use and a product they actually return to.
The human story of your stakeholders and managers
The third story is the one product people almost never think to tell: the story of their own stakeholders and managers. Most relationships at work stay functional. They tell you what they need, you update them on progress, and you ask for decisions or approvals. But if you want trust, partnership, and real influence, you must understand their story from their point of view. What pressures they carry. What constraints shape their decisions. Who they need to report to and what goals they are expected to hit.
Behind every request they make is a set of thoughts, worries, and tradeoffs that you rarely hear. When you can narrate that internal journey as clearly as your own, something shifts. They feel understood. They know you get what they are really solving for. And that is what creates empowerment, expands your impact, and turns you into a true partner rather than a task owner.
In the end, every part of product work is a human story. The buyer deciding whether to trust you, the user deciding whether to stay with you, and the stakeholder deciding whether to back you. Each of them carries an internal journey that sits underneath the functional surface we usually focus on. When you learn to see that layer and tell that story clearly, it’s easier to connect what you do to the impact you want to make, and much easier to convince others to follow through.
