It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that...concrete

Your story must be relevant before it can be concrete. So keep in mind that the subject matter that you select should never be about you, but about your listener. Truly listen to your audience to find the ballpark in which they are playing. Identify a context that has meaning for them. This is not to say that you should respond to stake-holders point for point. Storytelling is more creative, more interesting than that. Do not react. Rather, elevate the conversation above the finger-pointing. Be relevant, not reactive. A good story leads listeners to generalize. When listeners generalize, they convince themselves of your point of view. But when you do it, you are simply not listening. Here are three points to keep in mind:

• Most business communications is hopelessly abstract. Bring everything to a human scale. Don’t concern yourself with telling the “whole story.” Nobody cares but you. Give a human-scale example to which people can relate, and from which they will generalize.

• Most of the time, concreteness boils down to specific people doing specific things. Use names, faces, places. Think like a newspaper reporter.
  Show. Don’t snow. That is, showing with a carefully chosen detail is more effective than snowing your listener with superfluous facts. Experts react to miscommunication by increasing elaborateness. Don’t do it!

• When you have to be abstract, use metaphors. For example, illustrate Global Warming or Climate Change with a globe sitting in a steam bath, or anthropomorphize the globe showing it with an ice pack on its head and a thermometer in its mouth. Turn a strategy into a game, or a capabilities presentation into cartoon characters doing things.