Across social change spaces, there is no shortage of strong ideas, compelling evidence, or well-intentioned projects. What is often missing is not substance, but translation. This episode of Changemaker Q&A, featuring Dominic Colenso, explores why communication and storytelling are not peripheral skills for changemakers, but core infrastructures of impact.
The conversation reframes communication away from performance or persuasion alone and situates it instead as a relational practice. At stake is not simply whether an idea is “heard,” but whether it can be understood, felt, and acted upon by others. For changemakers working in complex systems, this distinction matters.
Why good ideas fail to travel
A recurring theme in the episode is that many people working for social change are deeply embedded in their subject matter. They carry years of experience, technical knowledge, and moral urgency. Paradoxically, this closeness can make communication harder rather than easier.
When people are immersed in complexity, they often default to density: too much information, too many caveats, and an assumption that others see the world as they do. Research findings, policy detail, or lived experience may be accurate and important, yet still fail to land if audiences cannot orient themselves within the message.
The implication for changemakers is not that evidence or nuance should be abandoned. Rather, it is that ideas require narrative structure to move beyond specialist circles. Without that structure, even the most rigorous work risks remaining inert.
Storytelling as structure, not embellishment
The episode challenges a common misconception that storytelling is about embellishment, emotional manipulation, or simplifying ideas to the point of distortion. Instead, storytelling is presented as a way of organising meaning.
At its core, storytelling provides a temporal and emotional pathway: a beginning that establishes relevance, a middle that introduces tension or challenge, and an end that offers resolution or direction. This structure allows audiences to follow complexity without becoming overwhelmed.
For changemakers, this is particularly important because social change work often deals with abstract systems, long time horizons, and indirect causality. Storytelling does not eliminate complexity, but it makes complexity navigable.
Intention before information
One of the most practical insights from the episode is the emphasis on intention. Before deciding what to say, communicators are encouraged to clarify three linked intentions: what they want their audience to know, what they want them to feel, and what they want them to do.
This triad reframes communication as an act of design rather than data transfer. Facts and figures remain important, but they are selected and framed in service of a broader purpose. Without clarity on intention, communication risks becoming either performative or overwhelming.
For changemakers, this approach is especially valuable when working across different audiences—community members, policymakers, funders, media, or collaborators—each of whom may require a different entry point into the same underlying issue.
Emotion as a legitimate dimension of impact
The episode also foregrounds emotion as a legitimate and necessary component of effective communication. In many professional and academic contexts, emotion is treated as something to be minimised or managed away. Yet decisions, commitments, and behavioural change are rarely driven by information alone.
Emotion shapes attention, memory, and motivation. It influences whether people feel challenged, reassured, hopeful, or defensive. Ignoring this dimension does not make communication more neutral; it simply makes it less effective.
For changemakers, this insight is particularly salient. Social change often involves asking people to reconsider assumptions, redistribute resources, or tolerate uncertainty. These are not purely cognitive acts. Attending to emotional dynamics is therefore not a compromise of rigour, but a condition of relevance.
Presence, not performance
Drawing on his background in acting, the guest introduces the idea of presence as distinct from performance. Presence is not about pretending to be someone else, but about accessing different registers of oneself depending on context.
People naturally communicate differently in different environments—at home, at work, in public, or under pressure. Developing presence involves becoming aware of this range and learning to use it deliberately. This includes voice, posture, eye contact, pacing, and breath.
For changemakers, cultivating presence can be particularly important in high-stakes settings such as public speaking, negotiation, or advocacy. Presence supports credibility and trust, not by erasing vulnerability, but by allowing individuals to remain grounded while visible.
Simplicity as an ethical choice
Another key lesson from the episode is the ethical dimension of simplicity. Simplifying a message is often framed as “dumbing down,” yet the conversation reframes it as an act of care for the audience.
Simplicity does not mean removing complexity, but prioritising what matters most in a given moment. It involves making choices about what to foreground and what to hold back, recognising that audiences have limited time, energy, and cognitive bandwidth.
In social change contexts, where audiences may already feel overwhelmed by crises and competing demands, clarity becomes a form of respect. It allows people to engage without being exhausted by the act of understanding.
Rehearsal, not improvisation
The episode also challenges the assumption that authenticity requires spontaneity. Many people avoid rehearsal out of fear that it will make them sound artificial. In practice, the opposite is often true.
Rehearsal builds familiarity, reduces cognitive load, and creates space for responsiveness. It allows communicators to focus on connection rather than recall. Importantly, rehearsal is framed not as memorisation, but as developing flexible frameworks that can adapt to context.
For changemakers, this is especially relevant in environments where resources are scarce and opportunities are limited. Being able to articulate an idea clearly, calmly, and concisely can shape whether those opportunities expand or disappear.
Communication as a form of systems work
Taken together, the insights from this episode position communication and storytelling as forms of systems work. They shape how ideas circulate, how coalitions form, and how futures are imagined.
Poor communication does not merely slow change; it can actively reproduce exclusion by privileging those already fluent in dominant languages and norms. Conversely, intentional communication can widen participation, reduce misunderstanding, and build shared meaning across difference.
For changemakers, investing in communication skills is therefore not a distraction from “real work.” It is part of the work. It determines whether insights remain isolated or become collective.
What changemakers can take forward
Several practical implications emerge from the episode:
- Strong ideas require narrative structure to travel beyond specialist circles.
- Clarity of intention should precede content creation.
- Emotion is a legitimate and necessary dimension of impact.
- Presence can be developed without sacrificing authenticity.
- Simplicity is an ethical choice that respects audiences.
- Rehearsal enables responsiveness rather than rigidity.
Ultimately, the episode offers a reframing: communication is not about convincing others to care. It is about meeting people where they are and inviting them, step by step, into a shared understanding of what matters and why.
In a world marked by complexity, fragmentation, and fatigue, that capacity is not optional. It is foundational.
