The Story Still Matters
By Mitchell Schuckman, PCC | Founder, The Schuckman Group
A Smarter Staff Person, A Sharper Storyteller
Since retiring from PwC and launching The Schuckman Group, I have built a new flow to my work. I have new clients, created new systems, and developed new ways to be creative. One constant surprise has been how much I have learned from artificial intelligence.
I treat AI the same way I used to treat a promising young staff person. It is eager, bright, and fast but not perfect. When I give it clear direction, it performs beautifully. When I am vague, it gives me exactly what I deserve. In that way, AI has made me a better manager. It rewards clarity and punishes sloppy and lazy direction.
But there is something else. The better I guide it, the more it rewards creativity. The emotional, human part of storytelling, understanding the audience, reading the moment, knowing what will make someone lean in, that is still mine. AI cannot feel those things, but it can help me express them faster. It is the world’s most tireless assistant, but it still needs a storyteller to lead it.
The Proposal That Found Its Voice
Not long ago, a professional services firm brought me in to help them rescue a proposal that had gone off the rails. They were competing to serve a large global multinational. The opportunity mattered to them a great deal. The team was capable and motivated, but the draft read like a patchwork quilt, too many voices, too much cutting and pasting, no flow and no story.
When I read it, I could see the problem instantly. Every section said something accurate, but nothing said something memorable. The writing sounded like everyone and no one at the same time.
So I began where I always do, by asking questions. Who are you writing to? What do you want them to feel? What do you want them to believe about you when they finish reading this? Then I started working with AI as my partner.
I explained to AI the story I wanted it to help me tell, the perspective the reader needed to hear, and the voice the presenting team should have, confident, relatable, and human. I described the pressure their audience was under and how our story should ease that pressure. The first few drafts were rough but each one got closer. I was not typing. I was directing.
In under an hour we had something that sounded alive again. The flow was clean. The language carried emotion. The story had rhythm. The team could see themselves in it and more importantly so could their client.
When we reviewed it together one partner said quietly, “This actually sounds like us.” Another said, “It feels like we are already in conversation with them.”
That moment is why I love this work. AI did not write the story. It helped me build the stage so the story could be told faster and with more heart.
What James Cameron Got Right
Years after Avatar was released, director James Cameron was asked about the rise of computer generated filmmaking and later artificial intelligence. He said he did not fear technology. He feared the absence of imagination. Technology might accelerate production, he explained, but only human curiosity and emotion could make audiences care. “AI cannot write a good story,” he said. “It does not have the experience to do that.”
That idea resonates deeply with me. The thrill of Avatar was never just the special effects. It was the imagination behind them, the way Cameron used technology to serve emotion, not replace it.
That is exactly how I feel about AI. The speed is astonishing. The capacity is endless. Its feelings never get hurt. But the purpose, the storyline, and the emotion still has to come from people. The creative process, the part that connects logic to feeling, still belongs to us.
What AI Has Taught Me
People often tell me AI makes mistakes. Of course it does. So do bright junior team members. What I have learned is this: when output misses the mark, it often begins with unclear direction. This is true for directing humans and it’s also true for directing AI.
AI has no intuition. It responds to precision. Taking a moment to envision where I want the story to go, the emotion I want to evoke, and the results I hope to achieve has made a huge difference in how AI performs. Using AI has helped me refine that skillset. It has made me more deliberate about intent, tone, and outcome before a single word gets written.
It has taught me to clarify my thinking, to slow down long enough to first think about and then explain what I actually want, and to assume responsibility for the clarity of purpose rather than blame the machine for being imperfect.
In that sense AI is teaching me how to be a better leader. It demands traits that have always made for great management, clarity, empathy, and patience. It reminds me that leadership is not about doing everything yourself. It is about communicating vision so clearly that others can run with it.
When someone says, “AI missed the mark,” I often think maybe it was following the wrong map.
The Human Advantage
I am hoping that AI is revealing who the best storytellers really are. The best storytellers, the ones who know how to use AI as a key part of their team, are the ones winning hearts and minds of their intended audiences.
Technology can mimic data and tone, but it cannot feel the pause before a room laughs or the silence after a powerful truth. It cannot tell when a client needs reassurance or when a leader needs to breathe before answering a tough question. Those moments come from presence, not programming.
The leaders who thrive in this new era will be the ones who can do both, who can use AI to amplify their reach and use empathy to deepen connection. They will be the ones who translate information into meaning and meaning into action.
That is where I have always loved to work, in the place where clarity meets creativity, where data becomes story, and where story builds trust. I see it every day in my coaching sessions and proposal work. When people rediscover how to speak simply and connect personally, everything changes.
The Story Still Matters
When I look at what is happening across business, the automation, the speed, the constant noise, I keep coming back to one truth. The story still matters. The human voice still matters.
AI can produce a draft. It can polish a paragraph. It can mimic a style. But it cannot imagine what it feels like to win a client’s trust, to see a team light up when they believe in the message, or to know that a simple story changed the outcome of a big decision.
The future belongs to people who can use technology to move faster and humanity to connect deeper.
For me, that is the sweet spot. It is where strategy meets story and where technology meets leadership. It is the space I have spent my career in. Now it is the work I do every day with clients who want to lead better, tell better stories, and stay unmistakably human in a world that keeps speeding up.