The skill of storytelling is one of the most successful methods of getting a message across. Public speakers, teachers, and mentors draw on personal experience to engage with their audiences. Performed with skill and confidence, a story can enhance training by making tasks easy to teach and relatable to the audience. However, when the message is misrepresented or poorly conveyed with poor storytelling, the messenger becomes the center of attention as they lose credibility and the good message is obscured.

For the purposes of this article, storytelling does not necessarily mean creating a work of fiction or inventing a tale. The term narrative is used as an example to help create a logical flow of tasks performed to complete a function. For example, a bad storyteller might say, “protect classified information or else you could be fired or worse.” A good storyteller will convey the task of entering, using, storing, and destroying classified information throughout its life cycle in a logical sequence. They could make it relevant enough that it is easily applied within the company culture.

The scene of the story

The speaker who speaks or coaches an audience of peers or who has similar skills gains almost instant credibility. The same profession, the same topic and the same faces, in most cases, make it unnecessary to cultivate a relationship from scratch. They all already have something in common as they share similar interests. This setup can occur in a professional organization or club where everyone has a similar skill set or hobbies.

On the other hand, a speaker discussing topics for a multi-skilled audience may have a harder time relating to their audience. For example, a college night school teacher may have an audience of skilled workers from various disciplines and the only thing they have in common is the textbook. In these cases, the speaker draws on her experience with the topic and anecdotes to make the topic material relevant or teachable. It would be ridiculous for this speaker to try to get involved in a subject he knows nothing about. They will simply lose credibility the first time they misuse an anecdote.

Application of storytelling to NISPOM

Beyond supporting a common corporate culture, a facility security officer (FSO) may find it difficult to convey a protective message to those using classified information for a more specific purpose if they fail to discover common ground. While the FSO is an expert in NISPOM, the engineer or professional is an expert in how classified information is used. So what can an FSO do to create common ground and use that common ground to develop training stories?

I will use a personal story. A few years ago I was invited to speak at a local NCMS chapter event. I wanted to talk about protecting the program, but I went into a lot of detail about the requirements of the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual (NISPOM). The fact boxes I developed simply contained the NISPOM requirements, and I used the requirements to demonstrate the application and need for program protection planning. I thought I had a good presentation, but I wanted to check with a colleague.

His assessment was true, but not what I wanted to hear. He explained to me that my message was wrong and I was in danger of losing my audience. What I inadvertently did was claim to be a NISPOM expert when I should really be showing off my software protection expertise. He rightly pointed out that the room would be full of NISPOM experts who could argue any interpretation of the NISPOM topic to the detriment of my presentation. He further explained that NISPOM could be our common ground, but most of the presentation should reflect my experience in program protection and accept NISPOM’s interpretation. Fortunately I listened, which resulted in a successful presentation and excellent question and answer sessions.

Establishing Credibility

FSOs are the experts on NISPOM and how to apply the management classification orientation at the authorized contractor’s facilities. Licensed contractor facilities must designate a qualified individual to perform the functions of the FSO. This can be interpreted as a requirement to select an existing employee to perform the additional duties as FSO. It can also be interpreted as the requirement to hire an additional person to perform full-time duties as FSO.

appropriate message

The primary purpose of the FSO is to establish its credibility in applying the NISPOM guidance to the defense contractor facility. In some situations where the FSO is a task assigned to an existing executive, engineer, or other professional, the FSO may be an expert in weapon system development. They are weapons system experts and can wonderfully weave security anecdotes into the fabric of weapons system development. In this situation, it would be a mistake not to showcase experience as a systems engineer to convey the importance of applying security tasks to protect classified information on the specific system. Every effort should be made to discuss the intimate details of performance, cost, and schedule and convey the safety message in doing so. Being an expert in security and weapons systems development and accurately telling the story using technical language and engineering language will help other weapons system designers better apply security to protect classified and export controlled information.

On the other hand, a non-technical FSO trying to lecture the engineer on the specifics of the unknown task of developing software would not be smart. Any attempt to do so could result in a loss of credibility, as terms could be misused or tasks communicated in a way that insults the professional. In this case, the non-technical FSO could perform security and security training with the frame of reference that they are the NISPOM guidance experts and the engineers are the systems and weapons development experts. Together as a team, you can develop an effective security program to protect classified information.

In the second scenario, the FSO can establish credibility as a security expert and create compelling stories using the common ground of working at a licensed defense contractor facility and the core culture of the facility. When the audience is made up of scientists and engineers, there is no need for an FSO to attempt to discuss areas in which they are not an expert. Unfortunately, this could provide an opportunity for the audience to discuss the FSO’s level of understanding of the weapon system outside the scope of the safety discussion.

The art of storytelling should be used to communicate the security message to help make it easily digestible for authorized employees. Storytelling is simply finding and using common ground to establish training or develop a culture in a logical and relatable flow. This is a great skill to practice and develop to help implement security programs to protect classified information.