Challenge and selections

Story telling is great tool and I try to use it all the time. I work in organization where people are sometimes  too busy to innovate, raising voice can be stressful and often deriving to confusion. New ideas either are  disregarded or failed to get sponsorship. Stories can help in such environment where it take people on a  journey; breaking the norms, being free and independent.

Application

Recently, I was in meeting with country CFO where I stressed the importance of innovation. Trying to  convince that atleast 10% of resources should be spent innovating, which means hiring people who are  thinkers rather than doers, investing on training and projects to produce saving to remain competitive. I  quoted President Kennedy, “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving goals, before this decade  is out, of landing a man on moon, and returning him safely to earth”. Moreover, I shared PowerPoint slides  to put my thought on paper just to make my case even stronger. I explained that this could have tremendous  benefits for organization; motivated employee will lead to higher output and a chance to do something out  of ordinary to get global recognition making a mark as newly appointment leader.

Insights and Approach

Though the discussion went well, he seemed to be inspired and thrilled but still a decision to launch such a  project in matrix organization is not easy. The obvious block comes from cultures, where leader must go  back to his boss for approval not just only for finances, but for the never be done before. I am still waiting  for the final decision, however, I do feel that should have used visualization technique in tandem with  storytelling to improve the odds of success.

