Storytelling  The Me & You Way  Challenge

I work in oil & gas organization at a plant site level and my organization has a vertical hierarchy at  work level. Hierarchy, in most businesses is explained using a two-dimensional pyramid drawn on a  board but  we fail to realize that  work level hierarchy is not just a pyramid drawn on a board or on a  piece of paper but it is a pyramid made up of people holding hands together at all levels. Now, what  will happen if people leave each other’s hands, The People Pyramid will fall? Hence, it is very  important for all levels to work together, have empathy and a sense of ownership. To achieve this  sense of togetherness, ownership it is very important to keep everyone motivated else the system  can’t work. Every person has a different mindset and it is an extremely difficult task to motivate  people such that they keep holding hands and the pyramid of people does not fall.     Selection

Storytelling is an important tool that can work wonders as it brings compassion, emotional  connection, empathy, and motivates people. Storytelling says it's not about the list of things we have  to do; it's about the connection that we give to people about a piece of information. Keeping and  making people work together is very difficult but “A cause” is something that ignites people, and  unites people and that is what good storytelling does, is it creates a cause. When people are told a  story they try to find themselves in that story and if a story is good one, people will find themselves  in the story and it is only then they will get the essence of the story.    Application

People under me in the vertical organizational level used to avoid doing jobs on plant site. What I  felt that in some way or the other they avoided me and critical jobs by making excuses. And if  something used to go wrong in the jobs there ensued a tussle or a blame game amongst those under  me. These actions were clearly hurting my customer expectations and the job efficiency, all of this  indicated that something was definitely wrong and it was then I decided to sit down with them  together and learn from about what was wrong. I learnt that they feared that if something goes  terribly wrong in a job their career gets at stake, they get bad name so the best way to tackle this  situation is to avoid doing a job. And this is where I used the storytelling tool wherein I told a story in  which I was the main character and my story displayed that work is very important and if something  goes wrong while on a job it is your hard work and the trust that you have will come to your rescue.     I told them a story about how I was involved with a process licensor during the commissioning of a  process plant in oil & gas and I was giving my best to the jobs that I was doing and how giving my  best helped me when I least expected it to. Once I was doing a night shift and a major problem  occurred in the plant and there followed financial losses. The next morning there took place a high  level meeting to find root cause along with a demand that questions be asked to me as to why I  didn’t take any action to avoid the losses and also issue me a warning letter stating that I was not  performing my job dutifully. Sometime later I came to know that no action is being taken against me  and instead Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is being called to plant site. I was expecting  something wrong is going to happen with ma and when I least expected I was told that the process  licensors I had worked with had given praiseworthy feedback about me to the top management and  when the question of issuing a warning letter came up the top management vetoed that and stated  that my credibility and dedication is beyond question and there must be something very wrong in  the system and hence I could not do anything and financial losses ensued and hence  OEM be called  on plant site. Each one of the people under nodded their head in agreement and the result of this  storytelling was beyond my expectation as not only plant level jobs started getting completed with  efficiency but also I was getting good feedback about people under me from my customers.

Insight

I learnt a lot of things by this storytelling. The First and foremost was that whenever you are  narrating a story and asking people to follow the suite tell them a story where you were directly  involved and you carried out the same action and you were rewarded. Second, Plan events such as  storytelling occasionally so that a situation like above does not come up again with team as human  brain needs to be trained or given boost ups so that it applies and does not forget. Also, team  building exercises are really important and everybody should work together and pace the things like  a pack of wolves when they travel together in which the oldest lead the pack followed by a few  strongest and next the remaining pack and in the last guarded by the strongest. I also told this event  of storytelling in front of my superiors and requested them to start having motivational events,  Team building exercises even at the lowest levels.    Approach

Storytelling is indeed a beautiful tool. Most of us have heard about six sigma and then some have  heard about lean. In Six Sigma we talk about defects and not about speed and Lean is only speed but  misses about quality metrics. A very few of us Talk about Lean Six Sigma? This is a brilliant answer to  requirement of handling defects keeping speed in mind. Likewise, Storytelling is indeed a great tool  and one of the best tools but there is and there will always be a scope for improvement and  Storytelling Tool along with a combination of Visualization Tool is a splendid combination I would  like to use in future.

