Challenge: Get approval to create an innovative development experience for  new managers    I was tasked with coming up with a learning solution for new managers in our organization. Our current  approach to management development was to send managers out of the office to a workshop for several  days of full-day academic learning about how to lead and manage people. Our senior leadership believed this  approach was necessary so that managers weren’t distracted during training and they could receive a “brain  dump” of HR-related information all at one time. In my initial conversations with new managers, however, it  became clear that this approach was ineffective. Although they needed the HR information, they were  stressed out by the idea of being away from their jobs for the week and they couldn’t absorb so much  information at once – particularly when they had no chance to apply it in the moment. We were so focused  on the dissemination of processes and policies, we had lost sight of managers’ emotional needs, which our  training programs weren’t addressing at all. I had a vision for approaching the learning solution in a  completely different way but, before I could move forward with the idea, my immediate challenge was to  get several groups of senior leader stakeholders to embrace the concept. Without their support, I would  never be able to make such a large scale change.      Selection: Storytelling    I work for a very large financial services institution. The connotation is that there are lot of “stuffed shirt”  banker types…which isn’t too far off the mark! As I went through the Design Thinking for Innovation program,  I thought to myself that the technique I would use the least would be storytelling. I just couldn’t quite  envision a positive reaction from the stakeholders I work with, thinking they would find the technique too  “fluffy” and not sufficiently data-driven. After all, we are in the business of making money, not making  emotional connections!    I watched the video in module 2 three times before I convinced myself to give storytelling a try. Because I  needed real buy-in to my solution – not just “Fine, go ahead, we won’t stop you” buy-in, but true “Yes! We  will go forth and support your cause all the way up through the Operating Committee” buy-in, storytelling  seemed like the best approach. The points from the video that were particularly persuasive in my decision  making were:      Business leaders are looking to be inspired. They sit through boring meetings all day long and want  something different.    Getting people to support a cause starts with helping them understand the people involved. This  was a critical point since the stakeholders I was speaking to were quite far removed from the  average entry-level manager.    The biggest obstacle to storytelling is convincing yourself that it actually works. I could definitely  relate to this one, and it was a big challenge I needed to overcome personally.      Application: Use of a single profile    In the Design Thinking for Innovation video, the speaker mentioned that one of the first things you need to  do is to “sell the challenge.” It comes down to helping the audience recognize how not making any change is  more dangerous than considering another potential solution – even though that solution may be new and  untested. I reviewed all my data – and being part of a big organization, there was a lot of data – and decided  to largely forego anything that needed an Excel spreadsheet to present. Instead, I leaned on my focus group  data and created a single profile that represented the heart of the current new manager experience in our

organization. Although I did discuss the knowledge and skill gaps, I concentrated primarily on telling the story  of what a new manager experiences emotionally in the early days on the job, using the actual words used by  the managers with whom I had spoken:      I am so overwhelmed and confused.    I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m afraid someone is going to find out.    I just keep telling myself, “Don’t fail. Don’t fail.”    I feel so alone.    Formulating a profile and using it to tell the story was extremely effective, as was calling out the tension that  existed: in this case, there was tension between the expectations we had for managers to quickly become  proficient and the fact that we were not addressing their basic emotional needs in order to support their  success.    I watched the video one more time prior to creating this submission. I realized that I could have done a better  job with building suspense and reflection through “big powerful questions.” I sprinkled questions throughout  such as, “So, how did the new managers respond?” and “What is our vision for new manager excellence?” In  retrospect, those questions probably served more as transitional statements than true reflective moments  that built suspense. Next time, I would spend some time thinking about what are the big questions my  audience likely has in their minds and then work those into the conversation in a way that gets them excited  to hear the answers.      Insight: Storytelling created the empathy needed to garner support    Painting a picture of what’s going on inside the minds of new managers was essential to help senior  leadership gain an understanding of the people involved in the training and how we just weren’t meeting  their needs right now. This approach created a great deal of empathy from the stakeholders, who started  telling their own stories of what they went through when they first became managers. They very quickly got  excited about the idea of doing something radically different and began brainstorming what that might be –  which was an added bonus, as I thought it was my job to come up with a solution!    This brought home for me the whole purpose of design thinking – to represent the real people behind the  problem. I feel like we are so often focused on the information we need people to know or the procedures  we need them to do, that we lose sight of what they are feeling and how that impacts their engagement and  performance.      Approach: Storytelling really works!    Although there are other design thinking approaches, such as visualization, that may also have worked well  for my challenge, I am absolutely convinced of the power of storytelling now. In my experience, it’s one of  the most human-centered approaches because it can draw such a strong emotional response from the  audience. I feel like I now have a cadre of supporters cheering me on to create this new program because  they feel fired up by the cause and have a personal stake in the outcome. They want to see the new  managers succeed, and they want to be part of that success. If I had gone to the next step with the  stakeholder groups, I could have very easily engaged them in brainstorming, mind-mapping, and even co- creation – and they would have been happy to do it! But it was storytelling that set the stage for that  commitment, and it’s the approach I would definitely select again.

