----------- ----------- ----------- -----------    Reflection Reflection Reflection Reflection----Storytelling  Storytelling  Storytelling  Storytelling ----------- ----------- ----------- -----------

Challenge Challenge Challenge Challenge

Ten months ago, I decided to move from my secure executive position at a public company, to embark on  a risky start-up adventure. I was hired as Director of Development and Operations in the company that  runs the contract for the e-bike Operations network in Madrid (Spain). I was responsible for the  operations, the business development and the R+D+i activities. My assignment was focused on running  the change management of the organization to scale it from the start-up approach towards a sustainable  and growing business.  The former CEO, the entrepreneur who started up the business, had left the  company some weeks ago due to different problems and had been substituted by a new CEO, the CEO  who hired me. The point when I arrived was twofold, on one hand solving the technical and logistics  problems of this new product-service (Madrid was the first city in the world with a full e-bike system, and  the beginning had been very rough), on the other, setting the bases to growth so as to win future public  tenders of bike systems in other cities. As far as I understood my new position, it was a must for me to  build, in the very first place, a high performance team aligned around a clear challenge and develop, as  well, a design thinking approach. Moving towards a stable business required deep changes in technology  and people management.

Selection Selection Selection Selection

There were some different ways to tackle this challenge. Eventually, I decided to build a STORY to align  the team around a new business model focused on how to grow the company  as we helped Madrid  citizens to move in a sustainable, cool and easy way . Now, after five months of work and taking into  account the learning I've got through this course, I know I chose a right way to face the challenge.

There were, as well, some interesting tools that I guessed were suitable to face the challenge in that  environment. I had read two books about design thinking that inspired me. The first one was  Designpedia, written by J. Gasca and R. Zaragoza, founders of the Spanish Design Thinking company  Thinkers Co., the second was Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation, written by Idris Moote, founder  and CEO of Idea Couture. The first book is a gathering of 80 tools and a way to face the design thinking  processes based on the Two Diamond model of the British Design Council. The second book shows a  specific methodology to apply design thinking for the strategic Innovation. According to Moote's point of  view "Design thinking helps structure team interactions to cultivate greater inclusiveness, foster  creativity, deepen empathy, and align participants around specific goals and results". Moote sets as well  in this book some interesting links between Design Thinking Solutions and Business Challenges. There are  two of them that I adopted to face my new assignment. The first one is the link between Growth and  Storytelling because " Growth Needs a Strategy, and Every Strategy Needs a Story". The second one links  Change to Sense Making as a way to anticipate the change reaction. However, both of them are actually  related with Storytelling as a way of leading change and growth based on shared sense  making and  people alignment. Whether I can  create a cause that "ignites and unites" old and new people, old and  new approaches, around a new strategy, I thought, I will able to move the company towards a sustainable  and growing business. And the key for this, as told us Giovanni Bautista (Mars Inc) in the course, is: making  strategy simple and relate-able by a Story to share experiences and ideas, and to join everybody around a  cause. Thus I thought, let's build and share a Story about how we contribute to the sustainable urban  mobility of people.

Application Application Application Application

Once planned with my CEO, I began the process asking the Company logistics team and the Company  maintenance team for their experience with the clients at the e-bike dock stations in the street. What  they saw and listen in their day to day was included in an Experience Log. Just after that, a Project team  leaded by the product development engineer went out to the street so as to apply a Shadowing tool in  order to understand in a better way the behaviour of our clientes. Divided in small subteams, and riding  our own e-bikes, they followed our clients in their journeys from the undock of the e-bike, along the  journey, until they dock the e-bike.  All their observations about the problems the clients found, were  added, as well, to the Experience Log. Finally, we took advantage of some targeted surveys that had been  carried out by the city council about the service during the first months. All that stuff has been crossed  and discussed along the last months to create a story that could be our CAUSE. Along the last three weeks  (taking advantage of the Darden Course), I tried to improve our way of building a common Story and  finally we count on what we call the THREE BACKBONES of OUR STORY:

•  Backbone one (based on the customer point of view): “The e-bike customer in Madrid needs (job  to be done) because (insight)  •  Backbone two (based on our way of facing the weak signals and the unarticulated needs of the  future sustainable mobility): “Our company is able to (job to be done) so as to solve  (unarticulated future mobility needs)  •  Backbone three (based on the shareholders point of view): “Our Company wants to address (job  to be done) so as to meet (strategic needs of our shareholders)

It’s important to stress that visualizing the Story has been one of our main tools to move in the right  direction. I have been guessing on my way the importance of, not only telling the story, but build it with  our hands as well. That’s the reason because we have been using the tool LEGO ® Serious Play ® as a way  to visualize what we talked about. I decided to use this tool (I’m certified to use it in team coaching  processes) to unblock some difficult situations. To be perfectly honest, it took us a lot of time to align  both, our backbone two and our backbone three. All of we were aware of the articulated needs that  became in backbone one, but talking about the unarticulated needs and about the shareholders needs  were really uncomfortable and difficult. The “old team" of the Company thought that their point of view  was, unquestionably, the right point of view in all cases.

The Story that we built and we share everyday is supported now on the fusion of the three backbones.  What we are, what we work for, the reasons of our continuous improvements in logistics, management  and engineering are focused on the three of them. Our Story collects elements added by almost every  person of the team. And we keep adding nuances to our Story everyday so as to keep it alive and fresh.

Insight Insight Insight Insight    & Approach & Approach & Approach & Approach

Along the process I (We) discovered some relevant isuess:

•  The using of metaphors has emerged as a powerful way to express our approach to the backbone  two. I can talk about one that describes perfectly the change based on the way that a bike is  ridden (and driven), and that is a significant part of our Story: “If we do not want to fall, we have  to keep moving. When we ride the e-bike, we don’t drive the bicycle with our arms, we drive the e- bike with our look. The place where we look at, that's the place we go. So let’s lift our head and  look ahead ... looking what's to come is essential to keep us from falling. Sometimes the path lies  behind a curve, so it is necessary, not only looking at, but also imagining the curve to perform it  properly”  •  This experience was a great eye-opener about the power of visualization. As coach, I knew about  the power of working with hands to express unarticulated ideas, but in this case using the tool  LEGO ® Serious Play ® as a visualizer has become a head start for building our common Story.

•  I guess now that my assignment is a strange fusion between "building something new and control  something that already existed". As Catalina Davies says when she talks about managers  trapped in growth gridlock (and I know now after experienced it along these months and after  this training),  my  position holds an "irreconcilable tension" between both focus points. It’s really  difficult to combine the operations running, with the leading of the development . How can I  launch and test new technical prototipes or new ways of e-bikes distribution whether at the same  time I have to take care about figures and revenue? How can I evolve the operations culture to a  new design thinking culture? How can I solve at the same time puzzles and mysteries? For some  of my staff I am “only” the Operations director, worried about figures and efficiency. For others  I'm an engineering developer, worried about improving the technical aspects of our product. And  what about my vision? I see myself as a design thinker trying to hybridize different ways of  thinking and catalize the change. I believe that experience, adds an emotional asset to the  intelectual knowledge. The Storytelling approach is based on act, think and act again. Thus, the  experience applying this design thinking becomes an emotional asset for me and for my team....

I imagine the design thinking as a continuous cross process where the rule is there are no strict rules. The  point is  which one is the most suitable place to access the system and which is the best way to do it so as  to "catch the wave". I think the best way to take advantage of the stream, in this case, was finding the  way to align people around a common idea, and Storytelling was the best approach to do, as far as I  guessed then... and I see now. To be honest, anyway, my way of access to the problem has elements of  visualizing and mind mapping as well. Thus I think that any alternative approach should lean always on  hybridizing. It's a matter of how much of each tool I want to add to the recipe.

