Challenge & Selection

Storytelling is a tool to use in order to share stories. Not only children have an  innate love of stories but also adults can be deeply influenced by them.  Stories sometimes can create magic and can teach us lots of things about our  lives. Storytelling is a way for some people to understand, respect and  appreciate cultures, and create a positive thinking to people from different  countries and religions.

For all these reasons, I am keen on telling and sharing stories from my  everyday life at work in order to use their meaning as feedback, find solutions  and overcome problems that may appear at work. Especially stories that their  protagonists are everyday people or people with special needs because at  work we take into account every individual as unique.

Application

I would like to share a special story. A few weeks ago, I attended church  services and I realized that something different happened that Sunday. The  church was full but that was a bit strange because it was not a special day but  just a typical Sunday. Next to the chanter there was a man who used figures  to convey the church service to the people. I wondered why he did that and  soon I was informed that among the crowd there lots of deaf people that were  attending the church service. I tried to find more and I learnt that once a  month there is a special church service for deaf people. When the church  finished its service, all these people gathered to the yard of the church and  some people who are responsible for the church offered them some  refreshment. In that way these people had the chance to socialize with other  and feel part of the community. I observed that they were really happy and  amused as they could communicate with everyone with the aid of the man  who knew signing. Moreover, I had the chance to speak with some deaf  people with the aid of this man and from our conversation I realized that  actually they had a good time and I understood that this event that is held  once a month in the church it was really important for them.

Then, because of the fact that the company that I work occupies with  Corporate Social Responsibility actions, I started thinking if this story may  have a positive impact on work.

Insight

Next day when I went to the office, I shared this story with my colleagues who  were unaware that this could happen and we wondered if this could be  applied to our work. As they were excited, we altogether started to think if we  could give a special treatment to disabled people. In fact, I think that I  achieved to raise their awareness on a sensitive issue.

Approach

As soon as we agreed to take action, we had a meeting with our department’s  manager in order to approve our suggestions. After we got the approval, we  shared responsibilities how we could work on that field. For start, we decided  to focus on deaf people and if we succeeded, we could broaden our services  to other people with special needs.

The first idea was to contact with the church to find this man in order to  communicate with him to find out if he could cooperate with us. In parallel, a  colleague of mine, to whom this story really touched her, proposed to search if  she could have some specific training and learns signing. That way we could  arrange specific hours and dates per month to serve deaf people and that it  could be available on the site of our company so that everyone who is  interested in this information to be able to be informed. We thought that would  be appreciated by deaf people as they knew that they could communicate on  their own language with our company. In that way, they will have the  opportunity to gather any questions about our products and these can be  discussed and answered on these specific days. Consequently, they would be  treated equally as the other customers.

Thus, we took action immediately and we hope to make our idea a reality.

