Reflection – Storytelling

By Carlos Rios

Challenge and Selection

I could say I use storytelling most of the time, almost in every situation. I work as a Project  Manager for a major bank in my country. Surrounded by a highly professional  environment, I deal with a lot of stressed members in my work team, which can lead to  negative impacto ver the projects’ goals, and stress might as well be originated from  different sources.

I tend to approach my co-workers in order to understand by first hand what’s going on in  their lives and if I can somehow provide guidance to the problems they may have, find if  there are technical or behavioural solutions and choose the best way to cope with it.

Application

My story is about working for the mentioned bank we work for. We’ve been assigned a  Project about agile practices implementation and we all have different roles there. I  myself had two junior Project Managers under my wing, both of them really different  people to deal with, but one in particular displayed some kind of agressive attitude  towards the rest of the team. I played my good listener skills so I could colsely understand  his satisfaction levels and perception of the work environment; I digged deeper into his  background to find out the propper way to approach him. I sensed he had been struggling  with big finacial issues for several months, which were deteriorating his marriage.

Insight and Approach

This was one multi-disciplinary task to do. In situations like this one you have to act like a  priest, a psycholoyst, career coach, couselor, etc. The guy had personal issues influencing  his professional performance, mood, motivation and creating a lack of willness to do  things. I told him about the ways lots of situations may harm your work environment, how  you should deal with them, separate them from any other environment and to keep away  from negative thoughts so he could easily see problems go away.

Storytelling is a skill to be triggered as much as possible; It brings nearness to the team  and lets you believe you work there for more tan just your technical skills.

