Example Reflection – Storytelling

Challenge

I am part of the marketing team of the largest company in the tire market in Brazil and recently we  had a challenge to communicate the employees about some changes that according to surveys,  would not be well received by the vast majority of the team. Due to the pandemic, the company had  a reduction in revenue and some cuts in the team needed to be made. Still, the pandemic spread  further and another measure needed to be taken to further reduce spending. Then the presidency  took the decision to implement a restaurant for the employees and suspend much of the food aid  that all employees had. As most of them used this aid for various activities and home shopping, we  had the challenge of how to communicate with the rest of the staff, causing as little negative impact  as possible.

Selection

We chose Storytelling because it is a powerful tool that generates empathy and is ideal for  communicating something that sometimes would not be so well received by users. It can perfectly  pass some difficulty that is being faced and make your audience identify with the situation or  product. It is also a great tool to engage your audience and make them identify with your brand or  product.

Aplication

Using this tool, we decided to abandon the initial idea of simply sending an email to all employees  communicating the big change that would affect everyone in some bad way, and started with the  idea of the CEO himself communicating personally in a meeting with all the almost 300 employees,  not only the measure that would be taken but also why this measure is being taken.

It was contextualized that the company was still experiencing financial difficulties due to the OVID- 19 pandemic and although there had been some cuts in the team, the priority was not to cut anyone  else in these difficult times. With this in mind, the company came to the conclusion that it could  significantly reduce some expenses by exchanging food aid for its own restaurant, offering the team  meals free of charge.

It was made clear that this option could hinder the finances and plans of some members, but that  unfortunately it was a necessary measure to keep everyone there still with their jobs.

Insight

We observed that using Storytelling, we were able to generate empathy in the employees and we  made it understand that although it was not such a good measure, it was for a greater good and that  we needed the union of all to stand without losing anyone else.

Approach

It is interesting to add that Storytelling works very well with other Design Thinking tools, such as  Visualization. The contextualization using real images of some process of creation or manufacturing  of your product can increase the chance of generating empathy and identification of the user with  your brand/product. Although we have achieved the goal of the challenge described, if we had more  time to think of a way to communicate, a video or images would help to convey the idea of the  difficulty faced and visualize that the sacrifice would be for the good of everyone there.

