1. Challenge:

I am currently working as a management consultant in the manufacturing industry and we were

confronted with the following challenge: A client is manufacturing complex machinery. She is relying on  dozens of suppliers to provide the needed parts for the final assembly. During the introduction phase of  the product, it is produced in very small quantities e.g. two machines per month. A main challenge of the  manufacturer is to increase production. In order to do that not only the manufacturer has to increase its

capacity but the whole supply chain, including all suppliers, have to increase their production as well.  This complex process is called “ramp-up”. Even though the ramp-up is predefined and has been the  part of negotiations long before the production start, some suppliers are not prepared for the increase  and suffer performance deficits. My task was to manage a supplier recovery with the goal to enable the  supplier to increase their production as expected, without the client to delay their ramp-up. We were a  small team hired by the machinery manufacturer to work on-site at the supplier with a multifunctional  team. They had different understandings of the problem, where of all hierarchies (from Vice president of  the program to production shift leader) and knowledge levels (from high level business view to deep  production know-how). There was a lot of mistrust and even finger-pointing whose fault the current  problem was. One of my first goals was to develop a common understanding, a sense of purpose and  urgency for the project to ensure that we were all on the same page. I choose story-telling as the tool of  choice.

2. Selection:

As the video by Bilal Vanegas (Global Leadership Development Director, Mars, Inc.) displays, story  telling is the ability / tool to present “a little bit of data”, “hard facts” and “recommendations” in a  compelling way. It is said by Bilal Vanegas, that leaders currently have only approximately 20% of the  time and attention of their personnel. Storytelling is a valid tool to increase attention and the level of  engagement by a little bit longer. It can be used to create a common understanding of problems, sense  of purpose and urgency. He describes it a way to form fellowship, with a common understanding of a  topic and by that leading toward a common goal.

I selected story-telling because of one goal I was trying to achieve. I wanted to have everybody of the

recovery team on the same page, on my page! And I did not have the time for long workshops to  develop a mission statement and a project charter etc. Yes, those things are necessary, but not to be  develop by everybody. Also I did not want to micromanage every team member. I wanted to make the  recovery strategy accessible for everyone not only for the leaders that write it. The compelling story  should create energy and reduces complexity and uncertainty by making topics digestible, simple and  relatable. It should equally give meaning to both VP and line worker.

3. Application:

I choose to apply story telling first during the kick-off meeting of the project. This meeting had the  purpose to “swear” in the “fellowship” on the mission of the recovery project. Normally one would  present data what is going wrong and needs fixing. An organizational chart would be presented and in  accordance to it the multifunctional team would be formed. Goals would be defined and actions to reach  the goal.  This time I choose a different approach. I choose to do the meeting as one big story to be told.  I used the metaphor of a clockwork as a guiding principle throughout the meeting. Additionally I reduced

the presentation to three slides. The first one showed a clockwork, the second one a mission statement  and the third one showed the needed work packages.

The guiding principle of the clockwork das introduced in two ways. First as a metaphor of the ramp-up  process, e.g. all parts needed in the clockwork to work, therefore to need the production to work all  parts are needed. The second meaning of the clockwork is in regards to the team. Meaning that to  archive the desired outcome the team has to work hand in hand – like a clockwork. In addition I spend

quite some time preparing the story and practiced telling it. Also story telling is characterized by letting  room for reflection. So I used rhetorical questions to guide the audience’s thoughts and making room for  reflection. Also I addressed the topic of whose fault the current situation is directly. Lastly I did not pre- decide who will work on which work package but giving the team members the autonomy to pick their  work packages themselves. This worked very good and everybody picked their area according to their  expertise and interest.

4. Insight:

The most important insight I got is that one needs to practice storytelling and not just rehearsal each  presentation but practice in general. Secondly you have to make the story personal and engaging.  Thirdly creating moments of reflections is important and not very easy to do. Fourthly one have to be  engaged to make the audience engaged. If you have not caught the fire you are not able set the  audience on fire.

5. Approach:

I would apply the same to for a situation like this one, but I would outline the story better and until then I  would defiantly  would need to practice more story telling in general and right before the meeting in  particular. Good story telling needs practice and only by applying it more often one gets good at it. Also  coming from a business background I am comfortable with talking about facts and figures, I am not used  to talking about emotions and making a situation compelling involves emotions. This needs to be  practiced as well. Story telling is a great tool to reach out to people with different backgrounds and  knowledge bases and set a common ground for a common mission. I would always choose story telling  again for this kind of topic.

