Challenge    I am an electronics engineer, and a few months ago I started working as a functional  analyst in a small software factory. I was excited because I felt that description job  fits perfectly with the kind of job I was looking for: It required project managing, data  analysis, function definitions of a platform, user experience, and team work.      On my first days, I realize the work environment wasn’t what I expected. People were  bored and counting the hours to get out of the office. The company supported one  of the Government Platform of the social security payments for employers and  independent workers, so it involves encode a large number of laws and regulatory  decrees stipulated by the government, with little chance of applying creative ideas  and innovation. A quite tedious job, and whose value everyone doesn't know.    My challenge was to explain developers what were the requirements in accordance  with the social security law, and keep motivated work teams, encouraging talent  retention, since the high turnover of personnel was causing a significant loss of  knowledge on the platforms, which made the developments more expensive and  delayed than they should.    Selection    Storytelling is a wonderful tool to connect to the emotions, the values, and the people  that live and use the product every day. It changes your mindset from “the list of  things we got to do” to “purpose that unites people with a common cause”. It’s a  natural form of communication, so on breaks time, we share stories of our lives, our  families and friends, as a way to get out of the work routine and share a space with  friends, laughs and advices. Through this tool, that “put the human beings and their  experience front and center. Take the listener along on their journey”, focusing it on  the workplace, it was possible to give energy, passion and excitement around our  job.     Application    At that time my brother had lost his job, and had to start using the platform to pay his  social security as an independent employee with the minimum wage so as not to  lose the health and pension coverage he had. Through his experience I discovered  that the platform we developed in the company complied with what the law required,  but it was very difficult for people to understand.    I started sitting with him to listen to his problems, what he had tried to do, how he  had done it, and to analyze his way of interacting with the product. When I arrived at  the office, I told my coworkers all his experiences with a little bit of grace, and we  began to try to put ourselves in their shoes.    In an incredible way the whole environment changed, the developers asked me for  more stories for them to correct the bugs of the platform, they were excited to find

the errors that my brother had faced, they shared possible strategies to solve them,  and they began to enjoy much more his work, and the people with whom we shared  this mission.    We put together a very cool working group. We won a government award for being  the platform with the best quality, and we began to see our work in a very different,  pleasant way, and enjoying what each of us did to make life easier for people who  should use our product.    Insight & Approach    This course helped me understand the power of Storytelling, the impact it can have  on people around us and throughout society. Now I can use this tool a little more  consciously, applying the basic rules for a good story, and no longer doing it  intuitively, but with knowledge of the correct way to apply it.

