Example Reflection –

Challenge      A few years ago my organization made the push to have managers make “data-driven

decisions”. While data can be very valuable, what often happens in my organization is that

managers overload their audience with data. PowerPoint presentation of slide after slide of

graphs and charts often are not as compelling as the presenter would hope. My individual

challenge is that I want to get a small test or learning launch off the ground to test the concept of

“curbside pickup” where customers can place orders online and pick the orders up in store, in our

retail stores. In order to get this test of the ground I need to get buy in from key leaders and

stakeholders, and make sure they are bought in to the goals.

Selection

For my challenge I choose to use the tool of Storytelling. In order to cut through the

deluge of “data-driven” presentation I wanted something that tells a narrative, where the key

ideas and goals will actually stick with the audience members. As the Storytelling lecture stated a

story can turn solving a business problem into a “cause”. This is very important in my case as

this project requires efforts from our retail stores, technology teams, marketing teams and

business operations teams and in order to get that level of buy-in I need them emotionally

invested in the effort.

Application

For my application of the Storytelling tool I created a story of a customer. In the

beginning this customer went to one of our stores, this customer had two children with them and

was in a hurry to get their kids to school on time. In this first story I imagine we did not offer

curbside pickup, which forced this customer to come into the store, wait in line and overall have

a bad experience. I then let the audience imagine how we could solve this to create some

suspense. I then retell the story with the store now offering curbside pickup, and this customer

able to get there items quickly in the parking lot and becoming a brand promoter. This was an

effective story as the audience was bought in and we were able to get the green light to test and

approval from all teams to collaborate on the project.

Insight

What I learned from using the storytelling tool is the power of the story telling tool.

Rather than get caught up in data, I got the audience engaged in a story of what could be. The

audience was asking questions and paying attention to what was happening, and in the end the

audience came to the conclusion I was hoping they would. I would continue to use the story

telling tool in the future after this example.

Approach

An alternative approach would be to use a visualization. In this case I wanted to test a

specific hypothesis, however I could of, used visualization for more of collaborative experience.

For example, I could of, created a short video showing the upset customer and then asked the

audience to write down their thoughts on what happened. Then we could of, come together and

created clusters of ideas and created a solution. This is a valuable approach that I will likely use

in the future

