Challenge:

The challenge was a very unique one and quite relevant in the current environment of the Pandemic  that’s ongoing. As a business, we’re trying to open up our offices completely and ensure that normal  functions resume and clients and customers feel comfortable visiting our location with confidence. One  of the key challenges that we anticipated and later faced was with our own employees some of who  were scared and reluctant to get vaccinated as they feared the unknown which resulted in the  organization unable to communicate to their clients that every employee is vaccinated and clients can  safely and confidently do business with us.

Selection:

As part of the “back to work” core committee within the organization, I volunteered to overcome this  challenge and selected to use “Storytelling” as a concept to manage this. There was skepticism from  some of the committee members however, I was confident about sharing my own and some of the  people I am close to for using their experiences and tell those stories in overcoming this challenge. As  the challenge was already ongoing, I had to act quickly to overcome this as we wanted not to miss out  on an important time of our business window in the summer to ensure the challenge is met  conclusively.

Application:

As part of the exercise, I had to individually meet with the employees who were reluctant of getting  inoculated in the current pandemic. However, as a first step, I invited all of them to a common forum  and wanted to understand their reasons and share the benefits of the vaccine drive that the  Government is conducting and the benefits of the same. I also during the session shared the experiences  of mine when I had visited a country which was the worst hit in the pandemic and some of the stories  not only about suffering but also some of the amazing recoveries people have made from the virus due  to having the vaccine. I myself gave my own example of how I personally recovered from the virus very  quickly and without any symptoms due to the vaccine and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. I also shared  some of the recovery stories that I was aware of from my close associates and shared some of the  experiences I has seen when me and my friends (from school) went to distribute Oxygen Cylinders to the  caregivers for some of the people who were suffering from the virus.

Insight:

As I was sharing the various stories and experiences, most of the attendees were happy to hear the  benefits and agreed that they will give it a second thought and most likely after discussing with their  family and friends, will progress with the vaccination. This was a great insight for me that yes, the  concept of storytelling and real-life experiences really help in people understanding why we’re doing  sometimes. However, some of the attendees in the session wanted a one-on-one session and we agreed  to do this. During such discussions there were some who shared more private information about their  reluctance to get inoculated as some had medical conditions which increased their risks of unknown,

one of them shared a really bad experience she had with her father who was paralyzed due to a  previous vaccination for over 6 months and never recovered fully. These experiences were also a big eye  opener for me as an individual and I got much more insights about their fears and reasons for not  accepting something which looked to me a straightforward decision. I managed to alleviate some of  their concerns however, it was also a different perspective for me to understand and get insight.

Approach:

After the meetings and the sessions, I had, I came back to the committee and discussed all the learnings  and we as a group decided on the best approach in such a situation. This triggered a discussion leading  to a slight change in the approach going forward. I did continue with storytelling and the learnings that  we had however, the approach got tweaked a bit to bring in real life examples i.e., more people who  have actually gone through the journey themselves. This would bring in a more realistic and better  stories would be told providing more meaningful conversations.

Overall, the storytelling experience was quite an eye opener for the committee and personally I was  quite successful in getting most of the people to accept the proposal that I was putting across for them  to get vaccinated. People believe in real life experiences and stories and understand that someone has  gone through the same journey and practice which allows them to understand and accept the situation  and move forward.

