Challenge: I am working as COO with a Telecom Infrastructure company, in the state of West Bengal in  the East side of India. This part of India is prone to inclement weather for large part of the year almost 8- 9 months. The Field force or the Technicians that mange our 11000 cell sites, spread over a large area,  90 Thousand Sq. Kilometers. It is a hard task, as our customer the “Telecom Service Providers” are  sensitive to outages and the end consumers, who want to be connected to Mobile Network always. The  biggest issue is the power supply which disappears as soon as rain starts, and we must keep running the  network with DGs and Batteries. Fuel replenishment also is major task due to long power cuts and road  blockages, uprooting of trees, bad terrain etc. This leads to burn out, exhaustion and safety risk above  all.

Each Year after the weather settle downs, we use to randomly select good performers based on output  parameters and conduct some award ceremony and handover few gifts.

The Challenge is to Keep the Field Force motivated and also ensure Safety these people who have to  face all kind of adversity to keep the Mobile Network up and running 24*7, 365 days an year.

Selection: We did ethnographic analysis and used journey mapping tools to gather data, finally  understood that there was lack of sense of belonging to the organization overall and all the  communication that was originating from Top was lost in the journey almost completely. They doubted  the intent of organization being really concerned about their safety, and felt organization was only using  them to keep the network running. We finally selected” Story Telling” a way to communicate a new  compressive Reward & Recognition Program with a strong Emphasis on Safety. This Tool was selected  because we were addressing a large audience, they were technicians (field personnel) they lacked  connect and messages given to them in isolation was not resonating with them. Therefore, to get them  at one place along with their families helped us to bond with them. Complete R&R Program and Safety  Message was communicated by a Circle Leadership Team Member using Audio/Visual and a Scripted  story Line for Effective and Consistent message with Credibility. We kind of used Good Kitchen example  to address this issue in a comprehensive way.

Application: A detailed score card-based evaluation criteria was identified with strong emphasis on  Proactive maintenance of Sites, Fuel availability and Logistics management. Safety was also addressed  comprehensively with Risk Awareness, Prevention and Elimination components.  The Program was  called “Parakaram” which in English means Valor or Bravery.

Insight: It is important to understand people who are recipient of your communication, because often,  the message what organization and leadership from Top wants to communicate is diluted as it travels  down to the last mile. It is therefore, important that the key messages and information is directly given  to the concern audience by leaders themselves. Best place to connect to people is also their work place,  shop floor or at their sites. Story Telling is effective communication tool to convey important message  and is retained for a long time.

Approach: Identifying problem without jumping to problem solving is challenging task at starting,  especially for people with many years of experience. Therefore, using design thinking tools such as  journey mapping, visualization help, “What is” and “What If” are key phases and time must be spent  there.  We used these to understand the real issues and used Story Telling as a Tool to effectively  communicate the organizational message and program.

