Storytelling 

 Promotion & Staying at the top , gracefully . 

 Challenge & Selection 

 Storytelling is the tool I always use when I need to provide context , perspective , motivation , and gain   support from my team for an important project . Over my career I had several bosses who were very   astute in connecting a real - business life challenge we were facing at a moment - i.e. , a competitive   process to expand our businesses internationally or a bid to sell energy to a high - profile customer in   Brazil - to a successful ( most of the time ) story they had already lived , sometimes even in their personal   lives . “ The talk ” used to happen at the beginning of projects , usually in our kick - off meetings , was part of   the initial presentation and was led by the CDO ( Chief Development Officer ) or event the CEO depending   on the scope of the project . We used to refer to them as anecdotes . The fact that these stories were   real , conveyed a concrete sense of resilience by the people who were in them and were lived by our   leaders in each case helped us a lot down the road to reconfigure during several setbacks , preserve our   motivation and moral and restore our desire to win . 

 Application 

 The most challenging period of my career started in January 2014 with a promotion and took me almost   4 years . And the example I would like to briefly describe is how storytelling ( regarding my career and   personal challenges ) helped me accept this promotion and start this new role with the support of the   existing team . In January 2014 there was a major restructuring in my firm and almost all the executive   directors were replaced . The new CEO asked me to leave Business Development - as the agenda would   be less on the growth side and more on managing JVs – to become the Superintendent of power trading   ( free market ) and commercialization ( regulated market ) , a bigger team which would give me the first   P&L responsibility . My first challenge : the former superintendent , a very charismatic executive , was   asked to step down as they wanted someone more focused on finance and processes . My second   challenge : I had no formal experience in trading although my master ’s in finance and business   development experience gave me the confidence to accept the promotion . My third challenge : lead   senior managers , people who had been working for 15 - 20 years with the same subjects . So , the   question was really about the three elements of trust and how I could first assemble them in a   storytelling I delivered to the team during my first week : 

 1 . Would I be able to maintain / foster an atmosphere of positive relationships ( or camaraderie , a 

 “ trademark ” of my predecessor ? ) The implicit concern here was : “ am I going to be fired as well ” or   “ is there a mandate to restructure the team ” ? What I could tell them in first place was that I was   given autonomy to lead the team and the business , and this was the only way it could work for me :   full responsibility for results and lack of results as well as always . Having said this meant that I had   the green light for changes if believed they were necessary , but I was not given any script   beforehand . I believed that I could foster an incredibly positive , constructive atmosphere and   progress even further on fronts like team development ( technical and behavioural ) , business   fluency and better relationship between the team based In Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro . I told   them I had taught children math and computer science in different occasions in my life so as a non- trained professor I liked very much to transfer my business knowledge to the team as well . In   addition to this , I encouraged them to speak with my previous teams to learn their perspective as   well . 

 2 . Would I be able to quickly transfer my previous knowledge / expertise to trading and 

 commercialization ? I believed this was the smoothest point to address . I was not a specialist at all   in any sector – my focus was on business and its fundamentals and my career at that time was   developed in 4 blocks - chemical and petrochemical , metals and mining , management consulting   and power - with different companies and corporate cultures . From telling them how I could   transition from all these spaces , the belief I had that by holding on to fundamental business   concepts and practices one can apply those in different sectors , and the benefits to me as an 

 individual from transitioning from time to time , I attracted their curiosity for subsequent individual   meetings to address their development goals or even more conceptual career questions – it was an   interesting journey specially with the younger team members . 

 3 . Did I walk my talk ? Was I consistent , did I honour commitments and keep promises ? Although 

 they could also obtain elements to judge this aspect from other colleagues , this one was more   personal in my opinion and would be constructed day - by - day , by their observation . I mentioned to   them that back in 2007 when I joined the firm , I told my first team that whenever they were offered   a better career opportunity even within our firm , I would support them to pursue their objective . I   shared with them something that happened to me and made me thing this way : when I was   working for a mining company in 2010 , I was also studying for my master´s in finance . I was part of   the business development team when an opportunity with the treasury team appeared . My boss   did not support me because he believed it would have sound bad for him to lose someone for a   neighbour department . It was difficult for me at that time and I never would have liked to provide   the same negative experience to someone in my team . 

 Insight & Approach 

 On my first week I addressed the three points above in three different occasions : first meeting with the   whole team , second meeting with managers only and third meeting with the whole team again and   more structured in which I presented to them the initial findings , areas of concern and how we could   cooperate during the first 3 months when we would reconvene and evaluate our progress . 

 I believe the stories I told them to illustrate our areas of concern stayed with them on the background   over the years we worked together . Everyday I sensed that we have an opportunity to build this fabric   called trust . The stories were on their minds and they kept checking whether the persona on that   anecdote corresponds to the one in front of them , today . Although my example was not an objective   one to reach a physical , concrete product ( a system , a car , or an app ) , it led us as to the fantastic   product that is a team to function in harmony and in a transparent way . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Storytelling 

 Promotion & Staying at the top , gracefully . 

 Challenge & Selection 

 Storytelling is the tool I always use when I need to provide context , perspective , motivation , and gain   support from my team for an important project . Over my career I had several bosses who were very   astute in connecting a real - business life challenge we were facing at a moment - i.e. , a competitive   process to expand our businesses internationally or a bid to sell energy to a high - profile customer in   Brazil - to a successful ( most of the time ) story they had already lived , sometimes even in their personal   lives . “ The talk ” used to happen at the beginning of projects , usually in our kick - off meetings , was part of   the initial presentation and was led by the CDO ( Chief Development Officer ) or event the CEO depending   on the scope of the project . We used to refer to them as anecdotes . The fact that these stories were   real , conveyed a concrete sense of resilience by the people who were in them and were lived by our   leaders in each case helped us a lot down the road to reconfigure during several setbacks , preserve our   motivation and moral and restore our desire to win . 

 Application 

 The most challenging period of my career started in January 2014 with a promotion and took me almost   4 years . And the example I would like to briefly describe is how storytelling ( regarding my career and   personal challenges ) helped me accept this promotion and start this new role with the support of the   existing team . In January 2014 there was a major restructuring in my firm and almost all the executive   directors were replaced . The new CEO asked me to leave Business Development - as the agenda would   be less on the growth side and more on managing JVs – to become the Superintendent of power trading   ( free market ) and commercialization ( regulated market ) , a bigger team which would give me the first   P&L responsibility . My first challenge : the former superintendent , a very charismatic executive , was   asked to step down as they wanted someone more focused on finance and processes . My second   challenge : I had no formal experience in trading although my master ’s in finance and business   development experience gave me the confidence to accept the promotion . My third challenge : lead   senior managers , people who had been working for 15 - 20 years with the same subjects . So , the   question was really about the three elements of trust and how I could first assemble them in a   storytelling I delivered to the team during my first week : 

 1 . Would I be able to maintain / foster an atmosphere of positive relationships ( or camaraderie , a 

 “ trademark ” of my predecessor ? ) The implicit concern here was : “ am I going to be fired as well ” or   “ is there a mandate to restructure the team ” ? What I could tell them in first place was that I was   given autonomy to lead the team and the business , and this was the only way it could work for me :   full responsibility for results and lack of results as well as always . Having said this meant that I had   the green light for changes if believed they were necessary , but I was not given any script   beforehand . I believed that I could foster an incredibly positive , constructive atmosphere and   progress even further on fronts like team development ( technical and behavioural ) , business   fluency and better relationship between the team based In Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro . I told   them I had taught children math and computer science in different occasions in my life so as a non- trained professor I liked very much to transfer my business knowledge to the team as well . In   addition to this , I encouraged them to speak with my previous teams to learn their perspective as   well . 

 2 . Would I be able to quickly transfer my previous knowledge / expertise to trading and 

 commercialization ? I believed this was the smoothest point to address . I was not a specialist at all   in any sector – my focus was on business and its fundamentals and my career at that time was   developed in 4 blocks - chemical and petrochemical , metals and mining , management consulting   and power - with different companies and corporate cultures . From telling them how I could   transition from all these spaces , the belief I had that by holding on to fundamental business   concepts and practices one can apply those in different sectors , and the benefits to me as an 

 individual from transitioning from time to time , I attracted their curiosity for subsequent individual   meetings to address their development goals or even more conceptual career questions – it was an   interesting journey specially with the younger team members . 

 3 . Did I walk my talk ? Was I consistent , did I honour commitments and keep promises ? Although 

 they could also obtain elements to judge this aspect from other colleagues , this one was more   personal in my opinion and would be constructed day - by - day , by their observation . I mentioned to   them that back in 2007 when I joined the firm , I told my first team that whenever they were offered   a better career opportunity even within our firm , I would support them to pursue their objective . I   shared with them something that happened to me and made me thing this way : when I was   working for a mining company in 2010 , I was also studying for my master´s in finance . I was part of   the business development team when an opportunity with the treasury team appeared . My boss   did not support me because he believed it would have sound bad for him to lose someone for a   neighbour department . It was difficult for me at that time and I never would have liked to provide   the same negative experience to someone in my team . 

 Insight & Approach 

 On my first week I addressed the three points above in three different occasions : first meeting with the   whole team , second meeting with managers only and third meeting with the whole team again and   more structured in which I presented to them the initial findings , areas of concern and how we could   cooperate during the first 3 months when we would reconvene and evaluate our progress . 

 I believe the stories I told them to illustrate our areas of concern stayed with them on the background   over the years we worked together . Everyday I sensed that we have an opportunity to build this fabric   called trust . The stories were on their minds and they kept checking whether the persona on that   anecdote corresponds to the one in front of them , today . Although my example was not an objective   one to reach a physical , concrete product ( a system , a car , or an app ) , it led us as to the fantastic   product that is a team to function in harmony and in a transparent way .
### Output: 