Storytelling to improve government communication skills 

 Monica Torres 

 1 . Challenge : 

 I work for the Colombian government since I was 23 years old . What I have seen during   that time is that : ( i ) State entities in Colombia have little credibility caused by high rates of   corruption and the popular belief that they are inefficient . ( ii ) people who work for the   government have difficulties to communicate what the government is doing because they   use a technical terminology that common people do not understand . ( iii ) Government   workers are used to do things in a certain way that allow them to keep their Jobs and get   things done accordingly to the law . Finally , ( iv ) government entities do not understand the   real problems of citizens . 

 In this context , we worked identifying a way to face those issues in our office . We decided   to start with the problem within our reach “ improve my communication skills and my   colleague ’s ” . The main challenge was finding a way to change our mindset so we used a   tool that allow us to communicate better among us . 

 2 . Selection : 

 Driven to improve our communication skills and connect with each other , we decided to   use storytelling as a tool to ease the presentations of our topics . Telling stories in our   presentations make them more interesting for the listener , helping to capture their   attention and empathize with the audience . The stories humanized our communication   and make our colleagues feel closer to topics different from their expertise . It makes them   the center of our presentations . 

 Taking in to account that our topics and the language we used was considered difficult to   keep up and boring , we decided to use examples and analogies in our personal stories to   connect with values , emotions and character . Like John Kaur , Global Leadership   Development Director from Mars Inc , says “ ( … ) Every great brand has a story and that   story connects to the emotions , the characters , the values of the people ( … ) ” . We wanted   to build the story behind our work , that ’s our brand . 

 3 . Application : 

 We started searching in to our personal repertoire of stories , looking for the key points that   could have a personal connection with our audience as well as with the topics we were   presenting . We chose the stories were there was a strong connection with the speaker but   also had a clear meaning to the listener . The criteria for determining the stories was that it   had to be funny as we realized that our audience was always leaning for this type of   content . 

 Once the stories were identified , the next step was to build the speech accordingly to what   we wanted to explain . The first story we told had the purpose to explain the “ integrated   model of planning and public management ” which is the model that determines the   proceedings in public institutions to make them more effective and transparent . In the 

 past , people who had participated in conferences about this topic said it was boring and   difficult to understand . 

 The chosen story was the personal experience of my dad who out of nowhere decided he   wanted to build a sheep farm . Using as an example the different planning and   management stages of the project and making a strong emphasis on the different   problems that the project had to overcome , as well as asking the audience for possible   solutions we presented the case , making fun of some experiences he overcome and   discovering useful correlations between the model and my dad´s experience . 

 At the end of each presentation , the participants expressed that they understood the topic   and could implement the model in their daily routine . They also revealed that they were   entertained during the presentation and that they could replicate the explanation of the   model in a similar way . In a nutshell , the storytelling strategy was effective and we   decided to replicate this tool in other presentations . Now is quite popular to hear   storytelling presentations at the organization , what is helpful to communicate with citizens   as well . 

 4 . Insight : 

 What we learned out of this experience was : ( i ) Firstly we need to understand our   audience , their values and interests to match what they find appealing with what they   need to learn . ( ii ) Using humor as a resource is very efficient to connect with the audience   and retain their attention . ( iii ) Personal stories are easier to tell for the speaker as they   lived them already . ( iv ) By opening and telling something personal it is easier to create a   bond with the audience . ( v ) Through stories , it is easier to find the causes and solutions to   common problems which is useful for design thinking as well , it has been our entrance to   design thinking at the organization . 

 5 . Approach : 

 Given that storytelling tool has been successfully used for enhance our communication   skills , it is time to explore some others uses . We started our first design thinking exercise   and we want to include story telling tool as a facilitator in this process . Having said that ,   perhaps the only thing I would do different is to test the story before doing it with a real   audience to find better analogies and conclusions as well as getting an initial feedback   from your colleagues . Using experimentation as a complement to improve de innovation   exercises at the organization . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: Monica Torres
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 to improve government communication skills 

 Monica Torres 

 1 . Challenge : 

 I work for the Colombian government since I was 23 years old . What I have seen during   that time is that : ( i ) State entities in Colombia have little credibility caused by high rates of   corruption and the popular belief that they are inefficient . ( ii ) people who work for the   government have difficulties to communicate what the government is doing because they   use a technical terminology that common people do not understand . ( iii ) Government   workers are used to do things in a certain way that allow them to keep their Jobs and get   things done accordingly to the law . Finally , ( iv ) government entities do not understand the   real problems of citizens . 

 In this context , we worked identifying a way to face those issues in our office . We decided   to start with the problem within our reach “ improve my communication skills and my   colleague ’s ” . The main challenge was finding a way to change our mindset so we used a   tool that allow us to communicate better among us . 

 2 . Selection : 

 Driven to improve our communication skills and connect with each other , we decided to   use storytelling as a tool to ease the presentations of our topics . Telling stories in our   presentations make them more interesting for the listener , helping to capture their   attention and empathize with the audience . The stories humanized our communication   and make our colleagues feel closer to topics different from their expertise . It makes them   the center of our presentations . 

 Taking in to account that our topics and the language we used was considered difficult to   keep up and boring , we decided to use examples and analogies in our personal stories to   connect with values , emotions and character . Like John Kaur , Global Leadership   Development Director from Mars Inc , says “ ( … ) Every great brand has a story and that   story connects to the emotions , the characters , the values of the people ( … ) ” . We wanted   to build the story behind our work , that ’s our brand . 

 3 . Application : 

 We started searching in to our personal repertoire of stories , looking for the key points that   could have a personal connection with our audience as well as with the topics we were   presenting . We chose the stories were there was a strong connection with the speaker but   also had a clear meaning to the listener . The criteria for determining the stories was that it   had to be funny as we realized that our audience was always leaning for this type of   content . 

 Once the stories were identified , the next step was to build the speech accordingly to what   we wanted to explain . The first story we told had the purpose to explain the “ integrated   model of planning and public management ” which is the model that determines the   proceedings in public institutions to make them more effective and transparent . In the 

 past , people who had participated in conferences about this topic said it was boring and   difficult to understand . 

 The chosen story was the personal experience of my dad who out of nowhere decided he   wanted to build a sheep farm . Using as an example the different planning and   management stages of the project and making a strong emphasis on the different   problems that the project had to overcome , as well as asking the audience for possible   solutions we presented the case , making fun of some experiences he overcome and   discovering useful correlations between the model and my dad´s experience . 

 At the end of each presentation , the participants expressed that they understood the topic   and could implement the model in their daily routine . They also revealed that they were   entertained during the presentation and that they could replicate the explanation of the   model in a similar way . In a nutshell , the storytelling strategy was effective and we   decided to replicate this tool in other presentations . Now is quite popular to hear   storytelling presentations at the organization , what is helpful to communicate with citizens   as well . 

 4 . Insight : 

 What we learned out of this experience was : ( i ) Firstly we need to understand our   audience , their values and interests to match what they find appealing with what they   need to learn . ( ii ) Using humor as a resource is very efficient to connect with the audience   and retain their attention . ( iii ) Personal stories are easier to tell for the speaker as they   lived them already . ( iv ) By opening and telling something personal it is easier to create a   bond with the audience . ( v ) Through stories , it is easier to find the causes and solutions to   common problems which is useful for design thinking as well , it has been our entrance to   design thinking at the organization . 

 5 . Approach : 

 Given that storytelling tool has been successfully used for enhance our communication   skills , it is time to explore some others uses . We started our first design thinking exercise   and we want to include story telling tool as a facilitator in this process . Having said that ,   perhaps the only thing I would do different is to test the story before doing it with a real   audience to find better analogies and conclusions as well as getting an initial feedback   from your colleagues . Using experimentation as a complement to improve de innovation   exercises at the organization .
### Output: 