FINAL ASSIGNMENT : STORYTELLING 

 Challenge and selection 

 Storytelling is one of the tools that I have used several times . Working in places like restaurants   make you get close to different people especially immigrants and some low income people who   urgently need their income to satisfy their daily needs . And this situation makes them a bit   fragile when their income is threatened . For many reasons going from low season for business   to economic recession , different solutions are considered by managers . They start from   reducing associates work hours to laying them off . 

 I usually refer to storytelling to motivate my team . The reasons why I often run to this tool is   that : it has a direct effect on people , you can instantly read it on their faces and their behavior .   While telling it you can observe if it is going to work or not . And when the story is told to a   group of people , it creates a kind of connection between them . It breaks cultural boundaries .   It also gives them a common reason to fight for . 

 Application 

 I have been working in food industry for quite a long time . I heard people saying that it is an   industry that is not affected by recession because no matter what , people have to eat . But my   experience in different countries shows that it is one of the most affected industries by many   crisis . 

 A year ago , I was working for a restaurant that was about to fill for bankruptcy . It was a very   stressful experience , especially for my team members because most of us just took loans from   our respective banks and more than half of the team were single parents . The rumors were   going around . People were affected and consequently it was impacting their mood , their work   and our profit . No more motivation as many questions were crossing people minds . Something   needed to be done to save the boat . Even if it was true that our turnover was far below the   previsions . What I saw coming up was closing our doors more because of poor quality input in   term of work than bankruptcy . It was becoming very bad when the absenteeism was increasing   and even worst when people were falling sick repetitively . I felt that it was great time to find   a solution to save the company from our hands before saving it from bankruptcy . I just recalled   my experience during some crisis and decided to tell a life story to our team . 

 Insight and Approach 

 I looked for a day in the middle of the week when most people were in the office and were   ready to listen to me I just started telling a story about my past experience when I was working   for a restaurant located in a metropolitan area . I particularly recalled one crisis due to the   recession the country was facing in 2009 . We were not able to make half of the previsions for   the year , the management at the headquarter has decided to close most of the company ’s   branches . Our competition ( fast food restaurants ) surrounding us were driving our customers   away . They made their menu heathier and added meal options . Given the fact that we were   doing a lot of work on our meals , our prices were not really competitive . It was a bit   complicated for us to be laid off out of job . Our manager and I as supervisor decided to write   a letter to the head quarter requesting from them to give us some time to improve our profit 

 and an authorization to make some changes in the menus . The company menu was standard for   the country it was not taking regional cultures into account . We luckily got the approval . What   we first did is to include a seasonal meal , reduce the meals portioning ’s . Because our survey   from the customers show that the servings were too big . And this helped us reduce the prices   accordingly . We retrained the associates to have a better understanding about the reason why   we are at work and who is paying our bills . It was relatively easy to do given the fact that we   have seen the consequences on our pay checks due to reduced working hours . This brought back   our regular customers , helped us increase our profit and most importantly save our branch . 

 When I was concluding the story , I saw the light of hope and motivation in the eyes of my   colleagues and I understood that the story has done its job . 

 This course made me understand how better I can tell a story in a more structured way to make   it more effective . This experience helped me understand how powerful a storytelling can be   especially when it is well use 

 The other tool I could have used in this situation and which I will definitely use in the future   for similar situation is visualization . The reason is that it makes all the stakeholders see by   themselves what the problem is and consequently makes the problem easier to solve because   everyone knows his individual role to solve the problem . 


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: FINAL ASSIGNMENT : STORYTELLING 

 Challenge and selection 

 Storytelling is one of the tools that I have used several times . Working in places like restaurants   make you get close to different people especially immigrants and some low income people who   urgently need their income to satisfy their daily needs . And this situation makes them a bit   fragile when their income is threatened . For many reasons going from low season for business   to economic recession , different solutions are considered by managers . They start from   reducing associates work hours to laying them off . 

 I usually refer to storytelling to motivate my team . The reasons why I often run to this tool is   that : it has a direct effect on people , you can instantly read it on their faces and their behavior .   While telling it you can observe if it is going to work or not . And when the story is told to a   group of people , it creates a kind of connection between them . It breaks cultural boundaries .   It also gives them a common reason to fight for . 

 Application 

 I have been working in food industry for quite a long time . I heard people saying that it is an   industry that is not affected by recession because no matter what , people have to eat . But my   experience in different countries shows that it is one of the most affected industries by many   crisis . 

 A year ago , I was working for a restaurant that was about to fill for bankruptcy . It was a very   stressful experience , especially for my team members because most of us just took loans from   our respective banks and more than half of the team were single parents . The rumors were   going around . People were affected and consequently it was impacting their mood , their work   and our profit . No more motivation as many questions were crossing people minds . Something   needed to be done to save the boat . Even if it was true that our turnover was far below the   previsions . What I saw coming up was closing our doors more because of poor quality input in   term of work than bankruptcy . It was becoming very bad when the absenteeism was increasing   and even worst when people were falling sick repetitively . I felt that it was great time to find   a solution to save the company from our hands before saving it from bankruptcy . I just recalled   my experience during some crisis and decided to tell a life story to our team . 

 Insight and Approach 

 I looked for a day in the middle of the week when most people were in the office and were   ready to listen to me I just started telling a story about my past experience when I was working   for a restaurant located in a metropolitan area . I particularly recalled one crisis due to the   recession the country was facing in 2009 . We were not able to make half of the previsions for   the year , the management at the headquarter has decided to close most of the company ’s   branches . Our competition ( fast food restaurants ) surrounding us were driving our customers   away . They made their menu heathier and added meal options . Given the fact that we were   doing a lot of work on our meals , our prices were not really competitive . It was a bit   complicated for us to be laid off out of job . Our manager and I as supervisor decided to write   a letter to the head quarter requesting from them to give us some time to improve our profit 

 and an authorization to make some changes in the menus . The company menu was standard for   the country it was not taking regional cultures into account . We luckily got the approval . What   we first did is to include a seasonal meal , reduce the meals portioning ’s . Because our survey   from the customers show that the servings were too big . And this helped us reduce the prices   accordingly . We retrained the associates to have a better understanding about the reason why   we are at work and who is paying our bills . It was relatively easy to do given the fact that we   have seen the consequences on our pay checks due to reduced working hours . This brought back   our regular customers , helped us increase our profit and most importantly save our branch . 

 When I was concluding the story , I saw the light of hope and motivation in the eyes of my   colleagues and I understood that the story has done its job . 

 This course made me understand how better I can tell a story in a more structured way to make   it more effective . This experience helped me understand how powerful a storytelling can be   especially when it is well use 

 The other tool I could have used in this situation and which I will definitely use in the future   for similar situation is visualization . The reason is that it makes all the stakeholders see by   themselves what the problem is and consequently makes the problem easier to solve because   everyone knows his individual role to solve the problem .
### Output: 