Using storytelling to understand roadblocks towards equality 

 Fa Leclercq 

 Challenge 

 Because my organization wants to be a leader in how it cares for its talented employees , naturally the   issue of gender equality recently arose . More specifically , prior research had shown an inequality in the   amount of female leaders present in the company . Furthermore , one of the causes of this phenomenon   seemed to be a significant bottleneck at a certain level of management in the company , where some   women seemed to ‘ get stuck ’ in their career . Being assigned to conduct a project to discover the causes   of this bottleneck , I used the design thinking tool called storytelling as a guiding principle throughout the   project . 

 Tool description 

 Storytelling can be used as a tool to gain deep understanding into the journey your target population   goes through . It helps researchers go beyond spreadsheets , numbers , and graphs by putting the person   at the center of the conversation , getting to know him / her inside - out , and most importantly , going along   with them through their life and journey and gaining deep understanding in all the ups and downs they   go through . I used this technique at several stages of the project to gain understanding in the career   journey that employees , and more specifically female colleagues , in the company go through to get   insight in possible roadblocks and accelerators along this journey . 

 Tool application and approach 

 In a first phase of the project , we organized a handful of in - depth , meaningful interviews where we had a   one - on - one conversation with colleagues which we had localized as key figures in our target population ,   i.e. women that seemed ‘ stuck ’ in their careers . In these hour - long conversations , we discovered the   ‘ backstory ’ of each of these women , their ambition , and their reflection on the company and the role   they play in it .   Although we found some overlapping subjects , we gained most insight from the   differences we heard in each story . 

 After getting a retrospective view on the journey , we decided in a second phase of the project to get to   know the story of the employees at different stages in their careers leading up to the bottleneck . Again ,   we used storytelling as our main tool in our arsenal . By inviting a dozen colleagues , all at different stages   in their career , to a short coffee break , we got to know what was going on in the lives of these   colleagues . This gave us ‘ contemporary ’ input , which was very much complementary to the retrospective   insights we had gained from previous interviews . Although we heard that most colleagues were full of   ambition to grab their career with both hands , they also recognized some roadblocks along the way . 

 We combined our data to assemble a complete and comprehensive story of the career journey of our   female managers . This story was then brought into a simple lifeline , which was the basis of our third   storytelling phase . 

 We invited a dozen managers and upper management and divided them in two workshop groups . The   main purpose of these workshops was as following : to get the final input on the story of the career   journey they had gone through . 

 In the workshops , we discussed the scope of the project and explained briefly what we had already   gathered . However , the power of storytelling rapidly became clear . Because the story was now told in a   group setting , we noticed how participants could feed off each other ’s input and chime in by adding   quotes and anecdotes they had completely forgotten about , but that had turned out to be of great   impact . Conversationally , the participants recalled and refined their story and found commonalities , as   well as unique aspects in their stories . We used the story of these colleagues as our guiding principle   when presenting our findings to the board of our company . 

 Insights 

 We quickly realized the strength of storytelling in this project . Although the quantitative research helped   us identify the main problem we wanted to solve and find our main population , it was the storytelling   that gave us the real insightful information . We did away with the numbers for a while to just focus on   what the actual people involved could teach us about the way things were going in the company and   how they had been perceiving their environment . 

 My first key take - away from this project is to not get stuck on finding similarities in the stories , but to try   and see the beauty in the uniqueness of each story . Although similarities can be useful to get a high - level   view of the situation , the unique details in each story can help you get to underlying root causes of the   problems you ’re trying to solve . 

 My second key take - away would be to never be satisfied with the information you have . There are   always details , anecdotes or differences that can help you get a more holistic view of the story you ’re   trying to grasp . In this case , even three angles on the same story in my opinion did not fully bring us to   our so - called saturation point . 

 My last take - away would be to not get lost in the stories when the saturation point is reached . Although   storytelling can bring us very rich data , Rome was n’t built in a day . Keep the main problem you ’re   investigating in mind throughout the process to not get lost in sidetracks . This might in turn help you in   identifying solutions to the very problem you are trying to solve . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: Fa Leclercq
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: Using storytelling to understand roadblocks towards equality 

 Fa Leclercq 

 Challenge 

 Because my organization wants to be a leader in how it cares for its talented employees , naturally the   issue of gender equality recently arose . More specifically , prior research had shown an inequality in the   amount of female leaders present in the company . Furthermore , one of the causes of this phenomenon   seemed to be a significant bottleneck at a certain level of management in the company , where some   women seemed to ‘ get stuck ’ in their career . Being assigned to conduct a project to discover the causes   of this bottleneck , I used the design thinking tool called storytelling as a guiding principle throughout the   project . 

 Tool description 

 Storytelling can be used as a tool to gain deep understanding into the journey your target population   goes through . It helps researchers go beyond spreadsheets , numbers , and graphs by putting the person   at the center of the conversation , getting to know him / her inside - out , and most importantly , going along   with them through their life and journey and gaining deep understanding in all the ups and downs they   go through . I used this technique at several stages of the project to gain understanding in the career   journey that employees , and more specifically female colleagues , in the company go through to get   insight in possible roadblocks and accelerators along this journey . 

 Tool application and approach 

 In a first phase of the project , we organized a handful of in - depth , meaningful interviews where we had a   one - on - one conversation with colleagues which we had localized as key figures in our target population ,   i.e. women that seemed ‘ stuck ’ in their careers . In these hour - long conversations , we discovered the   ‘ backstory ’ of each of these women , their ambition , and their reflection on the company and the role   they play in it .   Although we found some overlapping subjects , we gained most insight from the   differences we heard in each story . 

 After getting a retrospective view on the journey , we decided in a second phase of the project to get to   know the story of the employees at different stages in their careers leading up to the bottleneck . Again ,   we used storytelling as our main tool in our arsenal . By inviting a dozen colleagues , all at different stages   in their career , to a short coffee break , we got to know what was going on in the lives of these   colleagues . This gave us ‘ contemporary ’ input , which was very much complementary to the retrospective   insights we had gained from previous interviews . Although we heard that most colleagues were full of   ambition to grab their career with both hands , they also recognized some roadblocks along the way . 

 We combined our data to assemble a complete and comprehensive story of the career journey of our   female managers . This story was then brought into a simple lifeline , which was the basis of our third   storytelling phase . 

 We invited a dozen managers and upper management and divided them in two workshop groups . The   main purpose of these workshops was as following : to get the final input on the story of the career   journey they had gone through . 

 In the workshops , we discussed the scope of the project and explained briefly what we had already   gathered . However , the power of storytelling rapidly became clear . Because the story was now told in a   group setting , we noticed how participants could feed off each other ’s input and chime in by adding   quotes and anecdotes they had completely forgotten about , but that had turned out to be of great   impact . Conversationally , the participants recalled and refined their story and found commonalities , as   well as unique aspects in their stories . We used the story of these colleagues as our guiding principle   when presenting our findings to the board of our company . 

 Insights 

 We quickly realized the strength of storytelling in this project . Although the quantitative research helped   us identify the main problem we wanted to solve and find our main population , it was the storytelling   that gave us the real insightful information . We did away with the numbers for a while to just focus on   what the actual people involved could teach us about the way things were going in the company and   how they had been perceiving their environment . 

 My first key take - away from this project is to not get stuck on finding similarities in the stories , but to try   and see the beauty in the uniqueness of each story . Although similarities can be useful to get a high - level   view of the situation , the unique details in each story can help you get to underlying root causes of the   problems you ’re trying to solve . 

 My second key take - away would be to never be satisfied with the information you have . There are   always details , anecdotes or differences that can help you get a more holistic view of the story you ’re   trying to grasp . In this case , even three angles on the same story in my opinion did not fully bring us to   our so - called saturation point . 

 My last take - away would be to not get lost in the stories when the saturation point is reached . Although   storytelling can bring us very rich data , Rome was n’t built in a day . Keep the main problem you ’re   investigating in mind throughout the process to not get lost in sidetracks . This might in turn help you in   identifying solutions to the very problem you are trying to solve .
### Output: 