Quintessential Careers Press:
The Quintessential Guide to Storytelling that Propels Careers
Chapter 1: Telling Stories about Change
Page 11
In my current job, I am working on a project to increase efficiencies in the customer-service area,
one component of which is to better control the way customer service handles the mail. I questioned the
administrative clerk, who’s responsible for receiving and distributing the mail, about how she does her job.
She gathers mail from the P.O. box, reads the recipient, and passes mail around to be handled. I asked her
what would happen if mail is lost. How would we track it? If someone doesn’t handle the sender’s inquiry
in a timely manner, how can we know? I presented with her many questions of real and hypothetical situations
where the ball was dropped somewhere, so I could find out from her if she had a plan in place to deal with
those situations. The clerk at first, felt confident in her work, took great pride in being industrious, and
didn’t feel passing mail around was a broken process, but after our conversation, she began to see the situation
from my point of view and became receptive to new ideas and change. I needed and attained her buy-in so that I
could create change and add value to her job. Together, we’ve developed a process to ensure that customer
inquiries don’t slip through the cracks.
Next Page