MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Become a Better Problem Solver by Telling Better Stories

Like many companies at the end of 2021, a small European precision toolmaker was having trouble hiring and retaining talent. The executive team had a solution: Create a more attractive social space to encourage informal collaboration. But when the head of human resources presented the plan to the board (which included one of this article’s coauthors), the directors were puzzled. They didn’t know what problem the redesign was supposed to solve.

In retrospect, their confusion was understandable. The executive team had not spelled out the extent of the company’s recruitment challenges or made clear the link between the social space and attracting talent. Rather than seeking approval for the new space, they should have been discussing the best way to make the company a more attractive place to work or, more broadly, how to assemble the talent they needed given the expanding competition for talent across industries.

About the Author

Arnaud Chevallier is a professor of strategy, and Albrecht Enders is a professor of strategy and innovation at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland. They are the coauthors of Solvable: A Simple Solution to Complex Problems (FT Publishing, 2022). Jean-Louis Barsoux is a term research professor at IMD Lausanne.

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