Medtronic I.T. Leadership Case Study

Format: Zoom call with myself and one other facilitator (my client) 2-Days at 3 hours per day.

After some pre-work, we enter a conversation where each of the 12 leaders have a chance to open up and tell their professional story within the context of the company’s history. After two hours of us all listening and asking the speaker questions about their experiences, we facilitate a difficult conversation around a past acquisition and several places leaders feel undervalued. Some leaders never knew the pain of that merger or some of the failed programs intended to overcome it. An apt analogy emerges as a dark cloud that I draw spontaneously after it is mentioned in passing. Yet, a hopeful analogy counters this dark cloud in the form of parachuters, hot-air balloons, and a coincidental tie to Medtronic’s founder. Since he was a small airline pilot, he would personally fly early versions of their pace-maker directly to hospitals. Our discovery as I draw is that there is pain and hope visually communicated at the same time. It is a bonus that the analogy ties to their shared history. Emotional healing begins here, and we move this team back into action with more alignment and excitement about their collaboration.

Nerd Note: Since working within a Zoom call is limited by screens and there is no sense of how big a screen any team member will be using, I opted for a tall format. This is so that I could use Procreate on my ipad to zoom in on one vertical third of the timeline at a time and work chronologically from top to bottom. I also based the size on an 11”x17” printable sheet of paper and work at 300 dpi if anyone wanted to print the final outcome.