“The Appointment” is the title of the anthology of short stories created and written by some of our British, Irish and Italian colleagues at CRIF involved in a creative writing project.
This was a training exercise devised to respond in an original way to the organizational need for motivation and engagement, fostering dialogue and strengthening relationships and value generation among employees.
First of all, our colleagues attended a creative writing course to learn about the strategies and rules of writing a story, taking inspiration and ideas from the course and turning them into their own stories.
During the writing experience, participants analyzed the structure of a story, and the creation of the setting, characters and dialogue; this allowed them to challenge themselves and become writers for a day!
The result? Twelve stories of real or imaginary encounters, suspended between the past, present and future, set in different places and contexts and talking about travel, work, personal relationships and dreams, but above all talking about the author.
The stories were then collected in a book, published by Fernandel Editore and now available in bookshops and online.
Loretta Chiusoli, CRIF HR Director and author of the afterword, wrote: "In my role, I have always believed that dealing with engagement means dealing with people's emotions; based on this assumption, the wide-ranging benefits of this experience include the transferring of corporate values and creative engagement - which aims to bring out personal diversity, a talent or particular skill, or to create an outlet – as well as the development of new skills, which are in great demand today, such as storytelling."
Sara Costantini, UK & Ireland Regional Director at CRIF, commented:
“We often see how, in everyday life, the written language is being gradually weakened and depleted by social media, short and concise messages, and ever more frequent and popular audio and video messaging.
In addition to responding to an intellectual pleasure, written language in a work context performs an essential function: e-mails, documents that a colleague or client needs to read and understand, a contract, or any other important document that needs to be in writing to be legally binding.
It was these considerations that gave rise to the creative writing project, which later led to the book. The book's purpose is twofold: to rediscover the importance of writing in a professional and collaborative context and to invite the individual to embark on a journey of self-discovery through writing.
I am also confident that this project, through the shared emotional experience, will increase our cohesion and strengthen the team’s results. It will also nurture a sense of belonging to our CRIF group, facilitate the inclusion of individual members of the group, and encourage talent retention.”
The book is available, in English and Italian, in bookshops and online:
in English: Amazon
in Italian:
