Can you imagine a medical crisis where you can’t communicate with the people who can help you most? That’s what happened when our three-year old daughter broke her leg while on a family vacation in the Dominican Republic. We don’t speak Spanish and no interpreter was available.

This experience taught me an important lesson about what can motivate people to take action in addressing critical skill shortages.

In this case, our skills gap – not speaking Spanish – created a major communication gap. And that led to an incredible sense of powerlessness and anxiety as we struggled to get our daughter treated.

This incident gave me first hand knowledge of how the shortage of medical interpreters inhibits effective health care around the world. And it led me to take action that I describe in a brief interview after my keynote speech at GALA’s annual conference, a meeting of executives in the global translation industry.

Listen to my story of Anna’s broken leg, and what I was motivated to do afterwards.

One lesson is to ask: What stories do you have that show the frustration, costs and uncertainty caused by critical skill shortages? When skills gaps are a threat or a problem in your organization, look for ways to capture stories that emotionally connect with stakeholders who need to be motivated to make changes. When you want people to behave differently, find the feeling that will help them emotionally experience why new behaviors are so important.