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The myth of awareness: more communication leads to behavioral change
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During my recent conversation with a potential client, an interesting point came up. We were in the final stages of outlining the change management approach to deliver on his transformation plan.
“I’d like to have the communication action in the overall plan sooner rather than later", said the sales leader and then added, “ I’d like to communicate my plan to the entire commercial organization as soon as possible”.
I asked, “Why do you want to communicate? what would you like to communicate?”
He looked surprised with my question and replied, "Well, I’d like everyone to know about my new approach to selling and start adopting it".
As I continued to probe, it was clear that he, like most other change agents, had been misled by the misconception that the more effort we put into raising awareness, the greater the success of behavior change.
This couldn't be further from the truth.
My intention is to dispel this myth (and few more myths in upcoming post) and give you a more effective starting point to lead your change journey and make your big ideas impact.
Unfortunately, my potential client is not alone with this misconception Most organizational CHANGE EFFORTS are approached in the same way, inspired by marketing awareness campaigns that seem to be a holy grail for all ambitious missions that require persuasion.
It can even work if the "change effort" in question is ONLY about spreading information rather than persuading people to:
- Learn new competences
- Develop new routines
- Adopt new behavior
Several years ago I worked with VP of Sales of a large security monitoring company across Europe. When he was appointed to the position, he inherited an overwhelming customer churn problem that was around 15% at the time.
Security was a critical aspect of business continuity and profitability for our customers. Hence, any margin of dissatisfaction with the level of service led customers to switch to our competitors. To ensure that the teams delivered the expected and promised level of service, multiple functions within the company and sometimes across countries had to work together in a highly coordinated and interdependent manner to proactively identify issues.
To prevent recurrence of mistakes, key account teams had to (1) admit when they had encountered a problem or overlooked an issue (2) speak up when they saw other members making mistakes so that proactive measures could betaken to resolve the issues.
But here was the thing…
Members were more willing to donate their kidneys (not literally) than to admit they had made a mistake or point out that other members had made a mistake.
Under immense pressure from executive management, the VP of Sales decided to launch a BIG-BANG customer centricity campaign. This included:
- setting up a communications team that created and posted glossy posters throughout the building
- organized town hall meetings with speeches on the topic
- implemented overwhelming KPI dashboards to measure every interaction and
- training for the entire commercial team.
To his dismay, after 18 months of investment, all the efforts have not educed the problem of customer attrition, but only made it worse.
What did the VP of Sales miss?
In this situation, the VP didn't take enough time to understand the underlying behaviors driving the attrition (he assumed his team wasn't customer focused enough) and the social norm around which the members operated.
Had he taken the time to understand the challenge, it would have saved him the huge investment in money and time that served no purpose but actually cost his credibility.
If more awareness, more communication and more publicity drove a successful transformational change, then his customer centricity program would have reduced the customer attrition rate significantly and not continued the bleeding.
Here are a few steps that you can take before plunging into extensive& expensive communication campaigns:
Resist the temptation to campaign
First, take the time to understand what your change effort is up against. Is it just a spread of information or do you require your team members to change their behavior? If the former is the case, then definitely approach it with an awareness campaign. But if it is the latter, then you will have to tackle this systematically, for which the following outlined follow-up steps are a good starting point.
Recognize symptoms are not causes
Conduct a thorough assessment of the behaviors causing the problem or map the behaviors required to achieve the transformation goal. The best way todo this is to observe people in their real environment.
Evaluate current networking structure
How does the information spread across different functions in your organization? What is the (unsaid) modus operandi for collaboration - silos or high levels of coordination?
Identify sources of resistance
Knowing the resistance you'll encounter will help you determine the most effective influence strategy to make your big idea impact or bring about inevitable behavior change.
Does the success of your big idea or change efforts depend on everyone in your organization using the solution in a coordinated way, such as sales CRM, project management software, etc.?
Does the success of your big idea or change efforts depend on peer validation or social proof that the change effort is worth it?
Does the success of your big idea or change efforts depend on the perception of others who approve or disapprove of the adoption?
Does the success of your big idea or change efforts depend on the collective emotional engagement of the community?
Scout for FIRST follower
The irony of behavior change is that the one who needs it most is the one who will resist it the most. However, a successful influence strategy is based on making or having one successful change agent who has applied the big idea and will be the one who will share its impact or, as Derek Sivers put it, "the first follower is what transform a lone nut into a leader” and here is the link to his TED talk.
So, who is your first change agent willing to bet on your big idea?
Apply the steps above before diving into behavioral change awareness campaigns and see the positive impact of your change efforts.
Leading change doesn't have to be daunting and difficult when it's based on the science of social networks and behavioral psychology.