You want your team to embrace change, but just telling them what to do rarely works. People move at different speeds, and many will wait to see whether something actually works before they commit. One of the best ways to build momentum is to share success stories. When people see colleagues trying new ideas and getting good results, it lowers the risk and makes change feel possible. Instead of pushing everybody at once, highlight “bright spots” to motivate others.

https://swiy.co/go-change-is-contagious

How are you creating a culture of change in your team?

I spoke at a conference recently, and somebody came up to me after my presentation, and said:

“You might not remember me, but you worked with our extended leadership team a few years ago, and gave us an idea about innovation and change that has worked really well for us.”

Well, of course, the only thing better than hearing people say nice things about me is to tell you about it!

So, I’ll do that here ...

I do remember this client. They were going through a major change initiative, with a focus on innovation and being customer-centric. One of their ideas was to create an online “suggestion board”. Anybody in the organisation could post a suggestion about something they would like changed. Then somebody else who could tackle that, maybe even from a different department, would take that on board and put it into action to create the change.

Good idea, but ... You might be able to guess the flaw.

Many people were submitting ideas and requests, but very few people would take them. Not surprising, because everybody is already overloaded with their own work, and just don’t have time to do somebody else’s work as well!

So this team was planning to ditch the suggestion board. But I told them to keep it, but change it.

Instead of using it to make requests, I suggested they use it as a place for people to share their innovation success stories — things that they did, or tried, that went well. Even failures were OK if they shared the process.

I checked in a few months later and asked how it was going, and it was ticking along. Then this conference attendee told me it’s working really well now. People are sharing ideas, they get lots of positive feedback on them, and everybody feels good about it.

More importantly, sometimes other people say,

“That’s a great idea. We can do that as well.”

And that’s the point.

Share your success stories, so others learn from them – and are inspired and motivated by them.

When you’re creating a culture of change, you can’t expect to bring everybody on the journey at the same pace.

A few people are keen. A few will hang back and wait to see what happens. And others won’t change unless you drag them kicking and screaming.

But you can’t force people to change. And sometimes you can’t even gently cajole the nervous starters.

What you CAN do is share the success stories of the keen, enthusiastic, early innovators.

This is one of the nine ideas from the book “Switch”, by Chip and Dan Heath. They describe this as “finding the bright spots”.

Instead of trying to force people to change, find examples, stories, anecdotes, and stories of people doing the right thing. Share them, highlight them, showcase, them, and celebrate them.

For more practical ideas about creating a culture of change with your team, register for my next free, public, online presentation, “Keep The Change”. It’s open to everybody, so please invite others in your team and network as well.

Register for the virtual masterclass:

https://swiy.co/go-change-is-contagious

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