Question

Topic: Strategy

Drive Change: Gain Acceptance?

Posted by Anonymous on 7/22/2011 at 7:50 PM ET 250 Points
I need to drive a behavior change in a service division of approx 500 people across 10 countries. Not one of which report to me.
The behavior change required is simply how sensitive parts of our machinery are physically handled (with hands).
A change in technology means that the old way is no longer appropriate. The science behind the required change is extremely complex, boring, and quite honestly unbelievable.
Imagine traveling back in time to year 1800 and telling people not to smoke because it was harmful. Even if they could understand the concepts related to lung cancer, they wouldn't believe you because they don't recognize the effects of smoking today causing cancer tomorrow.

My situation is alarmingly similar to that, except instead of people getting sick, our machines get sick, but not for many months after the offending action has taken place, and the evidence of offending action disappears over time.

So my question: How do I engage 500 people with varied backgrounds and languages to accept that the way they used to work is no longer appropriate when I am unable to show them immediate cause and effect of their actions, and given that the new "proper" way is more troublesome?

I ask this group as I am fighting for acceptance of an idea, and who better than marketing professionals to help with idea delivery and acceptance?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 7/23/2011 at 12:00 PM Accepted
    1) Stories have great power. The CEO, Zhang Ruimin, of the Chinese white goods powerhouse Haier, took it over as a struggling refridgerator company in 1984. The small company had just 400 refridgerators in inventory and was on the verge of bankruptcy.

    To drive the message home that quality had to improve, or the company would die, he lined up 76 of the 400 refridgerators and assembled the workforce. He then gave them sledgehammers and ordered them to destroy these 76 refridgerators, as their quality was not satisfactory.

    That story has continued as part of the Haier tradition, known to one and all in management and the workforce, a good
    quarter century later.

    2) Story-tellers have great power -- and that is not a position you can identify on the organization chart. A book to read that will give you some ideas is "Tribal Leadership, Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization," by Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright, 2008. Do not read the book as presenting "received wisdom," as its research (and some of its conclusions) have been heavily criticized in academia. However it will give you ideas about finding the right story-tellers.

    3) Video (YouTube and internally distributed) is a great way of telling a story!

    4) The cultural issues go way, way beyond the scope of any answer I could attempt here. However in this case there is an outstanding book based on solid research: Charles Hampden Turner and Fon Trompenaars, "Building Cross-Cultural Competence, How to create wealth from conflicting values," 2000.

    Regards,
    JH
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 7/24/2011 at 4:17 PM Accepted
    The message needs to be relevant to the workers, not to the company as a whole. Why should they care about the long-term results of their short-term actions?

    How can you make the "boring" message simpler to understand? Can you create a personal benefit to the "new" way of doing things (ergonomic, for example)? Can you more quickly track the results of the mishandling at the time of the problem (i.e., make the invisible "visible")?
  • Posted on 7/26/2011 at 3:40 PM Author
    Thanks Hamilton and Hamilton.
    Both responses keep me thinking.
    I need a story about why they should care...and then to figure out how to get them to listen to the story.
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