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Communication, Persuasion and Change Management

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We often hear this question from our corporate clients: how can we communicate change persuasively? How do we get our teams to move along with our vision?

Psychologically speaking, persuasion is impacted by a variety of factors. For example, persuasion depends on the source that transmits its message. Elements such as credibility, likeability (similarity and physical attractiveness), what the message contains and how it is delivered, and whether fear or positive emotions are involved – all these will definitely influence persuasion.

Something I’ve found useful in persuading others is the map outlined in “It Starts with One"  by J Stewart Black and Hal Gregersen (2008). The authors suggest that there's a three-step process to changing people’s attitudes: help them to see, move, and finish.

See
During this phase, we need to enable people to "see" the change. If people can see the new behaviors, they are more likely to change. Usually, there are two processes involved in visualization: contrasting and experiencing the new reality. During the “seeing” phase, the goal is to pinpoint a few (not a laundry list) of key differentiating behaviors and then enable them to experience the new reality. I remember reading the story of some high-up leaders from Samsung who did not understand how their products were sold in the US. When they flew over from Korea, they saw their products gathering dust in the malls and eventually being purchased on clearance by adolescents with purple hair and nose rings. That drove a lot of changed behavior from the company but only because the experience of the “new” was so forceful.

Move
During this phase, the authors suggest that people are more likely to change if they have a clear path of where they are going, recognize the resources or tools necessary to help them get there, and there is a proper rewards system is in place.

Finish
Sometimes, change is not implemented all the way, because people get tired or get lost in the process. During this phase, it is helpful to identify change champions that can assist with re-enforcing efforts for new behaviors and help with charting progress - people are more likely to continue to change and implement change if they know how much they've accomplished and how much there is left to cover. At this stage, communication is very important; use tools that enable you to constantly communicate about progress made, current successes, and the path left on the destination map. Corporate wiki pages, internal sites, or media-rich emails that appeal to the senses are all good examples of keeping communication fresh and persuasive.

This is definitely a book for anyone in the corporate world who wants to learn more about communicating and implementing change management in a persuasive way.