My revised 12 rules of social change at a scale. These very simple laws apply to any large scale change including the one inside organizations, cultural change and transformation and any other labels.
- Cater for many motivations. Don’t kid yourself everybody will join in with the same motives. Super-alignment is overrated. You need to aim at ‘compatible dreams’. But, be very clear and ruthless about the non negotiable, no matter what motivations may be behind it. A good focus for the non negotiable is behaviours.
- Create a compelling narrative, one that explains ‘the cause’ and ‘the success’. In organizational terms, use ‘the cause’ as well to frame purpose and direction. Success does not have to be articulated in numbers (only).
- Segment, segment and segment. One single overriding, top down narrative of mission/vision/strategy that comes down from the top in monolithic form does not make sense. Be aware of the tribal listening. Who expects to hear what? This is normal in political marketing, and very unusual in organizational internal marketing.
- Engage as many people as you want but the key ones, if you are into scale (and you should be) are the hyper connected, the ones who have a natural pull effect, and can influence many. It has nothing to do with hierarchy. If you don’t know who these people are, you have a big problem.
- Fix role assumptions, expectations, labels. Advocates, activists, volunteers, passionate, mavericks, rebels, doers… these are very different types of people. Obvious as that may seem, we mistake them all the time.
- Passion per se is overrated. It’s hard work first! 50 passionate people in the room exhibiting passion won’t change many things. Passion is a great bonus when associated with 24/7 commitments.
The other half tomorrow, to end the little list of social change rules.
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There is no change unless there is behavioural change. From supporting your business as you adjust to the ‘new normal’ through our Feed Forward 90-day programme to driving large scale cultural and behavioural change that is sustainable for the long term through Viral Change™ – we are your organization architects.
FEED FORWARD – 90 day programme
Feed Forward from The Chalfont Project, will help you create sustainable behavioural and cultural change across your organization/team/department.
Using the Five Disciplines of Viral Change™ we have developed Feed Forward. Why? Because post Covid-19 to combat the organizational impact of the pandemic, we’ll need a behavioural counter-epidemic inside the company. This can be done but requires a real social movement, not the traditional ‘change programme’.
At The Chalfont Project, we have been orchestrating internal social movement in organizations for many years and we are ready to help you now, using the Five Disciplines of Viral Change™:
- 1. Behaviours (what are your key behaviours?)
- 2. Peer-to-peer networks (the greatest force in any organization)
- 3. Influence (identify your key influencers)
- 4. Storytelling (stories are more powerful than facts)
- 5. Leadership (which needs to own the ‘new normal’).
Contact The Chalfont Project team to find out more information about Feed Forward, or to discuss how we can support your business.
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Viral Change ™: model, method and way of life, all in one
Viral Change™ uses the power of a small set of well-defined non-negotiable behaviours, spread by small groups of highly connected individuals within the organization. Their peer-to-peer influence – more powerful than hierarchical one – creates new norms, new ways of doing, new cultures. When groups start doing things the new way, other groups follow. Stories of success spread. Stories are memorable, behaviours are contagious… bullet points are not. There are great similarities between biological infection and idea infection. For proof, just look at any social phenomenon around you!
Viral Change™ is a way to understand the organization as an organism instead of a machine. It is a method to create large scale change to meet specific business objectives. It is also a day-to-day way of life in the organization in a permanent state of readiness. If you want to master any of these, we’ll be there to guide and work with you.
Contact us today to find out more about Viral Change™.
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