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How to implement Viral Change (TM) in organisations

October 11th, 2009 Sue Tupling Leave a comment Go to comments
Use peer to peer networks to make change contagious
Use peer to peer networks to make change contagious

Many organisations think that the changes that they have made to help them survive the recession, have put them in stronger shape. Nevertheless, as we accelerate (at some point!) out of recession the big challenge that most organisations admit that they struggle to meet is being adaptable and flexible to meet the constantly changing world in which we exist.

Usually change in organisations is difficult to orchestrate.  Let me clarify: by change I am talking big change where people (yes those all important elements of every organisation) behave in a very different way than they did before. And the only change that matters is behavioural change in individuals. 
 
Perhaps it is the organisation which recognises the limitations of its current markets and wants to enter new ones. Or the company which has a new strategy which will take it to success in the next five years.  Or the firm that recognises the drawbacks of its current structure and the all-pervasive silo mentality it engenders, and wishes to implement a radical new organisational structure and a set of new processes to complement this. Neither strategic, structural or process-driven change will lead to real change unless the individuals within the organisation change their daily behaviours.
 
And surely we all know how difficult it is to get people to change? Don’t we?! Yet think about something that you have seen people change with ease and alacrity. Perhaps social media: consider how easily and quickly people started using Facebook or Twitter. Granted, perhaps we see that familiar ‘take up’ curve that us marketers ramble on about so much: were you the early adopter or the laggard? However, even the least IT literate folks are regularly tweeting these days. 
 
Viral Change (TM) is a powerful semi-engineered process, that takes some ‘architectural’ skill to ‘engineer’ but has rapid and powerful consequences for change in organisations. Its solid basis in social network analysis (the 5 degrees of separation so often talked about using the Kevin Bacon analogy) and tipping point behaviour, coupled with the fact that human beings perhaps pretend to be individualistic yet actually like to follow others (see Herd), explains its effectiveness.  And social media is a key tool in the implementation of Viral Change.
 
Here is a short summary of the key stages and steps to implement Viral Change (TM) in your organisation:
  1. Agree a simple, discreet set of non-negotiable behaviours: Understand your cultural baseline and where you want to be strategically.  Then, in a series of senior management team workshops, brainstorm which behaviours will get you there.
  2. Select your change ‘revolutionaries’ or champions: This requires a tight profile against which to recruit people, the most essential characteristic of which is that these revolutionaries should, like all good revolutionaries, have influence.  At its most potent this influence is informal i.e. not based on power, or position, or status. 
  3. Engineer the behind-the-scenes processes: that enable, facilitate, empower and support your change champions. 
  4. Let go and harvest the fruits: Let them loose, let them do what they are good at and reap the fruits of their actions. This requires a leadership which is happy to ‘let go’ – and probably the hardest part of viral change given the nature of most ‘leaders’!
  5. Reward, reinforce and recognise:  an intelligently constructed reward structure which does not have to be expensive, yet is based on rewarding output not input.  Most often everywhere we reward input – i.e. the amount of time put into a job (leading to the pervasive culture of ‘presenteism’) rather than the quality or creativity of the work.

This looks simple and actually IS simple AND cost effective: in the hands of an expert only.  If Viral Change (TM) is implemented by someone who only thinks they know what they are doing; it will fail. Make sure you use an accredited practitioner.

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