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Nothing happens without change. And change doesn’t happen without sensible messaging. Whether it’s enticing people with a new product offering or inviting employees to embrace organizational or personal change, leaders must get their messaging right.
Consultant Tamsen Webster, who calls herself a message strategist, says you must turn on the proverbial lightbulb in the brain of those you are appealing to. The clarity of your message must cut through the competing information and advice so they suddenly can’t think of anything else. You must say what they can’t unhear.
That sounds daunting enough. But it’s worse than you imagine because you are probably susceptible to what she calls the Persuader’s Paradox. That’s when you use approaches to persuade others that you wouldn’t tolerate yourself. Often those common approaches to driving action today, she argues, work against long-term change.
She has developed principles for effective change messaging, starting with: Change isn’t just an action; it’s a reaction. Often it starts because something else, which we don’t control, isn’t working or requires adjustment on our part. That external trigger will only be responded to, however, if people are motivated internally to act. You must help them to see a clear link between the action you’re asking them to take and an outcome they personally desire.
“But that’s not enough. They also need to work through their pre-existing beliefs, perceptions about how hard the change will be and the emotions that arise as a result,” she writes in Say What They Can’t Unhear: The 9 Principles of Lasting Change.
As well, if you are the main source of information on the issue, pushing change, you can become what they react against. You can just as easily impede a change as inspire one. Too often, that’s what leaders do, coming on too strong, hindering their own efforts.
“Think about the last time someone failed to persuade you. Did they give you ultimatums, deadlines or threats (implied or otherwise)? Did they make you feel stupid or wrong for doing or believing what you do? And did you feel like digging in your heels and standing your ground in response?” she asks.
Capability and intent are crucial if you are to persuade them. They must see you as capable of delivering on the outcomes you are promising. And they must believe you are doing it for the right reasons. “People assume if you’re resorting to what they perceive as manipulation or coercion then your intent isn’t good (at least from their point of view),” she writes.
Your argument will be most effective as a story, one that nudges people who are ambivalent or indifferent to what you are proposing into becoming active supporters. Your story-argument must outline not just the action to take but the outcome their change should produce – and the logical connection between the two. That is tricky enough, but she also stresses your story-argument must align with assumptions and arguments followers are inclined to believe. She quotes mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal: “People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.”
They are not chess pieces you can move along the board in some grand game of change management. They are human beings, guided by beliefs that have grown into principles for how they see the world and how they act. “If the change you are making contradicts the fundamental principles they see as true, no amount of logical reasoning or compelling data will sway them,” she warns.
To understand their actions, you must understand their outlook. In doing so, you must overcome the innate tendency of human beings to assume that others share our world view. A cognitive bias known as the false consensus effect can lead you to overestimate the extent to which your stakeholders share your core beliefs. And she adds a perceptive comment from Barbara Kingsolver in her latest book Demon Copperfield: “We all want what we’re used to.”
A powerful technique is to not challenge beliefs but exchange them. Find other beliefs people have that are equally strong or stronger than those holding them back, and connect to those in trying to activate support for the change you are proposing. Be alert, as well, to pain points, because pain is the enemy of long-term change. “By reducing the pain of change, you reduce dissonance and make it easier for people to take the first steps toward change and stay the course long-term,” she says.
Most leaders want to push fervently for change, overpowering counter-arguments and pulling people forward to the desired Utopia. She offers a contrary view: Your job is to make sure the stakeholders understand your case for change and when that happens your job is over. “It’s one of the hardest lessons of inspiring change, but one of the most important: You can’t want a change more than the people you’re presenting to,” she observes.
Change will only happen when people align with you, believing the change will give them something they want. You can’t make someone agree with your argument. Indeed, pressing too hard, giving too many arguments, each of them increasingly weaker, in desperation, works against you because she argues your case for change will sink to the level of its weakest point.
Accepting they don’t want to go along should be an acceptance of their agency and that they are still smart and capable. It also gives you space to determine if it’s worth trying again.
That’s probably not what you want to hear from a change expert. It goes against the grain. But it should make you consider whether your next change effort should involve some changes in your messaging technique.
Cannonballs
- Your anxiety will scale proportionately to your ambition, observes venture capitalist Sahil Bloom. If you think your anxiety will dissipate as your achievements compound, you will be disappointed. The best you can hope for, he says, is to manage that tension.
- A random test of hybrid work with 1,600 China-based employees in marketing, finance and accounting of Trip.com led to an estimated 1-per-cent increase in productivity for those working hybrid two days a week rather than every day in the office, even though managers had expected a 2.6-per-cent decline. The hybrid employees had a 35-per-cent higher satisfaction rate and a 35-per-cent lower attrition rate.
- When reference checking, recruiting specialist John Sullivan recommends asking each candidate for the name of their last manager at each of their last jobs rather than settling for people the recruit wants you to approach. When calling that person, ask “forced-rank” questions, giving a list of five to six skills or traits and having the person rank the top ones for the candidate. If the trait you are seeking isn’t in the top two you need to explore further.
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.