How to create a manifesto

Since my initial article on the co-work mainfesto generated way more buzz than expected, I genuinely wanted to share the process of creating a manifesto with others. It would be rather easy to just tell friends to create their manifesto, so I decided to level up by doing it directly with clients.

What did I need? First and most important, the sincere conviction that this would work out and add value to the topic discussed at the workshop. In the past, our company had always stated and written down what we expected from participants if they chose to take part in our course. For example: "At the beginning of a new week, I clearly define which behaviors I want to train in which situation". At the first day of the course, participants had to sign a sheet stating that they committed to do what is expected from them in order for the course to generate impact. Everyone always signed. But people rarely remembered or followed through what they signed. Oh the joys of behavior change! We clearly needed a different strategy!

This week, we had sales team leaders and their leaders attend a workshop. Knowing that there is a massive impact of leaders on sustainable behavior change of their employees, we seized the opportunity and asked them to write down what they stand for and what kind of support their employees can expect from them as they take part in the course over the following months. While some of them looked a bit skeptically at first when I talked about creating a manifesto, we quickly got started.

Here is how we did it: Leaders from the same base gathered and replied to the following questions, all regarding the participation with their teams at our course:

What do we stand for?

What are the values that we commit to live by?

How do we want to act in those difficult situations? (Several typical situations were mentioned).

What are potential dangers to the success of the course?

The leaders started discussing their answers and swiftly took notes, generated ideas and wrote down whatever came to their minds. We supported them with the integration of all their ideas and asked questions when they felt stuck. Time was a bit short but after a while, the leaders had their most important values and ideas written down. Some of them will rework the ideas together, as they chose to take more time for the process. All of them will present the manifesto to their team so that everyone knows what to expect from the leaders.

At the end of the workshop, I invited everyone to share a one-word-feedback and many leaders stated "Inspiring". Wow! I am really glad how this turned out, having never led such a process. And I strongly believe that the key to generating impact, and thus better figures, at behavior change courses is having strong leaders who know exactly what they stand for and act accordingly. So why not stating those values in a manifesto?

Have you ever created a manifesto? Would you like to create one? What would be the topic?