Part IV - Unleash your 'ad' executive persona

This next article is about the importance of making sure that the target stakeholders (who now have a clear understanding of the precise problem that needs to be solved) are aware of the ‘solution’ made available to them and which they need to adopt. The concept of a ‘solution’ here is broad – it could encompass a new process, stopping certain activity, changing who does what, or a piece of technology.? Put broadly, this is your chance to unleash your advertising executive persona.

You might be protesting that I’ve missed a stage, and that the identification of solutions to the problem should follow from problem articulation. However, the focus of these articles is on achieving behavioural change, not solution development. We’re going to trust that our change management team have identified/developed the correct solution. However, they still need to achieve behavioural change in their target stakeholders to meet the programme objectives.

Everyone within a business will have experienced efforts to complete this step – whether through mail-outs, banners, that rolling announcement on the TV in the breakout room, or cascaded announcements through team structures. Generally, more is better, and the longer the campaign, the more likely the message is to embed in the minds of your stakeholders. Team champions, clearly articulated user stories which resonate with the identity of target audiences, flagging success stories, and clearly connecting the solution to ‘individual-level’ problems (i.e. clearly answering the question “What’s in it for me?”), amongst many other steps, will help drive the desired engagement.

Hitches such as links to websites that don’t work, launch campaigns which coincide with holiday seasons and academic half terms, and missing out stakeholder groups entirely (it happens!) will have a frustrating effect on your efforts to instil knowledge of the solution in your target audience. Further, and echoing thoughts which come in the next article, launch campaigns which coincide with other programmes (whether change-related or not) will distract or divert attention from your target audience who will have a certain amount of time and energy to apply to any movement competing for their attention.

Sustaining that initial launch energy and engagement will be critical to achieve the hockey-stick shaped adoption pattern that change management programmes love to see.?

Here’s the table from the last article, with another row added to illustrate this.