52 is a Magic Number
To innovate anything, first understand the culture for whom you are trying to solve. This is as true for a car as it is for a company.
Consider the typical company touched with a dash of dysfunction. At the low end are the “actively disengaged” employees — the ones who are unhappy about work and want everyone to know it. At the other end are the “intrapreneurs” — aware of the big picture and proactively seeking ways to improve all aspects of the organization.
In Part One, we introduced you to the theorists Tarde and Rogers and their concepts about the creation and spread of ideas. Since we work regularly with companies considering change and innovation, we wondered if combining Rogers’ social system graph with the various engagement levels in a typical company might give us some insight.
It turns out they aligned very nicely with each other.
For us, the big ahas were: 1)innovators and intrapreneurs made up a similar percentage of these defined groups 2) the people most engaged in their work AND most likely to adapt to change were approximately 52% of a typical company or culture.
52 is a Magic Number
If you have ever been tasked with improving a struggling company, you probably found the existing organizational culture to be part of the problem. Like that umbrella maker or any changemaker with a disruptive idea, this is that hostile environment you have to push through. But it may be easier than you think if you stop believing you need 100% buy-in and just aim for 52% — the motivated majority.
To get to 52%, the key is first to find that small group of innovators and intrapreneurs, like you, and earn their support. That’s about 2.5%. While 2.5% may sound like a tiny percentage, the importance of this group cannot be overstated. They are the trend-setters. You will need to leverage their support to convince the next 13.5 %— the engaged, early adopters — to come on board. Once they are activated, the engaged, early majority (at 34%) should support you with relative ease.
You are now so close to 52%, you can taste it. To get to a majority, you just need 2% of the late-to-the-party demographic. They aren’t engaged but they aren’t disengaged and they follow the trend.
We call the process of systematically influencing members of a group to shift a value, norm or way of doing things to another — culture tipping.
Ignoring the Naysayers
When we make the 52% recommendation to leaders, they understandably push back saying, ‘the naysayers are the loudest and most destructive. This won’t work unless I change their minds first.’ This line of thinking is logically sound, tempting to believe, and ultimately untrue.
Studies show focusing efforts on engaged employees versus actively disengaged have more potential and create more value for the organization, as a whole. In addition, when the majority of a culture tips towards a new value or way of doing things, those who do not identify anymore either adapt or leave. This ultimately results in a stronger culture, based on the new, mutually-agreed upon and desired value. (Note: In a badly-run company or toxic culture, the innovators and the engaged leave. The laggards and the actively-disengaged stay.)
The Dean and His Posse
I first used culture tipping when I was working with a university music school experiencing an existential crisis. Faced with modernizing with the times or shutting down, the college’s leadership brought in a dean with some revolutionary ideas for changing the music school business model. His first mistake was assuming all staff and faculty understood the gravity of the situation. His second was trying to shift organizational direction without first assembling a posse for support.
When the dean unveiled his strategic vision plan, it was met with unconcealed hostility from faculty. At first, he tried to win over the naysayers with little success (and more than a few choice words said behind his back). But one professor who believed in his vision suggested prototyping parts of his idea on a small scale first — a few single elective classes. In this sort of lab environment, they could experiment and make tweaks without the big public spotlight.
After one semester of great student feedback, they knew they were on to something. Using that idea of taking the momentum from the 2.5% to entice the other 49.5% onboard, the dean quietly identified and invited other intrapraneurs on the faculty to experiment with the curriculum. He also leveraged the outside world, bringing in innovators to provide different perspectives and credibility to his approach. Our team was a big part of the change. Taking a page from Rogers’ communications theory, we helped speed the innovation’s spread by developing a number of unique communications channels, both internally and externally.
Today, five years later, the school’s reputation is now one of innovation both within the university and the larger music world. Faculty who were doubtful or hostile to the new direction have come around or moved on. The dean knows there will always be a percentage of intractables, but this doesn’t affect his vision forward for the organization.
If you want to find out more about tipping your own culture towards a change and how to do it, read on…
