"Shared value takes place when people get together to construct the meaning of a new idea or application. Imposed value happens when one person or one group sends an idea out – as if all that is required is that others understand their intentions."
- Getting Change Right, page 1
"Getting change right is less about producing communiqués and more about cultivating relationships. This is a true paradigm switch – from a model in which you design and assemble messages to one in which you till, plant, nurture, weed, and harvest affinities."- Getting Change Right, page 33
The old model is dead. Unfortunately, people are still using it. And then they wonder why it’s not working.
I’m talking about the standard communication model that was originated in 1949 by Shannon and Weaver in The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Kahan explains that this model, which played a great role in the information revolution, is completely inadequate for helping people make meaning – a critical element in the rapid spread of new ideas. It states that you have an information source that develops a message that is sent using a transmitter. The signal travels and encounters noise on its way to a receiver where a subsequent message is delivered to a destination.
Although this model is great for sending digital signals, it doesn’t work too well for humans trying to make sense of the bombardment of messages they receive. Making meaning is much more complicated, and it’s why we need interaction with others if we want to truly learn or understand something.
These interactions help us develop our ideas, place them in context, and make them relevant to our experience. We construct our understanding through a collective project, so Seth calls it ‘social construction.’
Social construction is a way of looking at how people build a common understanding and negotiate their way into the future. Some core principles are:
Without social construction, your communication is dusting off an old model, where your signal, transmitter, and receiver are just creating static.
"…it is absolutely critical that first contact is made by listening and learning, not propagating an agenda."- Getting Change Right, page 36
Throughout the book, Seth Kahan explains how to engage people individually. His tactics always make complete sense. But they take effort.
Seth describes three steps he always uses for initiating contact as part of a big change initiative.
This is a strategy that I plan on doing more often, even if I’m not part of a big initiative. I know when I connect with people individually, I get much more of the story, where they are coming from, their opinions and dreams, and I build the relationship and rapport. People like to be heard. It’s fresh air in a large corporation.
Conversations that engage happen when people contribute because they want to. When enthusiasm spreads on its own, you know you’ve made a connection.
"Your job as a change leader is to enter the worlds of your stakeholders, learn what they value, and find ways for your idea to help them achieve that as quickly as possible."- Getting Change Right, page 20
Kahan tells the story of how he brought two opposing groups into a room together and asked why they were there. After a lot of silence, they began to open up and share their true feelings. This cleared the air and allowed each person on the team to see how they could add value, which then led to committed action. This volunteer action, based on alignment with the purpose, is pure buy-in.
Among Seth’s ‘13 Techniques for Accelerating Buy-In’ are:
Lasting change isn’t about answering to authority, it’s about getting people to make the changes on their own because they believe it’s the right thing.
Getting people to believe is a lot more difficult task then just having them change the way they do things. Much of the ‘belief’ required is the belief that they can actually change things and make a difference in a large corporation. Many people will feel the same way about a policy, but because they don’t connect or know how many other people believe the same way they do, they don’t speak up. Accelerating Buy-In is making this belief pervasive first, then spreading the specific change that is built together by all the stake holders.
There are many ways to change things within an organization, but getting it right means that the change is sustained, no matter what forces bear their influence. And what sets a change deep into the daily operations are the people and relationships that bind them together.
Seth Kahan’s book, Getting Change Right, was a Washington Post bestseller, a Denver Post bestseller, and named on American Express Open Forum as one of the Top 20 Business Books. Seth’s latest book, Getting Innovation Right, is a companion volume that focuses on the seven activities necessary to consistently, successfully introduce new products and services in the market.
