‘It’s a game about feelings and intelligence’ – Jose Mourinho
Avid football supporters have their eyes on the FIFA World Cup, intently watching, analysing and scoring their favourite players and teams’ performances. Who’s rising and shining or on a downward trajectory, and as a team, bonding and flying or bickering and flailing?
Competition and assessing performance – both individually and as a team – is as much a part of business life as it is on the football field. In the words of Richard Branson, “Strike the right balance between respecting your rivals and focusing on how you can beat them, and you’ll have a winning formula”.
So, with technology adoption and the pursuit of getting employees to engage with a new way of working, how can you inject a healthy bit of competition and achieve a win?
This is where ‘the beautiful game’ can help you out…And, like football, technology adoption really is about feelings and intelligence.
- Know how many goals you want to score and how you’re going to get there
To win you need to know the goals you’re striving for so set some at the start of the programme. These can range from an improved employee engagement / satisfaction score to greater transparency, collaboration and communication. Or, the goals can focus on cost, time, efficiency or customer experience. Create your own ‘league’ so at the end of the season [programme] you know what goals were the most successful!
Football teams ‘get there’ using the 4-2-3-1, 4-4-2 or 3-5-2 formation. The Inform Team finds the best way to ‘get there’ is using the ‘EXCITE, EQUIP, EMBED™’ formation: EXCITE makes people aware of the change and the benefits it will give them; EQUIP gives people the skills and knowledge to use the technology effectively; and, EMBED establishes ways to reinforce the use of the technology beyond the project. Find out more about our approach.
- Get your top striker to lead the way
Every technology adoption programme needs an executive sponsor – and not just to stamp a name on the budget approval! As cited by Prosci, 2016: “Leadership which is prepared to be visible and present throughout the programme is the biggest contributor to success.”
Employees listen to an executive who is showing the way, by not just advocating the technology but using it in everyday work practice. An executive can convey the vision, the importance of why employees need to change how they work and how it will help the organisation’s future performance. Identify the executive who is the most animated and energised by the programme and line them up as your no.1 striker! Check out ‘Follow the Leader’
- Talent spot, train and create your own champions
It takes time and effort to get employees to adopt to change so you need help. This is what a champions’ network is for – equip them with the skills, give them a message and ask them to spread the word. It’s also an opportunity to identify your rising stars and start coaching them as tomorrow’s leaders. One of them may become the organisation’s future captain!
Talent spot your champions by identifying employees who ooze passion about the technology and are credible and influential with both peers and seniors. Promote the opportunity of becoming a champion as a next step to becoming a leader. Give the role a formal job description, make it a percentage of a champion’s job function, and incorporate the responsibility into their formal development plans. Coach champions with training and fully immerse them in the programme.
Tell everyone how important their role is and what a great job they do. When your champions are out in the field you want them to give you their best performance!
- Give everyone the chance to be a hero
People like to be recognised; it’s not just flattering but a real motivator…it’s the number one reason why employees stay with an organisation. Create a programme campaign, which recognises how individuals and teams have used the technology to create efficiencies, boost customer experience, save or make more money, or improve their work-life balance.
Pop the heroes on a poster with a picture saying what they did, tell their story through your communications channels, give out reward ‘badges’ and link it to an incentive where the recipients of the most ‘badges’ wins something. Give everyone a chance in the field to shine and win that cup…and make their success newsworthy! Read ‘Brand versus Bland’.
In summary, if you give employees the feelings (desire and will) and the intelligence (IT skills) they will want to adopt the technology!
We’ll be channelling our energy over the next month watching the 32 teams taking part to see what tips we can take away, to build into our employee change and engagement strategies…
