The Ninety-Nine Nos

Why change management communications don’t work and what to do instead.

Every year I worked in corporate, I had one goal: to never go through another performance management process again. It was always soul-crushing and deflating, even as a top performer.

I worked on a team that set out to change performance management. We believed there had to be a different way to help people perform without leaving them feeling drained and depleted. For months, we worked on a design. We met in conference rooms, sketched on whiteboards, and built beautiful PowerPoint slides that shared our ideas.

One person had the authority to say yes and approve the investment for the project to move forward. Ninety-nine other surrounding people could say no and thwart efforts before they began. They provided a moat around the decision-maker and had to be won over. But we weren’t concerned. Performance management was universally hated…who wouldn’t want to change it?

We followed the model of every good change management project: tell the story of the opportunity, describe the burning platform, and share the benefits. When we finished, one of those ninety-niners replied, “I care more about East Germany than I do about performance management.”  That comment is equally hilarious and biting. The message was clear—this wasn’t meaningful enough for their attention.

But we weren’t deterred. Over the next few weeks, we sketched a different angle to the story on the whiteboard focusing on the opportunity. This transformation would be one of the first in the market, creating a differentiator for attracting and retaining employees. To our surprise, we were shot down for a second time.

We mapped out a third story, knowing it was the right message. It focused on a better and different way to do performance management—one that people would like. We leaned hard into the moral obligation of the experience we give employees and how we could do better. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that? I’m not even sure they lifted their head from their mobile devices in that presentation.

It took four tries in the early days of that project before we started to make any headway because we forgot to start with our audience. There were great reasons to proceed, but we failed to make them meaningful for the audience. During those four attempts, the design never changed. But our messaging did. Here are the five mistakes we made and what we should have done differently:

We didn’t start with the audience’s perspective.
We were so fired up about the idea, we thought the leaders would be too. Looking back, we had three personas: Those who would be interested, those who were neutral, and those who would be against it.

Our first few stories were focused on those who would be interested. We missed that the majority were neutral or against it. Our messages assumed they shared our excitement. Instead, they fell flat with a heavy thud. We should have started with the mindset for each persona and identified the potential obstacles in shifting their perspective. They would have felt like we were talking with them instead of at them.

Burning Platforms Center on the Idea and Not the Audience.
Change management models instruct you to lay out “the burning platform” and why something must be done. I get it—heck I used to teach that. They should say: “…and make it personal for the audience.”

Change management efforts don’t fail because there isn’t a burning platform. They fail because the changes don’t feel personal or relatable to the employee. Especially when changes are layered on top of more changes. The business impact is too far removed from them personally to consider what to do differently. Employees know if they wait long enough, this “flavor of the week” will be replaced with another one.

Change happens in an organization, on a team, or for individuals when each person thinks, “What does this mean for me? What do I want to do because of it?” That reflection doesn’t happen until the topic feels meaningful. People need to see themselves, their challenges, and perspectives in the messages. We should have started with the different personas and put together stories that included meaningful details and examples for each.

We Shared Data Without the Story.
Each presentation included the number of hours already spent on performance management. We plunked that number on the table, thinking it would cause everyone’s mouth to fall open. From our perspective, it was a shocking number that would make people question if it was worth the time invested. Our goal wasn’t necessarily to change the number, but to shift where it was spent.

Data doesn’t speak for itself. People differed in their interpretation of the number as good, bad or neutral. Those that were already neutral or against the redesign didn’t care. We could have spent more time explaining how that time was spent and why it was inefficient. Or helped connect them to the story of how that time would be spent in the new design.

We Assumed One Story Would Get a ‘Yes.’ 
No matter how great a story is, one story often isn’t enough. The bigger the change or investment, the more stories you need to reassure, remind, and persuade. We should have planned a series of stories based on each of the personas. It took time to recognize that the smaller stories invited people to engage and discuss different aspects of the design in a less intimidating way than the overall story.

Momentum Begins When Other Voices Join In. 
The goal in each of those early presentations, was to get a “yes.” The turning point came after the fourth story when others began joining in the conversation. We were in a meeting when a question was asked about the design. One of the ninety-niners answered it before anyone on our team could. Momentum began that day because other voices lent credibility.

In hindsight, our expectation shouldn’t have been to get the yes in those early presentations. The goal should have been to get a groundswell of support that makes the “yes” unnecessary. Because you will eventually reach a tipping point of momentum.

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Planning an organizational change and want help on what stories to tell? Want help incorporating stories into your employee experience? Start a conversation.