We live in an era of constant changes – in technology (AI), demographics (smaller birthdates and longer lives), and macro-political changes (wars) – all affecting our personal and business lives. From a personal perspective, adapting means changing our attitudes and behaviors regarding every day events; from a business point of view it means overcoming the status quo to create new business strategies.
As Greg Satell, author Digital Tonto, notes that there are three forces that uphold the status quo.
- Brain pathways (synapses) that shape our default thinking
- Cultural norms that perpetuate familiar behaviors
- Economic structures that resist disruption (e.g., perceived costs exceed benefits).
In his recent blog, Why We Fail to Adapt – And The Three Hidden forces Holding You Back” he notes that “the status quo always has inertia on its side and never yields its power gracefully.” That means all the new learning may not be enough. We need to UN-learn what we’ve believed in to create the new space to convince people to change. That means that leaders committed to creating change need to present their causes to audiences/customers in three ways:
- the new facts/data need to be compelling and complete challenge the status quo as obsolete and inappropriate, and
- the format for presenting the case – to get people to “adopt” their ideas, service or products –
needs to be persuasive so the listener is willing to replace the old belief with the new one, and
- the audience/customer must be able to present the case effectively to her/his support group so they give up the status quo
“To create real transformation, leaders must help people unlearn entrenched assumptions and rewire the forces that keep them stuck”. Addressing only the facts/data is usually insufficient; we need to also change the social environment that supports the beliefs so the audience feels supported in the new situation. For instance, the most effective way to help a person involved with a cult to change is not to present new information, but to take the person out of that environment so that the social reinforcements for the viewpoint are disrupted.
“Persuasion” needs to take into account the social support that the audience/customer relies on to support the current position. By being able to convince colleagues and partners, you change support for the status quo and generate new support for new ideas.
Which is why you never should feel comfortable that you’ll get the ‘sales’ simply because the customer/audience switches the position. Change will occur only when the partners/audience also accept the need to give up the old position and move to a new one.
Share with us how you’re effectively empowering your customer/audience to abandon the status quo and persuasively convince her/his social support system to do the same!