Personal Experiences Shape Belief More Than Talk
Have you ever tried to convince someone to see it your way but you just can’t quite pull it off? Personal experiences are more powerful than chit-chat which is precisely why you must create an experiential experience.
Many businesses want change. They want to increase sales, improve efficiencies and build a dynamic culture that will lead them to becoming a best in class.
Yet, their success meets opposition, struggle, and stays stuck.
The workforce often doesn’t believe in change. It may not be because they don’t want change, it may be because they have a hard time believing in change.
Change leaders find it perplexing.
These leaders formulate a plan. Package it all nice and pretty, and roll it out to the masses with a prescribed strategy and metrics to guide the change effort. Yet, the workforce struggles to believe.
No matter how pretty the message, how well laid out the plan, it just doesn’t seem to happen.
Personal experiences might be to blame.
Personal Experiences
Great speakers and story tellers capture audience attention by connecting them emotionally to what they are describing.
It often develops from childhood. A parent reads a book out loud to they young child while the young child forms an image in their mind of what is being read.
The bonus of course is a picture book. It helps form a more complete image.
All grown up in the workplace a similar thing happens. One big difference is that the working adult usually has their own life experiences that are shaping their story. Not necessarily the story that is being told, but the story that they, as an individual, hear and imagine.
This is often why change efforts struggle, or worse, fail.
It may not be because the plan is bad, it may be because not enough people believe.
Beyond having a great plan, change leaders need to build trust and they need to help everyone involved see the vision and then actualize it.
If you’ve been burned a couple of times, someone telling you it won’t happen again is hard to believe.
Develop the story, but be prepared to shape belief through experiences.
-DEG
Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.
