To truly live their new company purpose, our client realised that the day-to-day behaviours of the people in their company needed to change. Everyone, no matter their department or role, needed to put the consumer at the heart of everything they did.
“We need to make this an ingrained habit for everyone in the company”, said our client spearheading the initiative. “If we can get all 46,000 to understand and adopt a consumer-centric mindset, then every action and decision will be made considering the impact on the consumer first.” Small changes would add up to a big impact.
We started by gathering insights to build a real understanding of the organisation’s people: their existing behaviours, habits, and motivations. With this grounding we identified barriers and triggers to successful habit-forming within this company.
What were the barriers that stopping people from embracing the mindset and behaviour? What will enable them to take on the new behaviour?
Barriers included things like noise from existing internal communication and siloed ways of working. Historically, there had been a manufacturing focus and competitor mindset, although many thought otherwise: “Haven’t we always been consumer minded? What’s different now?” they asked.
Triggers included ensuring activities were simple and tangible, making cultural change a multifaceted ongoing part of the employee experience not just a piece of communication or a one-off campaign. This meant ensuring changes could be measured and be a part of employees’ personal development. As well as making it clear this ground-up initiative was being championed consistently by the leadership team.
With a deep understanding of the barriers to lower and triggers to pull, we defined key levers to action change. A set of principles that would underpin all activities mobilising the initiative and help ingrain habits on a collective and individual level.
Make it obvious: “I notice this is happening”.
Make it understood: “I get this”.
Make it easy: “This seems like something I can do”.
Make it attractive: “Not only can I do this, I want to do this”.
Make it rewarding: “Because this is good for me as well as the business”.
The journey continues.
