We all filed into the meeting room. I had booked room 6.01, a huge workshop room. A giant AV screen, podium at the front — massive sticky notes to the sides of the room.
Just about everyone had shown up. The minutes tick closer to the start time.
I look at my audience; varied personalities, already fidgety and a bit bored. Capturing their attention won’t be difficult. Any presenter can start talking. But after three seconds… how do I sustain their attention?
To add complexity, what if this meeting was online? In so many cases, this is the post-pandemic reality. How do you sustain attention online when it’s easy for participants to turn off their cameras?
Face-to-face meetings seem far more engaging. In seconds, we observe and begin to decipher the nuances of human connection. Observing subtle power dynamics. Seeing signs of boredom or disdain in participants. Sensing a facilitator’s discomfort or nerves.
The online experience is far more disconnected. Disembodied faces — if cameras are on. Disjointed conversations which can’t overlap in cyberspace.
Yet face-to-face meetings weren’t all a bed of roses.
I would watch many meetings, wondering why so many people needed to gather in the same place. I felt slight dismay, especially when one or two people dominated meetings. I could feel the energy being sucked out of the room as we listened to lengthy diatribes. The same statement repeated — using different words each time.
What got to me was the inefficiency of many of these meetings or workshops. How much money was being wasted? Maybe a tiny handful of people had clear actions from the forum. Yet is it efficient to have 5% of people actively involved — what about the rest of us 95%?
How do you engage every single person in the room? Could we use the lens of personality to tick as many boxes as possible?
This article follows from “Win hearts and minds: smart workshop tools and thinking to the rescue”.
Those leading this meeting may not want input from anyone or seek a “rubber stamp” from attendees. While a cynical view, this is possible.
This article has two aims:
- Link audience personality constructs to various collaboration tools;
- Leave you with an arsenal of collaborative approaches for you to tailor to your audience.
Audience personality… could you break this down?
There may be particular stakeholders that you need to win over. The problem is, you have one or two people where you are struggling to gain traction with them. It is clear their needs aren’t being met, and they seem incredibly demanding.
Could this be due to the way they think and perceive the world? Are you in a position to make slight adaptations to the way you work with them on a given change? A subtle shift in your working relationship may break particular relationship “deadlocks”.
I have combined two brief and memorable personality structures to help guide adapting your change approach. While understanding and adapting to personalities is no panacea, it may be a helpful technique.
The first personality structure is the SCARF model. David Rock created this model in 2008, and this model gets us thinking about how a leader perceived threats and rewards in their environment. For example, let’s look at the first part of the model: status. For leaders with this orientation towards status, the SCARF model suggests they are “wired” to observe mainly threats to their status. Similarly, they will be attracted to ways to elevate themselves in the “pecking order” of their organisation’s hierarchy.
The OCEAN model (otherwise known as the Five-Factor Model, or “Big Five) is a personality model used by psychologists.
Forming a matrix of both SCARF and OCEAN is thought-provoking. I did think: how could you portray leaders with both high and low levels of the OCEAN constructs? I didn’t want this article or the model to get too bogged down, however. So this model includes suggested change approaches for leaders with high levels of any of the OCEAN constructs.
The change approaches suggested are not based on any form of science, and they haven’t been validated through peer-reviewed nor by my change colleagues testing out the effectiveness of each approach. These change approaches are therefore merely suggestions, and many of these adapted change approaches have worked in practice. If anything, thinking through a matrix like this helps you audit your change approach.
Some of the change approaches are about the perception of control. Can you give leaders with specific personality dimensions a greater sense of control? This control may be in the form of authorship, rights or being provided with a sense of ongoing progress.
Other change approaches may link to a leaders sense of autonomy — of being in charge of one’s destiny. Can we provide leaders with this different sense of control? Could we give the leaders early adoption of a future state? As one high-end leader autonomy put it: “Give me the solution to play around with, and I will let the idea ferment and see how it works for my team.”
Other leaders may be on the lookout for any unfair impacts to their team or may watch that your team have consulted all stakeholders. Can you provide the perception that you are adapting your change to cater to their team’s unique needs? Often their team’s needs aren’t that unique. Yet you may score points if a leader feels they have “negotiated” extra support.
Some leaders who are low on agreeableness and high neuroticism may be quite prickly to encounter. You may have to invest more in one-to-one stakeholder management. Even if your change is going well, you may cop some difficult interactions from leaders like this.
From experience, I have found giving leaders ownership for cascading change communications is fraught with risk. They may adapt the communications far too much, with key messages being removed. Or they communicate changes too late — then blame your team in public settings. Give the perception of adaptation without giving away power. Your power, in this case, is the organisation-wide change approach that you may have architected, and now I try to put in place.
I have included potential ways to adapt your change approaches.
So how will you apply what you have learned here as part of the art of winning stakeholder hearts and minds?
Our book — The Change Manager’s Companion — is available now. You can also check out our online course on Change Management.