Cultural transformations often fail because they are treated as marketing campaigns. True transformation requires engaging early adopters and fostering grassroots involvement, rather than imposing top-down initiatives.
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so here's the biggest mistake companies
make when they're doing cultural
transformations they treat it like it's
a marketing campaign where here's the
launch date right and here are all the
programs we're gonna make everybody go
through and hear all the powerpoints and
hear all the executives that are gonna
give the powerpoints you're nodding yes
I'm getting something right right and
then it doesn't work or people are
resistant or fight or don't show up or
even sabotage and it's all well intended
it's imperfect and sometimes we get the
cultural thing wrong or the timing wrong
but it's all well intended and it falls
flat and it's a big waste of time in a
big waste of money and we're right back
where we started
right there's something called a law of
diffusion of innovations
this must be come your best friend okay
the bell curve all populations always
sift across the standard deviation if
you have high performers you have low
performance always and then you have an
average always in this room there's a
group of people I know who are nodding
their heads going yep yep yep yep
there's a group of people who think I'm
an idiot and I like I wasted my money
but most people are like I'm open yeah
this is interesting I like some of it
you know I know that I know that going
in every single time and the fact that
you all wanted to come and pay to be and
it's not a general industry thing then I
know that it's just a little more one
way or the other but it's still the
standard deviation always right
what does what the law of diffusion
tells us is that the first two and a
half percent of our population are
innovators big idea people Steve Jobs
you know beyond musk then you have the
next 12 to 13 percent of our population
our early adopters who are willing to
sacrifice time money and energy to be a
part of something that reflects their
own beliefs they stand in line to see
the new Star Wars for eight hours even
though you can just go in a week and
just buy a ticket and go in they thought
that was a good use of time and money right
right
then you have the next the early
majority the late majority and your
laggards the only reason these people do
something is because they have no choice
anymore right what you're asking for in
cultural transformation is this how do
we change our company right the problem
is the problem is is this this group of
people the majority they're cynical
they're practical
what's in it for me what do I get if it
goes wrong are you gonna pay me extra if
I have to stay late you know they're
cynical in their practical right these
people not so much right they'll just do
something because they think it's great
they want to be a part of it what the
law of diffusion tells us is that you
cannot achieve mass-market success or
stickiness for a new idea until you
achieve 15 to 18 percent market
penetration it is the tipping point it
is a social phenomenon if you ignore
everything I tell you today about this
you will always get about 10% that's
what you'll say they just get it we love
them they get it and 10% of the company
is gonna be all in it's not enough and
so this that Jeffrey Moore called the
chasm crossing the chasm is the magical
gap and the way you get it you get it is
you don't talk to these people at all
you ignore them and you aim at these
people only the early adopters because
these people do not want to try
something new until someone else has
tried it first and let me tell you how
it looks cuz I've done it so I a large
company many many more people than is in
your company 200,000 people wanted me to
help them do a millennial training
program so I said great I pull out my
little pocket copy of the law of
diffusion because to me this is religion
by the way this is how I built my entire
career remember that story I told you
before it convinced me why I should hire
you he told me he was over here he
didn't tell me he was over here I could
hear that I ignored him for now I'll get
him later
right someone else will get him later so
here's what we did what the company
wanted to do was traditional they wanted
me to design the program we're gonna
launch it we're gonna make videos there
were me to be on the videos and then
we're gonna have the training program
and we're gonna force all the
Millennials to go through the training
program it'll be amazing and I'm
thinking it's gonna fail so this is what
I said I said I'm gonna do one workshop
once and we will make it open to anybody
born after 1984 only which means if you
were born before 1984 you're not
eligible that keeps all the senior
executives out so they can't come and
watch make sure and the people who come
in we only have a hundred and 100 seats
a hundred twenty-five seats and they
have to apply because I want people to
put in extra time and extra energy and
and the problem with the Internet is
we've made everything easy let's try and
make everything as so easy as possible
click click click click click you're in
no I want to make things a little bit
difficult right so they had to fill out
a proper essay and submit it and we
actually read all of them and we could
tell who was phoning it in and we could
tell who actually genuinely wanted to be
there and we selected a hundred a
hundred people and we only did it from
the East Coast offices just because it
was convenience we did New York he was
on the East Coast in New York and
Virginia right just because it was
easier maybe a few of the other offices
actually it was also Chicago and all
that whatever a bunch of the offices
I gave this wonderful workshop and at
the end of it I said hey guys we don't
have a Millenial training program we
want to do one so I'm asking for
volunteers from this room to help build
it you're not gonna get any extra money
you might have to work extra hours on
your own time and you may or may not
have this included in your compensation
or promotion packages at all who wants
in I had fifty volunteers who said that
they were gonna help build this program
for no additional money and no
particular personal benefit it's because
they believed in it right two weeks
later one of the senior executives in
the company calls me up furious at me
he's so angry at me do you know why
because leaders from across the entire
country were calling up screaming at him
why don't we get a Millenial training
program why is it only on the west coast
and I said congratulations that's called
demand because they all went back to
work and said this is amazing right had
I done a traditional way those same
leaders would have called up and yelled
why do I have to give up my people for
an hour and a half every week I am busy
we don't need this would have been the
exact same response so you want to make
it slightly difficult an invitation
voluntary and invite them to actually
help you build it because then it has a
grassroots nature and so now you're
doing things from the top and the bottom
so you have the formal corporate stuff
always voluntary and the stuff from the
bottom coming from them and you help
them and you give them resources and
then you create a scenario where you can
check in with them and they can all
check in with each other once a month on
a conference call and all share best
practices so that you can take something
that's working in one country and try it
in another country and you will learn
from them and you'll give them resources
and in time I don't know how long and
this is why companies don't like this it
100% works I just don't know how long
one year two year three years I don't
know it depends on the
company depends on the size depends on
the culture I don't know in a hundred
percent works so if you're comfortable
the fact that it'll work we just don't
know when this is your best friend your
early adopters [Music]
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