In the comments to my post on tipping points in social convention and change Mark Earls made a couple of great points. He built on the central theme of the post about how (rather than treating transformation as a marketing exercise) leaders should focus more on the ‘pioneers’ or ‘early adopters’ to forge a new path – akin to a ‘diffusion of transformation’ approach.
Mark notes that a key part of the appeal of the adoption curve is that it sets out an order in which audiences or groups of people are likely to adopt a new behaviour or idea. But he also noted that each group rarely features the same people more than once (one idea’s early adopters will be different from another idea’s early adopters) which makes targeting these groups challenging.
It’s a great point. And where it led me was to the thought that in order to support real change leaders should be looking for missionaries, not mercenaries (something I first wrote about six years ago). What’s the difference?
Missionaries are those people within the organisation that not only truly understand the vision, they believe in it and are enthusiastic about the role that they can play in making it happen. They ‘get it’. They are up for change and have useful skills and knowledge that can help show the way. Mercenaries are more likely to follow behind the missionaries. Their motivation is different.
John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins talks about the difference between missionaries and mercenaries here (in the context of companies and organisational cuture).
His point is about how in mercenary cultures people feel entitled and are purely driven by extrinsic motivators like money and perceived success. Whereas in missionary cultures people are driven more by intrinsic motivators such as contribution and making meaning, not just money. Change, and genuinely doing something different, requires resilience, belief and determination. And that’s why in leading change mercenaries will fail, and missionaries will show the way. The job of leaders then, as Mark says, is to manage the optics from adopters to non-adopters. To amplify success and encourage others to embrace the new behaviours for their own reasons.
When identifying the real pioneers or early adopters in the business that can really help catalyse change and forge that new path, leaders should look to people that have the right skills but also that are willing to learn, and have the passion and belief to break new ground. If change is about winning hearts not just minds then intrinsic, not extrinsic, motivators are key.
Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash
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