13 Techniques for Accelerating the Speed of Change

1. Create a team of change agents. Teach your most avid supporters, your evangelists, how to listen and have productive conversations with everyone they meet. Regularly conduct role-plays where they bring in their toughest situations and learn from each other how to handle them well.

2. Replicate your team. Teach your evangelists how to teach others to have these same productive conversations.

3. Adapt and integrate your ideas with multiple contexts. Elevator speeches (rehearsed speeches which can be delivered in the time it takes for an elevator to reach its destination) are almost useless for most great ideas because they are disconnected from context and make no sense to many listeners. Practice connecting your ideas to different contexts by raising it in different circumstances.

4. Distribute easy-to-understand, teaching-tools. Provide anyone anywhere who wants to advocate on your behalf with the materials they need to explain your ideas and their benefits. Use the materials yourself. Set an example.

5. Leverage strategic reflection. Create time to stop and review what is working, what is not, and how you can change your behavior to increase the speed of change.

6. Build a web of thinking partners. Find people who understand what you are trying to do and have the professional experience and expertise to help you develop your activities.

7. Become expert in efficient and effective communication. Use media tools that disseminate relevant news immediately to all parties.

8. Choose a network over a hub-and-spoke relationship model. Make it easy for your supporters to reach each other without going through you. Provide everyone with email addresses, telephone numbers, and access to project tools, email listservs, anything and everything that allows them to initiate collaboration on their own.

9. Delegate everything or as much as possible. If you have a budget, pretend you don’t. Move activities and responsibility out to the periphery so it can spread.

10. Follow enthusiasm and commitment. Go where there’s energy and excitement. Take time for people who are dedicated and supportive. Blow their coals into fire.

11. Provide as much face-time as possible. If you use electronic media, use it to enable people to get together. Whenever possible, share air.

12. Create time in your day to talk to others. Don’t become so overloaded with tasks that you can’t have a conversation. Remember dialogue is the basic building block of change.

13. Dedicate space for conversation. If possible, have a living room or casual atmosphere where people can congregate when the need arises. If all you have are conference rooms, make it known that they are available for casual conversations and impromptu meetings.