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Turn performance around… March 18, 2006

Do you know how CEO’s can change the morale of their company, turning around a poor performing company into an outstanding example of Change. On the flip side, do you know how a company that is doing great, can suddenly be hamstrung by plummeting employee morale?

Being able to observe these changes is one thing. Knowing what is causing them is a different. Knowing how to make it happen is another different thing entirely. And can be learnt.

Malcom Gladwell in The Tipping Point gives us a hint or two on how to do this. He discusses the very interesting topic of epidemics and contagiousness. Though he goes on to elaborate:

“If I say that word to you, you think of colds and the flu or perhaps something very dangerous like HIV or Ebola. We have, in our minds, a very specific, biological notion of what contagiousness means. But if there can be epidemics of crime or epidemics of fashion, there must be all kinds of things just as contagious as viruses. Have you ever thought about yawning, for instance? Yawning is a surprisingly powerful act. Just because you read the work ‘yawning’ in the previous two sentences - and the two additions ‘yawns’ in this sentence - a good number of you will probably yawn within the next few minutes. Even as I’m writing this, I’ve yawned twice. If you’re reading this in a public place, and you’ve just yawned, chances are good that a good proportion of everyone who say you yawn is now yawning too, and a good proportion of the people watching the people who watched you yawn are now yawning as well, and on and on, in an ever-widening, yawning circle.”
–Gladwell, Malcom. The Tipping Point. Little, Brown and Company (2000).

Just think of that for a moment. A personal act that has no connection to anyone else can cause a profound change in someone else’s behaviour. That is, however, not the most surprising part. The most surprising is that you can cause someone whom you have never met or seen to yawn. And while making someone else yawn is probably low on the list of useful things to do, the mechanism inherent in that ability can profoundly change how you communicate and persuade.

What would your working life be like if, as a salesman, every time someone looked at your card they felt an urge to dial your number? Or what would your working life be like if, as a CEO, every time your employee talks about your company, they are filled with the same infectious passion you have. What would your life be like if you were able to, intentionally, have your (positive) reputation precede you?

A month or so ago, I started playing around with this idea. Have you ever had a song stick in your head? Of course you have. It might have been a song on the radio, or a TV add jingle but regardless of where it came from you might find yourself humming the tune at different times during the day. Firstly, I played around with how to implant a song into someone’s head. I also wanted to find out if it’s possible for that song to then infect someone else.

I had some success. Not as much as I’d like, but I’m still playing with it. I discovered there are a few rules for doing this:

1. The song or tune has to be known. Thought it is possible to teach the tune.
2. Installation of ‘patient zero’ has to be done at the right time. You need their attention, but not their full attention on the tune.
3. Once ‘patient zero’ is infected, you need to step away. Observing too closely will distract ‘patient zero’ and anyone around.
4. The tune needs to be installed in a specific way. Sing only 1/2 the tune. For example, if I type “Mary had a little lamb”, chances are you finish the sentence.
5. It is possible to inoculate others against transfer.

I played with transferring a tune, but it can be anything as the underlying method is the same. A joke, for example, uses the same method. And in fact, telling the right story makes it much easier to infect others than a singing a tune. Just look at the popularity of myspace and Robbie Williams.

So what does this mean? It means that if done right, your communication can infect the listeners, and they can propagate this message to others. Which can make your life much easier, or much harder, depending on what your infect your listeners with.

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