Jonah Berger’s recent book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, is about why things go viral in today’s social media world. He is a professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business and in 2009, his team conducted a study of the most-emailed articles in the New York Times over a 6-month period. Berger compiled those findings, along with other information research on building brand popularity, to generate 6 key principles for going viral.
So, the challenge is to figure how to roll out the Square Wheels. (Do I need to put Obama pulling with The Clintons pushing or what? Do I need to do some little graphic images that everyone can share around? Do we do a Square Wheels video game like Angry Birds, where workers can shoot down Square Wheels and bad bosses? Do I need a One-Minute-Manager book on motivation? How can we move this forward?)
Berger’s 6 principles are:
- social currency (peer popularity of the idea);
- triggers (daily reminders of the idea or product);
- emotional resonance (how much the idea or product inspires a deep emotional reaction);
- observability (high visibility of a product essentially sells itself);
- usefulness (we want to share useful information); and
- storytelling (a narrative surrounding the idea or product provides stickiness.)
Sounds like we have a pretty solid anchor point with something like this:
And the theme certainly sets the stage for usefulness and observability. After all,
- The Square Wheels really ARE Everywhere! and
- The Round Wheels are already IN the wagon!
We also have a good storyline around the perception that the above is like most workplaces, as shown by the lack of engagement by a majority of workers, along with their feelings that no one is listening to their ideas. Involvement is a key motivator, for sure!
or maybe a Haiku of some kind:
This IS a storyline around people and motivation, around involvement and engagement, and around continuous improvement of the workplace. It is about involvement and engagement and about intrinsic motivation and performance feedback. But it raises a question of reality:
The cartoons are sold in simple-to-use toolkits at our website, complete with ideas for facilitation, handouts, powerpoints and all that stuff. You can also buy coffee cups and refrigerator magnets with the the message about possibilities for improvement.
After all, managers should see lots of performance coaching opportunities as they work to develop their people. They should be looking at potential as well as dealing with issues and opportunities for improvement, something that looks like this:
We all can support, coach, mentor and try to support the caterpillars as they struggle to become the butterflies of the future.
Like this. Share this. Help me make these Square Wheels more visible so that we can try to put more Round Wheels into play around the world,
For the FUN of It!
Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools. Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant. Connect with Scott on Google+ – you can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com
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