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February 16, 2009

Consent and Dissent: the Decision Gate

Managing change usually means more than applying controls to some different way of doing things. And doing things differently nearly always first means being different from before. It follows that when attempting to get people to "do" different, they will entertain the notion from a point of view that initially reflects how they already "are".

We can describe the points-of-view in four general ways, which derive from the interaction of factors illustrated below. In most cases, for the person being asked, the idea of changing will be "familiar" or not -- and this degree of familiarity is a gating factor in what happens next. Familiarity is based on both recognizing and understanding the idea, so that it is "mentally owned" by the decision-maker. It directs their decision-making along one of four paths of agreement, each of which processes what psychologically appears to have been presented to the decision-maker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the four key scenarios, the decision-maker reacts to a suggested change in different ways. Meanwhile, there is no guarantee that, at the end of the path, acceptance will be reached. The change-presenter must determine which paths need to be navigated, and what sequence is called for. With that, the suggested change that is input to their decisioning may finally be output as an agreement.

- The idea of change that is being presented may in effect test the decision-maker's current level of acceptance. This is mostly like marketing for the purpose of highlighting a match between what both parties prefer. Messaging would be important here.

- More challenging than that, for the decision-maker, is being caught by surprise when the suggested change provokes some new or latent realization (discovery) that must be considered. Education would be important here.

- The third possibility is that an already acknowledged option is presented with higher priority, based on the attractiveness of its expected impacts. For the most part, selling is useful here, insofar as it emphasizes and offers the new availability of favorable future positions for the decision-maker.

- If the suggested change is not conceptually new to the decision-maker, but has not previously been acknowledged as an option, then the situation is most likely to initially be about considering trade-offs between the proposition and any personal alternatives believed to exist. Analysis would be important here.

Described more tersely, the factors that "gate" a decision include identity, knowledge, future value, and opportunity cost. Taking those factors as elements of a campaign, and orchestrating them to work with each other, the change-presenter can strategically and proactively design the presentation to the necessary audiences.

Posted by Malcolm Ryder at February 16, 2009 8:44 AM