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Learning From The Competitive Spirit
How do you get people to really take notice of your insight results and not just forget them when so many other things are crowding in, demanding their attention? Is there something you can do to embed your results in your stakeholders’ minds and to encourage them to learn from your findings?
Attracting attention
One person who developed a very practical solution to this conundrum is Patrick Harris, who used to be Director of Creativity at Orange (he now runs his own small consultancy, called ThoughtEngine). When he was still with Orange, the company employed a continuous customer satisfaction study.
However, Patrick recognised the problems of drawing attention to the results of the study. He wanted people to take notice of them and learn from them - but at the time, the survey was just one of many statistics that were being produced.
Patrick achieved his goal by appealing to people’s competitive spirit. He introduced a sweepstake that enticed his colleagues into betting on the satisfaction score for the following month. This simple tactic actually led to people pro-actively asking for the results early, because: “I’ve got a couple of quid riding on the score being 83.5%”.
The whole point of this exercise was that it gave people at Orange a tangible stake in the results of the study. If someone’s bonus is attached to the results they will usually tend to take notice - but if it isn’t, then a competition provides a great way of engaging people.
So, how could this work in practice? Here are a few ideas:
Presentation poser - One way would be to incorporate a competition into a presentation (it’s almost guaranteed to encourage people to take more notice of your results!) You could offer a small prize for the person who spots the really critical statement that unlocks the whole issue. Or perhaps you could reward the first person who is able to remember one of the key figures or facts from the presentation.
Brainy bubbly - Another approach could be to award a bottle of champagne for the best idea produced during a brainstorming session (voted for by everyone present). Or the bubbly could go to the person who could think of a powerful future application of the results. Again, if the project has highlighted a particular area of weakness, you could reward the person who comes up with the best idea to resolve that issue.
Quick quiz - One idea used by some large companies is to make the results (or a summary of them) available on a website or intranet, with a link to a simple quiz. All of the correct answers are put into a draw, with a prize of a £50 voucher for the first one that is pulled out.
There are probably many other innovative approaches you could try, but whatever you do, please don’t lose sight of the main aim - to try and stimulate people to take notice of your results and to remember them. Then you really will be onto a winning streak!
