Originally written December 21, 2022—
While not every change initiative will be faced with this discussion, many are … the topic of what are we going to “give away” to build awareness and “excitement” to this project? The discussion starts with who do we give something to – is it the whole company, just the project team, project team plus adjacent members and then there’s a flurry of conversation what to give. From T-shirts, to mugs, to tumblers, to wall art… the options are numerous. However, as change practitioners are we encouraging the thoughtful and careful placement of these moments on a project … or treating building visibility to the project as yet another set of activities to cross off the list. This post is intended to offer some insight into the hidden power of these moments … and more importantly discusses when it is it time to kill the “five minute fancies”
Recognition Matters
From a recognition perspective, creating awareness to an initiative can be valuable, when properly placed and when embedded as part of a broader strategy in building commitment to a new way of working or a new way of operating. I would compare the “gift”, “giveaway”, “promotional item”, to being the tip of the iceberg. Change practitioners have the opportunity and I would say even the obligation to make these moments truly meaningful…. to quickly kill them.
I want to acknowledge these items when placed well can have a purpose. I would also argue that we line the closets, desks, and cabinets of many an employee with items that create little or no connection to the work at hand. In times of companies wanting to maximize their resources, we have an opportunity, even an obligation, to change how to make meaningful moments from what for decades and in the majority of cases has been a missed opportunity.
Offering a Definition
Now first you may be asking what do you mean when you say “five minute fancies?”. Once I describe it, the moments that you have experienced as an employee involved in an initiative or as the change practitioner will become obvious.
Recipients point of view
You are sitting in an all hands meeting, town hall, large forum where the designated leader is talking through the project, and then there’s a segway to the topic that begins something like “we just ant to take this moment to recognize everyone’s contribution…” followed by some words about what has occurred and then it happens, people start descending down the aisles with cardboard boxes handing out some type of item or there’s a slide displayed with bullet points about some forthcoming email, or a set of instructions for everyone to stop by a table on the way out to collect your size shirt, coat, jacket, which you now link back to that random question a couple months ago about “what is your shirt or jacket size”. All roads lead inevitably to some merchandise being placed in your hand or sent to you, and when you get it you go “oh that’s nice, that’s cute”. And more often than not after that, sometimes within a couple days other times in a week or two, the item ends up pushed back on a cubicle shelf, or now with work from home, stuffed back in a kitchen cupboard or becomes just another shirt or jacket hanging in a closet, sometimes never to be seen again until the next spring cleaning.
Change Practitioner Perspective
The “change team” has a person responsible for coordinating this effort who has probably spent some amount of mindshare either orchestrating the work themselves or coordinating through corporate services or local staff to make that moment described above happen. All the effort, time, planning, put into something that people get and more often times than not, shrug their shoulders and with a “that’s nice” put away whatever it is they just received. It’s kind of a let down… yet these activities and efforts still plague the change plans of many an initiative.
There is a different way. And I would propose that choice actually begins right here with the change practitioner – advocating to sponsors only do activities like this when there is a direct connection to the project where there is impact..
First, we should fight the urge to pursue distributing “project merchandise” because of any of the following reasons:
- It’s always been done
- It’s on the template
- We have the budget
- The communications person said we had to
The Pivot Point
While any of the above reasons may be initiate a conversation, any or all of the above reasons can quickly be countered with – “in service to what? to do what? Who is asking for this?”. Now, maybe there’s a grand reason that will emerge or can be linked with these motivations, but more often than not, there is nothing specific or tangible to proceed with such work than simple precedent.
So assuming the abovementioned reasons are NOT why there is interest providing people with some type of tangible project-related item, we are moving into potentially meaningful territory. The potential to start asking a series of questions about why are we putting effort into giving people a memento for the project or some object that reminds them of the change initiative / project?
The Opportunity
If this post gives you pause, then the purpose has been achieved. The intent here is to wake up the change practitioner to creating meaning with the mementos (cups, glasses, shirts, coats) that people receive, and to treat them more like organizational development interventions. In the organization development realm, every interaction is an intervention. If you are reading and got to this point and are nodding your head, saying to yourself “Yes, I have always wondered why we are doing this but never had the words to challenge the ‘way we do these kind of things on projects.” the following posts may help you in finding your voice. I’ll give you a teaser, asking different questions puts you in the position for being perceived differently, adding a different kind of value to your project, to your sponsor, and to your craft as a practitioner.
Up Next
In the next post, I will walk through some techniques for vetting these types of request and discuss some of the paths available to you. Some of these recommendations could be rather provocative and may be counter cultural to how your initiative operates or to your organization… and that is a good thing.