Everyone agrees. Nobody does anything.
The presentation went down well. Nobody on the steering group was against it, the department heads called it a logical plan and in the survey a clear majority say they are behind it. You have support, you would think. And yet three months later almost everyone works the way they did before.
That is the treacherous thing about building support for change. You measure it by what people say, and you need it for what people do. Between those two sits a gap in which most plans disappear.
Anyone looking for buy-in for a plan or a change is therefore looking for something other than agreement. They are looking for an effect on behaviour. That is influence: making sure people also go and do it.
Building support for change means making sure people do not just back a plan or change but also act on it. You get agreement with a good story. You get support by letting people help build early on, making the new behaviour easy and removing what keeps them with the old. More on change and behaviour →
What is support for change?
Support is the backing people give a plan, decision or change, measured by what they do for it. That last part is usually left out. In practice it already counts as support when nobody objects.
The difference between support and agreement is the difference between doing and saying. Agreement is a statement: I understand it, I am behind it. Support is behaviour: I change my planning, I use the new system, I defend the plan when you are not in the room. Agreement costs nothing. Support costs time, effort and sometimes a bit of reputation.
That is why "everyone agrees" is such an unreliable signal. It tells you your story was good. It says little about what happens on Monday.
Why does building support fail so often?
Building support fails so often because it is handled as a communication question. Meetings, a clear message, frequently asked questions on the intranet. All of that works on what people think. It barely touches what they do.
How large that difference is was shown in 2016 by psychologists Paschal Sheeran and Thomas Webb, in a review of the research on intentions and behaviour.[1] People carry out about half of what they intend to do. The other half is left undone, and that is mainly down to people who really did intend to act.
They also cite a meta-analysis of experiments in which people's intentions were deliberately strengthened. A medium-to-large change in what people intended produced a small-to-medium change in what they did. So more conviction does give somewhat more behaviour, only much less than you would expect.
For buy-in that is an uncomfortable result. You can work for months on understanding and backing, get a fine score in the survey, and have changed a small part of the behaviour.
The reason is mundane. The old behaviour takes no effort. It sits in routines, systems and arrangements with colleagues. The new behaviour asks for a conscious choice every single day, and that choice loses as soon as things get busy.
Does participation work for building support?
Participation works, on one condition: people must have made something and finished it. That follows from research by Michael Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely, published in 2012.[2] They had participants assemble an IKEA storage box, fold origami or build a Lego set. Those who had built their own box bid 78 cents for it on average. Those who were offered the same box ready-made bid 48 cents.
They called it the IKEA effect: people place more value on what they have made themselves. Only that does not always hold.
"... labor leads to increased valuation only when labor results in successful completion of tasks."
Michael Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely, Journal of Consumer Psychology (2012)
When participants had to take their creation apart again, or could not finish it, the effect disappeared.
That explains why so much consultation produces no support. A session in which people may respond to a plan that is already finished lets them build nothing. A working group whose outcome ends up in a drawer is a creation that has been taken apart again. Participation that works starts earlier and ends with something recognisable: a part of the plan of which people can say that it came from them.
Which four forces decide whether support emerges?
Whether support emerges depends on four forces: two that move people towards the new behaviour and two that keep them with the old. At SUE we map them with the SUE | Influence Framework©, the model from Behavioural Design with which you fill in, per group, what is going on.[3]
The pains are what bothers people now in the current situation. The gains are what the new gives them. That is what almost all communication about a change covers: the need and the benefits.
The comforts are everything that makes the current situation pleasant. It works well enough, it is familiar and colleagues do it this way too. The anxieties are the doubts and fears about the new. Can I do it? Will it cost me extra time? Will this be different again in a year?
The idea behind it comes from psychologist Kurt Lewin. In 2017 Daniel Kahneman called it the best idea he had ever heard in psychology: behaviour is an equilibrium between driving forces and restraining forces, and you change it better by diminishing the restraining forces than by increasing the driving ones.[4]
A buy-in campaign increases the driving forces. If you want people to start doing something, you need to be on the other side.
You collect agreement in the meeting. You only see support on Monday morning.
How do you build support for change? Five steps
Five steps for a plan that already has backing and no movement yet.
1. Name the behaviour you want to see
Write down what people will do differently in three months, per group, in plain verbs. "Being behind the direction" is not behaviour. "Submitting every quote through the new system" is. Without that sentence you can neither measure support nor design for it.
2. Involve people in the problem, before the solution
Let the people who will have to do it help decide what exactly is going on. That is the moment when they can still build something. Do not put a finished plan in front of them and ask whether they recognise themselves in it.
3. Make sure their contribution is finished and traceable
The IKEA effect disappears with work that is not finished. Show in the plan which part comes from which group. If a suggestion was not adopted, say why.
4. Take the biggest bump out of the new behaviour
Ask what makes it hard to do the new thing and solve the point mentioned most often. Scrapping a duplicate action, preparing a template, closing the old channel. Increasing buy-in is often a matter of lowering friction.
5. Measure what people do
Replace the question of whether people back the plan with a count of the behaviour from step 1. That figure is lower than the survey, and it is the only one that matters.
Does this also apply to buy-in from senior management or other parties?
Yes. The forces are the same, the people differ. If you are looking for backing from your board, it is about what makes saying yes hard for them. That is the subject of the article on influencing upwards. If you are dealing with parties outside your own organisation that each have their own interest, read about stakeholder management.
If there is already open opposition, dealing with resistance to change will help. If you want to go deeper into involving your own people, read engaging employees in change. And why so many changes stall despite all the backing is covered in why change management fails.
Frequently asked questions about building support for change
How do you build support for change?
You build support for change by involving people in the problem early, making their contribution visible in the plan and making the new behaviour easier than the old. Then measure what people do. Persuading with facts and arguments mostly produces agreement.
Why does building support for change fail so often?
Building support often fails because it is treated as a communication question. Communication changes what people think. According to Sheeran and Webb (2016), about half of all intentions are turned into behaviour. The old behaviour is anchored in routines and wins as soon as things get busy.
What is the difference between support and agreement?
Agreement is what people say: I understand it and I am behind it. Support is what people do: carrying out the new behaviour, also when nobody is watching. Many changes get broad agreement and little support, because daily routine sits between saying and doing.
How do you use the SUE | Influence Framework© for building support?
Fill in the four forces per group: pains and gains that move people towards the new behaviour, comforts and anxieties that keep them with the old. For support the last two matter most. Then design interventions that make these restraining forces smaller.
Does participation work for building support?
Participation works when people make something and finish it. Norton, Mochon and Ariely (2012) showed that people place more value on what they have built themselves, and that this effect disappears when the work is not completed. Consultation on a plan that is already finished therefore achieves little.
How can you increase buy-in when the plan is already fixed?
If the plan is fixed, you increase buy-in through the way it is carried out. Let people choose how, when and in which order they pick up the new behaviour. Remove the biggest practical bump and show that you did.
Conclusion
Everyone agreed because your story was good. Nobody did anything because a good story produces agreement, and agreement is not yet behaviour. If you want to build support, you work on what people do: let them help build early, let them finish the work and remove what makes the new hard.
That is influence in the practical sense of the word. In The Art of Influence© online you learn how people choose and how to map the forces behind their behaviour for your own plan or change.
You count support in what people do differently on Monday.