When we hear the words ‘stakeholders’, ‘engagement’ or ‘buy-in’ at the start of a project our hearts sink. On paper it makes perfect sense to make sure the people who should be involved have their say. But in practice, the process often takes over at the expense of any good ideas.
Last year we got into a Twitter debate with someone who’d been involved in rebranding the RNID (Royal National Institute for the Deaf) as ‘Action on Hearing Loss’. We thought it smacked of ‘naming by committee’ and sounded compromised. Now, whether you agree with us is one thing, but what was striking was that at no time did the person defend the name. She defended the buy-in process. Her argument was that they’d had to consult with all their members (she’s no longer on Twitter so we can’t quote her side of the argument verbatim) and that’s why they got to Action on Hearing Loss. Which is the nub of the problem. It’s pretty easy to consult people. But getting a good result at the end, whether that’s a name, some words, a logo or whatever, is the tricky bit. And if you don’t get a good result, you haven’t done your job properly.
If there’s one part of the buy-in process that sums up all its problems, it’s the ‘stakeholder workshop’. ‘We need to have a workshop to get buy-in’ has become one of those strange branding laws that everyone’s got so used to, they’re convinced it must work.
Except the science behind it says not.
For starters, these workshops all have the same groupthink problems as brainstorms. As neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer talks about in the May issue of Wired UK, the first rule of brainstorms and workshops the world over is ‘don’t criticise’. But that’s a terrible approach because it removes any of the conflict you need to spark and shape ideas. Susan Cain picks up on this in her book Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking. Forty years of research has shown that ideas get worse as a group gets bigger. Which backs up most of the anecdotal experience we’ve found in our day jobs: working together is good, thrashing out ideas by committee isn’t. The big exception to this is working together online (which is actually about people working alone first, then collaborating) but that’s another story.
With workshops, by-committee thinking becomes even more exaggerated because the people involved aren’t necessarily experienced in branding (or whatever you’re running a workshop about). They’re as qualified to make judgements about brands as we are to give Professor Brian Cox and his gang advice on the Hadron Collider’s ability to tell us about dark matter, mass-energy and supersymmetry (with thanks to Wikipedia). In workshops people find it harder to leave their personal preferences behind and think more strategically. We never do ‘if this brand were a person who would it be…’ type exercises, because they’re froth. And when you have to do the actual work, they don’t help a jot. But these exercises pop up over and over again with the same old answers. Marketing teams whisk people away for a day and come up with the ‘steer’ that their British brand wants to be like Stephen Fry and John Lewis. That’s not a strategy, they’re just things people like. Again, if you’ve worked in branding, you’ll know all about this weird workshop world where celebrities morph into brands and everyone’s tone is open and honest. But how can we expect getting into a pair with an accountant and a pile of Post-It notes will help us work out which idea is the best. Really?
All well and good (or all well and not-so-good). But you can’t ignore these important ‘stakeholders’ completely or they might just use those stakes against you. So what’s the alternative? We think the best way to get people involved is to treat them with intelligence and be upfront about where their input will and won’t work. And this goes for everyone, including the CEO, who shouldn’t be put on a pedestal just because of a job title.
The We All Need Words Rules of Engagement (buy-in, and other branding shenanigans)
1. Ask people involved to take charge of the brief not to answer it.
It’s the group’s role to tell us what they want (and own the brief) and to tell us if we’ve met it. So if you hire someone to do the creative and thinking bits, let them get on with it. If you do want to run a workshop be clear about what you’re using it for: to ask questions or to explain what you’re doing, not to come up with the answers.
2. Don’t go through the motions.
More than once we’ve been asked to run a workshop not to listen to people’s opinions, but to make sure they feel part of the process. If you ask people to come up with ideas and don’t use them, they feel hoodwinked. Just think of the times when the government has run a consultation with a pre-determined answer. Most people can spot a whitewash and they end up feeling just as annoyed, if not more.
3. Skip the brand-speak and theory.
A lot of people, quite rightly, are sceptical about branding and workshops. They mostly associate them with Daily Mail stories about thousands of wasted £££s on logos and the like. But if you start talking about propositions and brand models all you’re going to do is reinforce their preconceived ideas about branding being a lot of fluff. So ditch the brand speak.
4. Don’t use research to test if ideas are good.
Controversial, we know. But bear with us while we give you a little example… way back when, McVities wanted to test a new kind of biscuit. They had two names, Crunchy Oaty Biscuits and Hobnobs. Without fail, their research groups went with the more familiar, less risky, Crunchy Oaty option. Luckily McVities had a hunch about Hobnobs and well, the rest is teatime history.
We’ve seen the same thing happen time and time again. Research is good for spotting problems and gaps in markets – or for checking a potential cultural hiccup – but it’s lousy at spotting the best ideas. People in research groups go for what they know, not with what will make a splash (which means they’ll tell you that they hate the idea they’d actually like best beyond the two-way mirrors). It’s one reason why a lot of big companies aren’t as good at coming up with game-changing ideas as newer, more nimble start-ups.
5. Be upfront about what you need to do.
If, for example, you’re a big company that has lost its way, it’s going to be really hard to change things, especially if you need to change ingrained ways of working. But putting together a campaign with roadshows and posters saying things like ‘customers first’ isn’t going to stop the rot one way or another. Being upfront about what you’re going to do (and the consequences if you don’t do it) will at least give your brand a fighting chance.
Tell us what you think. On second thoughts, don’t.
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