There’s a saying in the UK – “It’s like painting the Forth Bridge”.  For those not familiar with it the Forth Bridge it is a cantilever railway bridge across the Firth of Forth in Scotland.  It’s 2.4 kilometres long and is now a World Heritage site.  "Painting the Forth Bridge" became a colloquial expression for a never-ending task.

I keep being reminded of this every time a company announces a new strategy, a new focus, a change that needs new behaviours, new co-operations, or new priorities.  The hard thing for the CEO and the senior team to understand is that just because the changes have been announced, often at a major company event, they have not been understood by the workforce.

This is because people are not very good at hearing things the first, second or third time. They are often thinking about other things, they don’t think it applies to them, and they would rather be doing something else than sitting here and listening to yet another new strategy. Research differs on how many times you need to say something but it’s always more than 3. If you want your message to sink in, then the message has to be repeated again and again.  It’s not just straightforward repetition but the message in different contexts that resonate with a particular section of the audience that is needed.  The benefits to the audience need to be spelled out to help the message to land.

It can seem a long and laborious process but it’s necessary if you want to make the changes effective.  Anything less and you will find that your new strategy or culture is not really successful.  Change takes time patience., it is like painting the Forth Bridge.

In the end it is worth it.