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In 1962 Everett Rodgers suggested the idea of Diffusion of Innovation. It is simply based on the idea that there are those who are more willing to adopt a new idea or product and then there are those that are more resistant. Rodgers suggested that you can split these groups of people up into 5 groups based on the view they have:
The Innovators: These are the people who are most excited to try new ideas and innovations, even if there is no proof yet that they work, or may be costly. This group makes up about 2.5% of the population.
The Early Adopters: Also willing to try new technology and innovations, once it can communicate its value. Often they are thought leaders in a market, with high status and are able to influence others. This group makes up about 13.5% of the population.
The Early Majority: This group is the first of the large proportion of the market, making up about 34% of the population. They wait to see the reaction of the Early Adopters before they are confident enough to try a new innovation or idea.
The Late Majority: The next 34% of the population are usually much more resistant to trying new ideas, and will usually wait until the innovation is the norm. They are more risk averse than the Early groups and so will wait until the new innovation is well established and is of quality. They are unlikely to try a new innovation if the Early Majority has not shown that they have as well.
The Laggards: The last group are those who refuse to try new ideas for as long as possible. They want to keep using what they already have, and are stuck in their ways. They are very unlikely to adopt a new ida unless they are forced to. They make up about 16% of the population.
Simon Sinek suggested in his book; “Start With Why” that if you can hit a sweet spot of around 16% of innovators and early adopters taking on an idea, you can reach a tipping point where you can then bring on the early and late majorities. It is at this point that you have scale to survive and the idea will be taken on by the mass population. The reason that these ideas don’t reach this tipping point is often due to marketing. Ideas and innovations are marketed at the the majority population and even the laggards. However these people won’t come on on board without the Innovators and Early Adopters say so.
Recently, Meta have released Threads and you can see where you have the Innovators and Early Adopters and in will be interesting to see whether it takes off and has the sustainability. Threads have marketed their idea towards that small group of innovators who were looking an alternative to Twitter following the numerous changes to the platform in recent weeks. They hope that this will influence the early adopters to use Threads and then these people can influence the majorities.
How does this link to culture? When we are trying to bring change to a culture we are promoting new ideas and innovation. However, we feel like we need to target the entire group, especially the majority population and even the laggards. We market to the wrong subgroups essentially. We can feel that we have to bring everyone on board immediately and if we don’t the culture won’t permeate throughout the organisation.
Perhaps we should not be aiming to get everyone to adopt a new culture straight away anyway. We should target culture change at the innovators and early adopters. Get them on board and let them bring the majority along. The laggards will eventually come on board in time or they may be left behind in time.
This article was inspired after listening to Dan Abraham’s Sport Psych Show Podcast episode #233 with Richard Nugget - check it out here
Sport and Performance Psychology is all around us. If are interested in learning more about the work that I do, click here. Hope to hear from you soon.
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