Persuading people to adopt an innovation is a challenge faced by many organisations. How does innovation travel from one person to another? How do new ideas or values spread throughout an entire culture? It can be well-understood by diffusion of innovation models (developed in 1962 by Everett Rogers). According to him, diffusion of innovations consists of five phases that an individual (or other decision-making units) experiences in the adoption of an innovation.

Phase 1: Knowledge, the first exposure to innovation.

Phase 2: Persuasion, in which the individual becomes interested and tries to learn more about it.

Phase 3: Decision; in which the person must now decide whether he or she is going to use this idea (it could be acceptance or rejection of the idea.)

Phase 4: Implementation, where the individual begins to use the innovation, and finally, we have

Phase 5: Confirmation, the final decision to continue using this innovation.

You need to identify who is killing your Digital Transformation and who is spreading a positive change in your organisation. Identifying those people can be tricky, but still, you can get some ideas from this graph to understand different types of people and how to deal with them.

In the simulated role-playing experience, you can learn a handful of strategies like – when to provide people with an opportunity to evaluate the innovation, how to identify an opinion leader, a formal leader, and a gatekeeper. You can learn how to use mass media communication to raise awareness about innovation, and how to utilise early adopters to spread the change.

Key Takeaways
Understand your audience and identify the phase in which they are when it comes to adopting innovation. And, based on the phase, use the right nudges to persuade your people.