Hook Them In Hawaiian Style
Yes, I’m on holidays with my kids at the moment, but this Hawaiian shirt is not my usual holiday attire. You see this afternoon I'm heading off to a New Year's Eve party which has a Hawaiian theme. I've got my Malibu white rum chilling in the fridge downstairs for cocktail making. I’m going to make a pavlova with tropical fruit and no doubt later in the evening I’ll partake in a conga line and limbo competition.
A theme is great fun. It makes a party memorable but you don't have to leave the theming for your social life. As a leader you can harness the power of a theme to bring about engagement and commitment in your team and organisation.
In the book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, Verne Harnish says this about mastering the quarterly theme:
"Visionaries intuitively understand what too many business executives have yet to learn, which is that it takes an idea or an image to anchor a message with its listening audience. To get people to storm the barricades on your behalf you've got to give them a concept that connects not just with their heads, but their hearts."
A theme will do this. You can use a theme to introduce a goal, bring it to life, track its progress, and also most importantly to celebrate its success.
A theme acts as a cognitive hook to get your people to connect with an idea and commit to it. When we are hit with new information, the first stop is in our sensory memory, and if that sensory memory isn’t paying attention, the information won't proceed to our working memory. Our brains decide what we remember and what we don't. When a cognitive hook, which appeals to all our senses, is used to introduce a goal or a new concept, that hook grabs our attention, connects with our heart and we remember and commit to it.
When I worked in learning and development within corporate every course that we ran would have a theme attached to it. For example, we facilitated a six day leadership course and the theme was ‘Take the Lead’, the name of a movie starring Antonio Banderos as a dance teacher.
Each module within that leadership program connected to the dance theme. We watched the movie, we integrated dance quotes, video clips, we played drums and did belly dancing. We even took the participants to a ballroom dancing class to see what they learnt about leadership. They gained an understanding of the difference it makes when you have a strong dance partner leading you, as opposed to a weak inexperienced one who isn’t confident and doesn’t know the steps. The participants were completely immersed in the dance theme which made the learning not only fun but made the messages stick.
When you’re thinking about a theme remember to make it:
Simple and fun
Sppeal to all the senses
Fit with your company image and values
Integrate with every part of the goal/project
Involve every team member, regardless of their position
In 2019, think about as a leader how you can use theming to accomplish your goals. What is your theme for the year ahead or maybe the first quarter or your first big project? Use this theme to hook your people, gain their commitment and connect with their hearts. And have some fun along the way…
Happy New Year!!
Midja x