For a lot of software, user data is crucial to be able to create a personalised experience or to make software work at all. You therefore need a good strategy to collect this information from customers or employees. But also for new behaviour, user data can be very important to support people in their change.

No pain, no gain

No pain, no gain. This is an often-used slogan. You have to suffer to see the results. It is true in many cases, but not always. Certainly not in organisational change. After all, it can be a deterrent and cause nothing to happen. It is better to cut the elephant into pieces to get people on board for change.

During a change, we too often envisage an ideal scenario: everyone follows the new policy or uses the new software fully and demonstrates the behaviour we want, preferably immediately. If information has to be gathered about clients or employees, we want to have it immediately available. At Soulcenter, for example, we want as many employees as possible to collect as much data as possible about the residents, so that we can immediately match them with meaningful activities in residential care centres. We want to see the full potential of the software in action right away. The ideal world.

No gain, no pain

But that’s not how it works, of course. We’re going to have to turn the ‘no pain, no gain’ into ‘no gain, no pain’. We want the users of software to experience the benefits of the software as quickly as possible. Or we want the implementers of a new policy to experience the benefits of that change as quickly as possible, rather than having them flounder through endless documents first.

It’s all about getting people started quickly with limited information and getting further information later, just like it’s done in digital marketing.

We need to reduce or prevent the pain and increase or accelerate the return.

Reduce, postpone or prevent pain

In the case of collecting data about the customer or the employee, there are several ways to do it. You can ask directly (most pain) or you can collect indirect information or use other sources (least or no pain). An integration between a talent platform that needs information about employees and the employee’s LinkedIn profile is an example of such an external source. Making that integration smooth, so that the employee gets the information in one click, prevents pain.

Increase or accelerate the benefits

At the start of any change, the essence of the change, the real benefit, should stand out. What gives customers or employees a WOW experience with the new policy, product or service? Often, all the benefits (big and small) are unleashed on customers and employees at once and the whole thing loses value. The essence of Instagram is that you can quickly see and share beautiful photos with limited information and effort. Afterwards, you can complete and embellish your profile according to your own needs.

With Soulcenter we are now testing how we can speed up the process, for example by starting with being able to quickly find and organise activities tailored to the needs of the residential care centre based on the limited information that is already there. And by starting to look at existing habits and how they can support the use of Soulcenter. We have a vision and we want to give staff and residents of residential care centres a taste of it as soon as possible. No gain, no pain. And then grow step by step towards a highly personalised approach for residents, the ideal world.

So if you are facing a major change as change manager or executive, and you want to get your staff on board for that change quickly, make sure they get a taste of the benefits. You do not create enthusiasm with communication alone, but especially by letting people experience the change. Bring the future forward in order to get people excited about a long term change.