A Big Shift

We’ve all heard “Knowledge is Power.” 

But that’s not actually true. Knowledge is only Potential Power. It becomes power when it’s ACTED upon. 

Shane Hanson from Panasonic knew this. She had a grand vision to build a consumer insight culture within the company. Panasonic, as a very successful electronics company, prides itself on high quality technical products and therefore culturally has a very strong technical focus. Shane knew that if the culture went just a step further – to bring the consumer more strongly into focus – Panasonic would grow their business even faster. 

Training was needed. And so, Shane partnered with Untapped Innovation to drive innovation with consumer insight and Optima Retail for shopper and retail insight expertise. This training topic needed a unique name that would stick, and thus was called “Insight Driven Value”.

But more was needed. It’s known that most traditional corporate training is ineffective. It downloads information but often doesn’t drive behavior change. And that’s what was really needed. 

Mindtap guided the team in a strategic training design to propel a real culture shift. Four key principles were used:

1. Visible Stakeholder Support

The brain is biased to want to fit in. It was a survival skill early on… and has stuck around. A sure way to fit in is to go where the leader tells everyone to go. No, we’re not lemmings… but it is an unconscious force wired into our brain. Therefore, having a very senior stakeholder visibly supporting this effort is absolutely crucial. Video and quotes of the most senior stakeholder were used throughout the early process, repeatedly. We also collaborated with the next level of leadership, so that they echoed the support and message visibly to their individual organizations throughout the company. 

Now people knew “Insight Driven Value” was important.

2. Grounded in Current Culture

Even with leadership support… if the new information feels too foreign, it will be rejected and not adopted. We ran the modules in two languages, English and Japanese, so the language felt familiar. Also, the examples shared needed to feel familiar. Stories were part of Japanese culture, as Panasonic is a Japanese based company. Additionally, we used stories of teams using these tools and information from within Panasonic itself. This demonstrated that these practices were already being used internally. 

Now people knew “Insight Driven Value” fit within the Panasonic culture.

3. Bite-Sized & Repeated Learning

With people seeing that “Insight Driven Value” is 1) important and 2) fits within Panasonic’s culture… they are open to learning. With something so new… the brain can only absorb so much at a time. So, we broke the concepts down to their most fundamental pieces. Some stakeholders were worried that by doing so, the learning was too slow. But this is based in brain science. The least bit of confusion will not just slow the learning process… but bring it to a halt. There are too many other things going on at work that people will do instead if learning takes too much effort. We couldn’t risk that. 

Additionally, the only way to strengthen a skill to a point where it can be used, is through repetition. We repeated core concepts again and again in subsequent modules while we built upon them. This gave the necessary ‘reps’ needed to build the neural pathways within the brain. 

Now people can easily learn “Insight Driven Value.”

4. Early Engagement

Now that people are learning… just knowing the information isn’t enough. We wanted people to take it a step further and use the information. That’s where Community Board Assignments come in. After every module, we assigned the learner to create a post in a Community Board to apply the learning. This did a number of wonderful things:

– We could see that the learners were understanding the content

– The act of applying the information strengthened the learning even more

– The act of applying the information gave practice to using it within their own jobs

– The learners could learn from each other

– The learners felt part of a learning community

– The posts could be used as examples in subsequent modules, creating a way to recognize engaged learner.

To build this behavior, the training team commented on every post. This created accountability, another learning opportunity, reinforced key concepts, and validated the effort of the learner. Beautifully, the learner is more likely to post on a subsequent module too. 

Now, momentum was being created around “Insight Driven Value.”

The result is undeniable… Shane Hanson created something massive. What started as 20 Panasonic colleagues being trained has grown to over 400 Panasonic colleagues across 20 countries, completing over 2,000 modules. Good news spreads fast when you design an experience that the brain loves.

Mindtap coaches people like Shane Hanson, who has a big idea that will create a big impact. Accelerate and magnify your success with the 3-Step Lead Now process that incorporates leadership, innovation & neuroscience. This process works for anyone at any level within a company.