Empathizing with your target group in change management.

Change management can’t be a one size fits all approach especially in large organisations. Organisations can only change when the people being impacted felt heard and are engaged in the process. Connecting their individual purpose to the change is imperative. Change has a higher chance of success when leadership empathises with the different impact groups before building a change program.

Empathising with impact groups in change provides a foundation to build a program that touches both the mind and the hearts of the target audience. A persona canvas is a great tool to use to structure thinking in the emphasise phase of change management.

So what is a persona canvas?

A Persona Canvas is a tool primarily used in product design and user experience (UX) research to create empathy-based understanding of the end user of a product or service. Often it is a visual representation that captures and synthesises information about the user’s needs, motivations, behaviors, pain points, and goals. The canvas can be used in change management more on that later.

The canvas is divided into various sections such as;

• Demographics (try giving your persona a typical name and role)
• Fears and Hopes
• Pain-points or headaches
• Opportunities
• Needs and Motivations

External trends and Positive trends

A person canvas template

Each section helps to build a comprehensive picture of the user, beyond just basic demographic data, to gain a deep understanding of their thoughts, feelings, and actions. By creating personas for key stakeholder groups, organizations can gain insights into their needs, motivations, behaviors, pain points, and goals, and use this information to plan and implement changes in a way that is effective and minimizes resistance.

How to use the persona canvas in change

At Ink Strategy we use persona canvas in change management as a tool to help organizations understand and anticipate the impact of change on different groups of stakeholders.

Here’s how a Persona Canvas can be used in change management:

1. Identify Stakeholder Groups: Start by identifying the key stakeholder groups that will be affected by the change. These might include employees, customers, partners, or suppliers, for example.
2. Create Personas: For each stakeholder group, create a persona canvas that captures the key information about their needs, motivations, behaviors, pain points, and goals.
3. Analyze Impacts: Use the information from the personas to analyze the potential impacts of the change on each stakeholder group. Consider how the change might affect their needs, motivations, behaviors, pain points, and goals, and what actions you can take to mitigate any negative impacts.
4. Communicate Change: Use the information from the personas to communicate the change in a way that is relevant and meaningful to each stakeholder group. This will help to build buy-in and reduce resistance to change.
5. Monitor and Evaluate: After the change has been implemented, use the personas to monitor and evaluate its impact on the different stakeholder groups. This will help you to identify any areas where additional support or adjustment may be needed, and make any necessary changes to ensure that the change is sustainable.

By using a persona canvas in change management, organizations can gain a deeper understanding of their stakeholders and implement changes in a way that is effective, efficient, and minimises resistance.

Who can use the persona canvas?

A persona canvas is useful for teams and organisations that want to successfully a new idea or change. Using the persona as a point of departure. Our clients range from large corporates to NGO’s to start up or scale ups and we have worked with them successfully on implementing personas.

For example;

• Facilitating team integrations and fusions.
• Culture and change programs for large organisations.
• Defining an exploring mission, vision and core values based employees nees.
• Strategic repositioning and strategy changes.
• Positioning of a new team in an organisation or leadership and team development.

Interested in partnering with Ink Strategy in your change program?

Get in contact with us!

An example of a visual Persona Canvas

A persona canvas is a great way to start a design process. By understanding who you are designing for you will identify pain points that can be solved. From there you can build out stories like customer journeys and improve on the experiential design of a product, or service or how to unroll the change or innovation you are working on. understanding and awareness for a persona canvas.