I love watching TED videos. They always feature interesting guest speakers from different industries and professions who share innovative ideas and discuss unusual topics. Recently, TED released a video from CD Baby founder and entrepreneur Derek Sivers‘ talk in February. His brief lecture centered on the leadership lessons we could learn from the video of a random guy dancing on the lawn during a concert. Watch his brief presentation here:
Derek’s insights got me wondering if a policy revolution could follow the same road map. Even blogger Rohit Bhargava of Influential Marketing Blog suggests that Sivers formula is similar to the process he used to turn his Social Media Optimization concept into a revolution within the social media community. We can use the same lessons as we design our policy change revolutions.
As Sivers highlights in his TED presentation, it’s the first follower that really starts the movement. Until the first person joins the lone dancer, he looks inconsequential and no one takes him seriously. Alone, observers might notice him, but then they lose interest and pay attention to something else.
Policy revolutions work the same way. While every revolution needs a leader to sound the alarm, leading organizations need to recruit “followers” through partnerships with like-minded, diverse organizations to build effective policy change movements. Without additional organizations rallying with you and behind your issue, policy calls to action can fall on deaf ears, eventually losing volume and credibility. As a result, policy reform campaigns also lose impact among policymakers.
After one organization joins the leading group to create social change, it will become easier to build alliances with other organizations. The crowd of supporters will follow, extending the size, reach and significance of a policy movement.
Earlier this month, a group of energy-concerned companies and advocacy organizations joined together to sign and submit a letter to President Obama requesting that consumer access to energy information, such as real-time electricity pricing information in their homes and business, become a national priority. The letter got the attention of and praise from Carol Browner, assistant to the President on Energy and Climate Change — an unlikely result if only one of these organizations had petitioned the White House for action.
Working together, anything is possible — even for the guy or organization dancing to the beat of their own drummer. So the lesson learned from the shirtless dancing guy? Starting a policy change revolution is more than just demonstrating the willingness to be in front, but the commitment to find that first follower to build a coalition and start a real movement.
