Ever wonder why some stakeholder meetings start brilliantly while others feel like an uphill battle from the beginning?
The answer often lies in something behavioural scientists call “priming” – and it’s a game-changer for anyone leading organisational change. It can have a big impact on how we engage with stakeholders and set stakeholder expectations.
What is priming? Priming is our brain’s tendency to be influenced by what we’ve recently encountered. For example showing someone the word “yellow” can lead to them recognising the word “banana” faster than other words. It’s automatic, unconscious, and incredibly powerful. Research backs this up well, for example Bargh and colleagues (2001) gave students word search puzzles containing either achievement words (like “win” and “achieve”) or neutral words (like “building” and “staple”). Those who found the achievement words first performed significantly better on subsequent puzzles. Simply being exposed to achievement-related concepts improved their performance.
Actually, most of us do this already without realising it. Ever written “I’m really looking forward to catching up with you next week…” or “Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on this”? That’s priming too – you’re setting a positive, anticipatory tone before the conversation even begins.
This is a key concept we include in our stakeholder engagement and communication courses at ChangeQuest. I also talked about it recently, when guest lecturing, on the Influencing module of the Masters course run by the Institute of Internal Communication (IOIC), it proved to be a popular tool and led to some interesting discussion.
Strategic pre-meeting communication
Meeting invitations and pre-workshop welcome emails can go beyond sharing logistics as they are a great place for priming. For example mentioning things like how we can collaborate, work together and reach clear outcomes means people arrive expecting to contribute and achieve successful outcomes.
A while back I was working with a change team embarking on a major transformation programme, where there were a wide range of stakeholders with diverse opinions and agendas. In meeting invites and other change related communication, we included key messages like:
‘the most important thing is that we are aligned’
‘that we have shared understanding and agree next steps together’
‘that we can all support this critical transformation together, in the best way possible’.
This helped to create a more open and agreeable environment, setting the scene to have constructive conversations and make progress with change.
Language is a powerful tool. It helps to frame discussions, for example around “opportunities for improvement” rather than “problems to fix” and primes stakeholders to think more proactively. Same situation, completely different mindset.
Priming to build confidence and personal resilience
I use this concept in my mentoring work too. When supporting change leaders and professionals, we don’t talk only about the technicalities of developing a change approach or steps to deal with a change challenge, we focus on mindset too. By highlighting what they are already doing well, where they have already had success, and navigated similarly complex and challenging situations, it shifts their focus to what is possible. It helps build their confidence and primes them to approach new challenges from a position of strength and personal resilience.
The result? Rather than be overwhelmed by challenges, they focus on how they can overcome obstacles and achieve positive outcomes.
Change management isn’t just about process and planning – it’s about understanding how humans naturally think and working with our psychology, not against it.
Your turn: Think about your next conversation with a stakeholder. What could you share beforehand to prime them for a positive and productive outcome that is good for both of you?
