A minority can change the whole

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, the majority of the society will always adopt their belief. The findings were published in the July 22, 2011, online edition of the journal Physical Review E in an article titled “Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities.”

“When the number of committed opinion holders is under 10 percent, there is no progress in the spread of ideas throughout the system. ”It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority,” said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer. “Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame.”

As an example, the events (Emergent change in Egypt) in Tunisia and Egypt appear to exhibit a similar process, according to Szymanski. “In those countries, dictators who were in power for decades were suddenly overthrown in just a few weeks.”

PlanB has over the years developed methodology for how to work with internal change agents and we are convinced that it is the most efficient way to transform an organization. When the change agents are representatives from different clusters or units, have the buy-in and active support from management and have a common understanding and methodology they are critical for success with a change initiative. What we now can add to the methodology is the magic number of 10. The amount of change agents should be 10% if speed of adoption is critical.

Another intriguing finding in the research is that the percentage of committed opinion holders required to influence the whole remains at approximately 10 percent, regardless of how or where that opinion starts and spreads. As long as the people are connected with each other and are able to communicate the 10 percent with the unshakable belief will influence the majority.
During the research, the scientists developed computer models of various types of social networks. In one of the networks each person where connected to every other person in the network. In the second model certain individuals were connected to a large number of people and others to less, creating a hierarchy. The final model gave every person in the model roughly the same number of connections. The initial state of each of the models was a majority of traditional-view holders. Each of these individuals held a view, but were also, importantly, open minded to other views.

Once the networks were built, the scientists then embedded change agents throughout each of the networks. These people were completely set in their views, with a strong notion of sensemaking and unflappable in modifying those beliefs. As those true believers began to converse with those who held the traditional belief system, the tides gradually and then very abruptly began to shift.

This relates to the PlanB Popcorn Metaphor illustrating how the process of change works as a wave or as a normal distribution curve going from the initial group of 10%, working its way to critical mass accelerating and finally slowing down dramatically so that only 90% of the system actually change.

The result from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is an important message to all of us working with change initiatives. It underlines the need for highly committed change agents with an unshakable belief and pinpoints the important tactical goal of any change initiative: to win the hearts and souls of the first 10 percent.

Henrik Challis

Tags:  Change, Change Agents, Change communication, change management, Change process