Value profile: The slow transformer

Personas with a future perspective (5) – THE SLOWTRANSFORMER

The future means transformation: not abrupt change, but a process that writes new stories with courageous questioning and disruptive thought patterns. Most of our future personas are enthusiastic about this and want to help shape the future today rather than tomorrow. In addition to the doers, however, there are also those for whom change begins with tweaking the “tried and tested” screws in familiar structures. They are just as committed and reliable as the forerunners and ultimately everyone wants to achieve a common goal.

A mindset with the motto “I like it when things move, just not something new every day” makes it clear what a challenge our current persona represents for the company organisation. “Back to the future” is therefore the ethical punch line for THE SLOW TRANSFORMER Lisa Huber.

Lisa Huber is primarily concerned with stability and existential security. The 56-year-old’s everyday life is characterised by habits and reliable structures. In her value profile, performance is the only category that is clearly characterised. Performance is also the basis for the success of her small craft business, which she runs together with her husband. In doing so, Lisa favours the tried and tested and consciously avoids the dynamics driven by new technologies and social change. Lisa’s conservative mindset is also reflected in her trend profile, in which the future-oriented category of innovation affinity is significantly underrepresented. With an index of just 37%, she clearly brings up the rear in terms of progress among the other future personas. From their point of view, new and above all disruptive ideas must first prove themselves. However, interpreting this approach prematurely as “sticking to old patterns” is too short-sighted. Those who see the SLOWTRANSFORMER as a litmus test for their own transformative models and goals will find Lisa to be a sincere critic who needs to be won over through performance and transparent processes.

As a SLOWTRANSFORMER, Lisa Huber is a good practice example of the fact that change is an unconditional leadership task and requires unifying leadership. In this way, she gives a very concrete face to the often proclaimed claim that everyone should be involved.

How can you show the SLOWTRANSFORMER ways to a successful future despite a preservationist mentality and integrate her performance orientation into your corporate transformation?
Employees SLOWTRANSFORMERS in the team often find it difficult to see the added value and advantages of innovative developments. After all, regulated processes and structures always guarantee high product quality, smooth workflows and therefore security. In order to get them out of their guarded attitude, you need to convince these personas such as investors, customers or other stakeholders of your ideas and provide a proof of concept. This is where holistic change communication that works internally and externally helps to get everyone on board (see above). At the same time, you should not overburden SLOWTRANSFORMERS with technical innovations. An open error culture is helpful to get them excited about the digital future.
Authorities The “preservationist mentality” of SLOWTRANSFORMERS can also be a challenge for official stakeholders, even if it serves to protect and secure consumers in the best case scenario. Use this mindset constructively by understanding rules and regulations as a challenge for your ideas and product developments. Create trust through transparency and impress with services that exceed the standards.
Customers Due to the delayed development over time, you will encounter SLOWTRANSFORMERs on the customer side at at least two contact points in a product life cycle: with existing products, you can still take your time to skim off the economies of scale of the offers with this persona, while all other customer groups have already orientated themselves towards the new products. For new product developments, SLOWTRANSFORMERS are also your most persistent critics as customers. Only when all the teething troubles have been ironed out and all the other buyer types are already enthusiastic can the SLOWTRANSFORMERS still be convinced. With their decision-making stability, they will then stay by your side longer than other customers.

If you would like to find out more about Lisa and the other Future Personas, you can download the profiles from the Zukunftsinstitut.

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Source: Future Personas @Zukunftsinstitut