Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the Gauss curve and segmented it in the usual standard deviations,
which led to the distribution of 3 percent, 13 percent, 34 percent,
34 percent, 13 percent, and 3 percent. Rogers distinguished five groups
of people: the innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority,
and laggards.
If we look at innovators from the perspective of mirror systems, we
can only conclude that real innovators don
'
t belong to the mainstream
and that they challenge the boundaries of the usual and the accepted.
They want something new and become fascinated about an idea, a
product, or a way of working. They can experience this fascination
because they are hardly disturbed by the general opinion. Innovators
are very useful because they can be the first ones to embrace a new
safety standard if they believe in it. If they accept the policy, you know
you are on the right track for innovation. Unfortunately, innovators
don
t have the mirroring power to attract other team members. The
problem is that they are so independent that they don
'
'
t move around
in the center of the group. They can be models, but they have pro-
blems in connecting and for this reason hardly attract others to
follow them.
Innovators hardly have mirroring power.
The early adopters can play this intermediate role much better.
They understand innovators and their bright ideas and can easily pick
up their messages. But early adopters can also make a group enthusias-
tic because they are the opinion leaders that are watched (Berwick,
2003). Early adopters can give swing to group behavior. If they can be
attracted to play a role as supporters for a new safety project, they are
the ones that are going to sell it to the rest of the organization. They
are closest to the role of challenger.
Early adopters form the flywheel for change.
Identifying innovators and early adopters is crucial if we want to
use model learning through challengers to change safety behavior.
Once identified, the innovators and adopters can be the first to intro-
duce a new way of working and to sell that safety policy, respectively.
