This is part of a series written by Sarah Garver, PhD, Manager, Insights and Strategy Activation, focused on the topic of Strategy Activation through behavioral change.
Part One: What If We Activated Strategy Like We Activate Brands?
Part Two: Can I Get a Refund? The Invisible Strategy Tax
Part Three: The $438 Billion Blind Spot in Strategy Definition
You’ve defined the strategy. You’ve named the behaviors it requires. Now, how do you get people to understand it, remember it, and do something about it?
We started this series with Super Bowl ads and why smart marketers are willing to pay
$8–$10 million for 30 seconds. Not for awareness. For action.
Most strategy execution is more communication than activation. We design solutions to do both.
Emotion. Visualization. Storytelling. Like that tearjerker of a commercial, these methods, along with dialogue and interactivity, are at the core of our methodology and approach to activating strategy through people. Why? Because behavioral science tells us these approaches are powerful mechanisms to drive clarity, alignment, recall, and action.
Emotion, film, visualization, and storytelling aren’t soft. They’re neurological prerequisites.
Whether aligning leaders with a Watercooler or launching the strategy to the organization with a Learning Map® Experience, we use visualization, dialogue, and interactivity to help individuals understand the current and future states of their organization, what it will take to get there, and where they fit in.
Why?
- Visuals significantly improve comprehension and retention. Adding images to words produces a meaningful improvement in recall, replicated across nearly 600 experimental comparisons.¹
- We’re twice as likely to recall information told through stories, and with greater accuracy, than we are plain facts. Our brains process stories faster, and when compelling, the oxytocin release translates to increased empathy, trust, and positive behavior.² ³
- Amplify those strategy sessions with an inspirational film and you can produce belief and attitude shifts that align your audience, reduce counterarguing, and create change long after the film ends. ⁴
Visualization lays a critical foundation for strategy execution, but feeling inspired to change isn’t the same as knowing how. There’s a second step.
If you want to drive behavior change, the brain needs to immerse itself in the outcome as well as the process for how to get there.
To make sure we’re giving people a clear visualization of the from-to shift they need to make tactically in their day to day, we use a team of researchers (myself included) to deliver Success Routines. We observe, interview, and distill to a set of behaviors the operational mindsets and actions that must be scaled to achieve strategic results.
Then, using scenario-based workshops, simulations, gamification, and behavioral experimentation (don’t worry, no mad scientists are involved), we take the strategy from concept to capability.
When we’re activating strategies, we’re designing conversations, not presentations or events.
The question-behavior effect tells us something striking: simply asking someone how they plan to apply a new strategy nearly doubles the likelihood that they will.⁵
Taking it further, people will tolerate and (in the short term) act on what their leader tells them; but they’ll only continue acting that way if peers reinforce it. Dialogue and shared learning aren’t nice-to-haves—they’re strategic design choices.⁶
Passive training transfers to the job 13% of the time. Active approaches, over 75%.⁷
So, let’s wrap this up (because I’m on my way to my second PhD here) … Why do you care?
When we activate strategy through emotion, visualization, interactivity, and dialogue, we drive clarity, commitment, and recall. And when we use those methods to help people simulate how to do it—the process it requires—people have a higher likelihood of acting.
The business case is simple.
Gallup’s research across 736 studies and three million employees tells us that engagement, a direct output of all of this, delivers 23% greater profitability, 18% higher productivity, and 81% lower absenteeism.⁸
The methods aren’t creative choices. They’re evidence-based mechanisms. And the gap between strategy and results is where we work.
References
¹ Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. See also: Fong, C. J., Flanigan, A. E., & Robinson, D. H. (2025). A meta-analysis of Richard Mayer’s multimedia learning research: Searching for boundary conditions of design principles across multiple media types. Educational Research Review. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2025.100671
² Mar, R. A., & Oatley, K. (2008). The function of fiction is the abstraction and simulation of social experience. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(3), 173–192. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00073.x
See also: Bower, G. H., & Clark, M. C. (1969). Narrative stories as mediators for serial learning. Psychonomic Science, 14(4), 181–182. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03332778
³ Zak, P. J. (2015). Why inspiring stories make us react: The neuroscience of narrative. Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science, 2015, cer-02-15.
Barraza, J. A., & Zak, P. J. (2009). Empathy toward strangers triggers oxytocin release and subsequent generosity. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1167(1), 182–189. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04504.x
⁴ Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.701
⁵ Spangenberg, E. R., Kareklas, I., Devezer, B., & Sprott, D. E. (2016). A meta-analytic synthesis of the question–behavior effect. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 26(3), 441–458. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2015.12.004
See also: Morwitz, V. G., & Fitzsimons, G. J. (2004). The mere-measurement effect: Why does measuring intentions change actual behavior? Journal of Consumer Psychology, 14(1–2), 64–74. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327663jcp1401&2_8
⁶ Parke, M. R., Tangirala, S., & Hussain, I. (2021). Creating organizational citizens: How and when supervisor- versus peer-led role interventions change organizational citizenship behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 106(11), 1714–1733. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000848
⁷ The 13% passive transfer figure is attributed to Georgenson (1982) and widely cited in the foundational training transfer literature. The active learning comparison (75%+) reflects practitioner synthesis of active learning research. The most defensible academic anchor for both is:
Baldwin, T. T., & Ford, J. K. (1988). Transfer of training: A review and directions for future research. Personnel Psychology, 41(1), 63–105. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1988.tb00632.x
See also: Blume, B. D., Ford, J. K., Baldwin, T. T., & Huang, J. L. (2010). Transfer of training: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Management, 36(4), 1065–1105. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206309352080
⁸ Gallup, Inc. (2020). Q12 meta-analysis: The relationship between engagement at work and organizational outcomes (11th ed.). Gallup Press.