When Everett Rogers introduced the S-shaped diffusion curve in the first edition of his book, he was directly following the data. Researchers like Elihu Katz had already begun studying how change spreads and noticed a consistent pattern in the adoption of hybrid corn and the antibiotic tetracycline.
Yet it was Rogers who shaped our understanding of how ideas spread. Publishing more than 30 books and 500 articles, he studied everything from technology adoption to family planning in remote societies and just about everything in between. In doing so, he laid the foundation for an evidence-based approach to change.
Still, while Rogers showed us how change works, he didn’t offer much insight into why it works that way. This is where I think Michael Morris’s book, Tribal, can be helpful. By exploring how our tribal instincts lead us to adopt—or resist—change, we can learn to work with human nature rather than against it. Smart leaders don’t try to override instinct. They harness it.
The peer instinct: Connecting outside the community
Humans instinctively learn from our peers in ways other animals do not. Research by Michael Tomasello at the Max Planck Institute found that while human infants can share intentions by pointing, apes cannot. In a similar vein, Esther Herrmann and her colleagues found that humans have evolved unique skills for social cognition such as social learning, communication, and theory of mind.
This peer instinct shapes how we perceive and respond to risk. For the Iowa farmers in the hybrid corn study, their judgments were grounded in the concerns of their local community, such as rainfall, crop infestations, and other dangers. Most doctors were understandably reluctant to prescribe a new medicine that they were not familiar with.
One of the first things researchers noticed in both studies was that the early adopters were more connected outside their communities. The Iowa farmers who adopted hybrid corn early also traveled to Des Moines, the nearest city, more often. The doctors who were early to prescribe tetracycline were also the ones that most often attended out-of-town conferences.
David McRaney made a similar observation in his book How Minds Change. People who changed their minds about something important to them, like those who abandoned conspiracy theories or found the courage to leave cults, tend to have a change in their social networks first. Being around different people helped them see the world in new ways.
Everett Rogers saw the peer instinct at work in his own family. Although his father loved new electromechanical gadgets, he was reluctant to adopt hybrid seed corn. But during a severe drought in 1936, he noticed that his neighbor’s crop thrived while his own wilted, and that finally convinced him to make the switch.
The hero instinct: Spreading success
One of the most interesting aspects of both studies is that the farmers and the doctors reported getting information from conventional sources. In both cases, about half said they first heard about the innovation from salespeople and nearly a quarter from direct mail—together making up roughly 75% of respondents. (Radio and TV were still nascent.)
Yet while conventional media introduced the innovation in both sets of studies, respondents reported being most influenced by someone they knew. Other research has shown something similar: Weak social ties tend to provide information, while strong social ties shape decisions.
Morris calls this the “hero instinct.” When we see people who are successful and admired, we tend to imitate them. It’s why kids not only want to wear their favorite player’s number, but copy how he walks up to the plate. These “hero codes” act as ideals we aspire to. And unlike the peer instinct, we don’t need to know the person. Stories of success are enough to shape behavior.
Hero codes act as models for behavior. In the Soviet Union, stories of miner Alexei Stakhanov not only served as a Communist ideal, but were featured on the cover of Time magazine and influenced HR practices in the West. In Latin America, soap opera heroes were shown to positively influence literacy and family planning.
While the peer instinct drives adoption in the earlier stages of the S-curve, the hero instinct drives its acceleration.
The ancestor instinct: Making change stick
One of Rogers’s most consistent findings was that the tipping point for change usually lies between 10% and 20% participation. That’s also the point of maximum resistance. Some innovations, like lean manufacturing and agile development hit that threshold and stay stuck there for decades, never reaching the steep part of the S-curve.
Leaders often use “precedent signals” to leverage our respect for tradition. It’s no accident that Abrahamic holidays often fall on the same dates as earlier pagan rituals. For many of the same reasons, when Lou Gerstner set out to turn around tech giant IBM in the 1990s, he frequently invoked the company’s history and culture to support changes he made.
Morris calls this the “ancestor instinct” and it can be incredibly powerful. We have a natural reverence for what has come before us and pass down traditions through the generations. These can be religious traditions, legal precedents like the U.S. Constitution, or, as in the case of Lou Gerstner and IBM, elements of organizational culture. Framing something new as being rooted in old traditions can make it feel safer to adopt.
Both hybrid corn and tetracycline eventually became part of the fabric of their industries. Today, we grow 20% more corn on 25% less land due to innovations like hybrid corn. Tetracycline represented a new class of antibiotics, but soon became a standard of care. What was once new, exciting, and even a little scary, became mundane, ordinary, and routine.
Putting tribal instincts to work for you
The S-curve has become so ingrained in the lore of innovation and change that we scarcely think about where it came from or what drives it. We know that change starts slowly, with a few enthusiasts experimenting with something new. If it gains traction, adoption can accelerate exponentially before the market saturates and levels off.
Yet Michael Morris’s work on tribal signals can help us understand the original research in new and interesting ways. We’ve long known that early adopters tend to venture outside their communities to explore. But when we understand the peer instinct and prevalence signals, we can begin to see how the structure of our social networks affects what we can achieve.
In a similar vein, understanding the hero instinct and prestige signals allows us to accelerate adoption by celebrating success stories and telling them well. Leveraging the ancestor instinct and precedent signals can help us frame new things in terms that honor and respect traditions that people already value.
At its root, innovation is less about technology and disruption than it is about people. Good ideas—even great ones—fail all the time. If you have an idea you care about and want it to succeed, you can’t ignore the basic instincts that drive human nature. You need to harness them and let them work for you instead of against you.
