No, No, No to Yes, Yes, Yes - Getting Your Team to Embrace Change

When there’s a mas­sive cri­sis and the build­ing is burn­ing down it’s quite easy to get peo­ple to embrace change. But, when the need isn’t urgent, proac­tive change is real­ly hard to make happen.

I just fin­ished teach­ing a mod­ule in our Lead­er­ship Edu­ca­tion pro­gram about this with a sim­ple lit­tle book that has an incred­i­ble impact on lead­er­ship effec­tive­ness dur­ing change.

Our Ice­berg is Melt­ing by John Kot­ter, pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus at Har­vard Busi­ness School, is a sto­ry about pen­guins whose ice­berg home is melt­ing away and the need to get them to move to a new place.

A short read, this book gives you a real under­stand­ing of why peo­ple resist change. In addi­tion, it offers up an eight-step process to prac­ti­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly get peo­ple on side.

Read­ing the book, you can see why so many peo­ple (includ­ing our­selves) resist change. They con­stant­ly say no no no, either with their mouths, their actions or with pas­sive resis­tance. One of the char­ac­ters in the book is actu­al­ly called Nono – the pen­guin who crit­i­cizes ideas.

Dur­ing the debate phase, Nono’s are absolute­ly valu­able but many lead­ers try to dis­miss them or qui­et their voic­es ear­ly in the process, which can take things back­wards. But, if you han­dle Nono resis­tors right, they can switch to yes yes yes and embrace change. It’s a high bar and hard to do but, as lead­ers, that is our role.

Not Just the Facts

When I read the book I was struck by how much we under­es­ti­mate the idea that get­ting peo­ple to change is based on emo­tion, not facts. We always talk to lead­ers and exec­u­tives about mak­ing fact-based deci­sions. How­ev­er, the true secret to unlock­ing the abil­i­ty to make change is under­stand­ing people’s emo­tion­al reac­tions, fears and anxieties.

All those prac­ti­cal spread­sheets and log­i­cal pre­sen­ta­tions are use­less until peo­ple emo­tion­al­ly feel the need to change for themselves.

The Chal­lenge

• If you and your team haven’t read it yet, Our Ice­berg is Melt­ing is a great book to under­stand change.
• Where do you notice resis­tance to change that, in the end, could be very positive?

About Kevin:

CEOs typ­i­cal­ly place their first call to Coach Kevin with a cri­sis to solve. They stay because of his busi­ness acu­men and no-holds-barred, tell-it-like-it-is style.

Kevin’s career spans 20 years, over a dozen coun­tries and four con­ti­nents. He’s worked with hun­dreds of CEOs and exec­u­tives, help­ing them to break through busi­ness chal­lenges, grow their com­pa­nies and find per­son­al suc­cess along the way.

These expe­ri­ences inspired Kevin’s book, Your Oxy­gen Mask First, in which he reveals the 17 habits every leader must know to tran­scend the per­ils of suc­cess, and achieve even more.

About Lawrence & Co:

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

We help high-achiev­ing lead­ers to have it all – a great busi­ness and a reward­ing life. Con­tact us for sim­ple and impact­ful advice. No BS. No fluff.