Success impulse for more willingness to change: How you create hunger for change
Regardless of the Corona pandemic, many leaders fault people's lack of willingness to change. But to create a hunger for change, you first have to start with yourself.
I recently conducted a survey on leadership among my clients and readers and was positively taken with the number and quality of responses. The question was: "What is your biggest frustration in leadership right now? In other words: What is causing you the most problems, and that's independent of the current challenges because of Corona, physical separation, etc.?" One of the points that runs like a thread through the responses is: people's unwillingness to change.
Willingness to change: an old theme
The subject is as old as mankind itself: Those who want to change something struggle against the persistence of the masses. You could also say: This is precisely why we need leaders.
But here comes the unpleasant truth: If you're a manager complaining about your team's unwillingness to change, you haven't done your homework.
The good news is that this can be changed. There are mechanisms for systematically increasing the willingness to change within a team and a company.
Create hunger for change with three steps
Here are three fundamental steps for doing so (that most don't think about enough):
- Foundations: Many leaders lack a comprehensive understanding of why people change and why they do not. And more importantly, how they can (and cannot) influence others' willingness to change. The first thing you need is a solid foundation in psychology. You can and must acquire this as a leader if you want to increase the willingness to change in others.
- Self-leadership: It is also interesting to ask how willing you are to change. Because change involves letting go of habits and taking new risks. Scrapping rules and trusting people. In other words, do you lead yourself with a high willingness to change and take risks? Or are you yourself more likely to follow well-worn paths?
- Team Leadership: The third step is to use strategies and tactics to persuade others (and also to select the right people for the team). This includes things like an emotionally compelling vision, confidence in taking the first steps, recognition of even small successes, and more. Importantly, this third step cannot occur without the first two.
If you apply these three points consistently, you can massively increase your people's willingness to change. Otherwise, it will be difficult. And: this has absolutely nothing to do with home office and Corona.
To the author:
Volkmar Völzke is a success maximizer. Book author. Consultant. Coach. Speaker. www.volkmarvoelzke.ch
