Have you ever found your self presented with a task you really don’t want to do? A task where another person insists you must do it, but you really don’t see the point? Did the task feel as pointless to you as sweeping sand on the desert? Or did it feel so impossibly difficult that nailing jelly to the wall seems a better bet?
What did it feel like to be put in that situation? Did you refuse & walk away? Were you irritated? Were you confused? Or were you so daunted by the task ahead you didn’t know where to start?
We’ve all been there haven’t we? Happily pootling along in our own world; getting on with what needs to be done and hoping to do it to the best of our ability and suddenly we are asked to change. The other person is most insistent, it really matters that we do this & yet we still don’t know why.
It doesn’t feel great does it?
Whether you get angry, whether you feel frustrated or whether you feel uncertain and nervous, if you are anything like me, you can bet your mind is looking for lots of ways to excuse yourself from making a change you don’t value.
And that is the key to how you react to any change - do you value it? Do you think it is worth the journey to get there?
When we train leaders & managers that is the key message we try to get across. Make sure that the people you are trying to lead know what is in it for them. Because once they want to make the transition from questioning to understanding, then the motivation is there to find out ways to make it happen.
The same is true for us as trainers, because we too are leaders. We too are trying to influence the behaviour of others. We too are trying to change behaviour in order to bring about an improved performance.
That’s why we need to make sure we start by focusing on the ‘why’ before supporting our learners to work out the ‘how.’ Because let’s face it a room full of people motivated to change are a lot more likely to work out the ‘how’ together and more importantly they are a lot more likely to get back to work and say “I really am going to do something about this”
And that, after all is what we are in this business to achieve.
