Life lessons sometimes hit me in a delayed fashion. Reflecting on two experiences in my life – separated by about two years – reminded me of a valuable lesson for leaders of organizations facing change.

Situation Number One:

About two years ago, I was walking through a convention center with my friend, colleague, and co-author, Kevin Eikenberry, and we came upon two people standing at the top of an unmoving escalator. As we approached, we expected them to start walking down it. They didn’t. They just stood there and stared at the unmoving steps.

They didn’t move, and we couldn’t pass them.

As I stood behind them, I grew frustrated with their inaction.

After 10 or 15 seconds that felt like 10 or 15 minutes to me, they looked at each other, shrugged, and began to walk down the “stairs.”

Situation Number Two:

Driving my car into the neighborhood where Kevin lives, I came upon road construction vehicles that slowed me down and partially blocked my view of the frontage property. Pulling to the left side of the road and slowly passing the paving equipment parked on the right, I had a fleeting thought that I had entered the wrong neighborhood. Despite having entered this neighborhood many times over the last few years, it suddenly looked wrong, and I briefly questioned whether I was in the right place or not. In that moment, I quickly considered turning around at the first opportunity.

Both situations reveal a common problem leaders face in times of change. When confronted with uncertainty or unfamiliarity – when a situation or surrounding looks different from what they expect to see – people freeze. They lock-up, stop moving, and impede progress.

Many leaders see this initial response, and grow frustrated with their team like I grew frustrated by the initially unmoving people at the top of the escalator.

The key point, though, is that the people in the escalator example eventually moved without prodding or prompting from me. Once they evaluated and understood the situation, they moved.

Wise leaders recognize, understand, and anticipate this response. Rather than push changes quickly and get angry with people, they make allowances for this normal human reaction. They do everything in their power to reduce uncertainty by communicating more often, more thoroughly, and more personally. They also give people as much time as possible to understand the change before resorting to “do it or else” strategies.

A little over a week ago, my wife and I drove our daughter from Indiana to Texas to begin her freshman year of college. On the return trip, we drove through Oklahoma. As is common this time of year, we encountered road construction marked with a sign similar to the one above, and I felt frustrated as I thought about the coming  delay.

We then saw another sign with additional information. The sign with additional information gave us an estimate of both the actual speed and the estimated time in minutes that we could expect to drive through the construction zone, and I felt relieved.

The actual speed was much slower than the posted speed. The estimated time we would drive in the construction zone was longer than I wanted to experience. The delay was the same, and, still, I felt relieved.

At that moment I gained a powerful insight into heading off conflicts before they start.

As I wrote previously about why your natural response to conflict is probably wrong and how conflicts escalate, we often feel angry or frustrated as conflicts get started — just as I felt frustrated when I first saw the construction signs.

In my driving situation, the frustration dissipated when I got further information. The speed I could drive and the time I would likely spend in the construction zone did not change. The delay I would  face did not change. Nothing about my experience would change.

The change in my frustration level came from knowledge about what to expect.  And that is the insight I had about heading off conflict.

When you communicate clearly about what people can expect in the future — even when they do not like what they will experience  — you will probably reduce the frustration and anger levels they feel as a result of the experience. By reducing their frustration and anger levels, you can reduce the emotional energy that they bring to their interactions with you about the issue in question. When you reduce the emotional energy, you reduce the risk that the communication will escalate to a destructive conflict.

There are two musical instruments I would like to play. One is the saxophone and the other is the guitar.

When I was in the fifth grade, my parents placed an order to rent a saxophone for the following school year so that I could join the band and learn to play. Over the summer, we moved to a different city where band started in fifth grade. I was out of sequence with the school system, and I wasn’t able to take private lessons.

I didn’t learn to play the saxophone that year.

Somewhere in my teen years, I thought about playing the guitar. I eventually got one — I think I was about 18 or 19. It sat in my closet until I was in the Navy and I had a roommate with a guitar.

With my roommate’s coaxing  and help, I learned to play — a very little bit. We were assigned to different submarines, and I put down the guitar. I have no idea where that guitar is or what happened to it.

That was about 25 or 26 years ago.

This past Christmas, my youngest daughter asked for a guitar, and she got one.

She will be leaving home this fall to attend the residential honors high school that her older sister graduated from a few weeks ago. In short, both of my girls will be out of the house starting in August.

As I thought about my youngest daughter leaving home to attend school, it occurred to me that she would only be with me full-time for about eight more months. If I wanted to do something with her to build memories and relationship, the time was short.

When she got her guitar, I also thought about my goal of learning to play the guitar.

Suddenly, the goal that first surfaced over 30 years ago had a new meaning.  It was now about something I could do with my daughter.

The “why” of the goal moved from the sort-of-a-neat-idea category to the I’ve-got-to-do-it-now-because-it’s-very-emotional category.

The guitars in the picture with this post are ours. My daughter’s is on the right. Mine is on the left.

For leaders of any kind — managers, supervisors, business owners, coaches, teachers, or parents — the lesson in this story is key to understanding what might motivate someone to take action.

It’s the “why” not the “what” that gets people moving.

I had a new guitar in my home as quickly as I could make it happen when the emotion behind the goal got big enough. That emotion wasn’t about money, recognition, or any other externally applied consequence.  And buying the guitar was not, ultimately, about the guitar. It was about time with my daughter and memories.

When you find ways to communicate with people about issues bigger and more emotional to them — to them is the key point here — they will move to action to accomplish the goal.

I am not suggesting that external motivators have no impact.

I am suggesting that looking for the personal, emotional hook and clearly communicating the connection between the task or goal and that emotional hook will get you more high-energy, discretionary effort than anything else you can do as a leader.

In a  post about finding what motivates other people, I shared some insights that might help you in the process of finding that emotional hook. It’s not always easy. It can often be done.

By the way, I still don’t own or know how to play a saxophone. I guess the “why” isn’t big enough yet.

Using the handout from this month’s Remarkable Leadership teleseminar as a discussion guide, we talked about some really powerful concepts related to communicating change.

This is one of the many ideas we discussed:

Change can be driven by facts, but people are driven by emotions.

As we discussed this observation, we spoke about the importance of connecting with the emotional response that people often have to change rather than ignoring or minimizing it. We also covered some practical tips for connecting with emotions more effectively.

You may have many opportunities to discuss change and the impact of change with your team this year. When you do, remember to acknowledge, address, and understand the emotional component of change in your comunications.

Photo based on work by Rennet Stowe.

This post first appeared as an article in a newsletter I used to publish. I included it here to make it easier for people to find and as a reference source for other posts on this blog.

Smart leaders understand that they don’t “make” a change happen.  They recognize that the people in their organization do the work, change behaviors, and, ultimately, make the change happen.  They understand that their role is to make the change meaningful and easier to accept.  Smart leaders facilitate change.

Let’s look at five things smart leaders do to lower the barriers to change.

1. They sell more than they tell

Smart leaders are comfortable selling their ideas.  They understand that “telling” someone what’s going to happen is very different from “selling” them on the idea.  I do not suggest that smart leaders use so called “high-pressure” sales tactics.  By selling, I mean that they look for ways to get people emotionally committed to the change.

They paint, and re-paint, the vision for people.  They focus on the benefits, not the costs.  They understand that people need time to adjust, time to accept the change.  They work to inspire buy-in rather than compliance.

2. They help people tune-in to WII-FM

Sales and marketing professionals talk about the radio station that most people tune-in to on a daily basis.  They know about WII-FM (What’s in it for me?).

If it’s true about people in the marketplace, then it’s true about people in the workplace.  Smart leaders know how to answer the question on every employee’s mind:  “What’s in it for me?”

Dr. Aubrey Daniels, noted behavioral analyst and author of Bringing Out the Best in People, makes two great comments regarding change acceptance:

• “People don’t resist change, they resist being changed,” and
• “People don’t resist change if the change provides immediate positive consequences to them.”

Smart leaders know that people are generally more willing to do things that bring personal benefit than they are to do things that benefit the organization.  They take a pragmatic, not a cynical or negative, view of human nature.  They see people for who they are and work to adjust their strategy to go with — not against — the natural drives of people in their organization.

3. They work through the “head grapes”

Every organization has a grapevine — an unofficial communication channel that often moves faster than official ones.  You might call the people who other people listen to, and therefore influence the grapevine, the “head grapes.”

Smart leaders are not too impressed with themselves.  They recognize that the head grapes have more personal influence within certain employee groups than they do.  They understand leadership is about trust and relationship; it is not about position.  Recognizing this truth, they seek out influencers in the organization.  They strive to get the influencers onboard with the change.  They understand the power of relationships, and they put that power to work.  They work with the head grapes to affect change so that they don’t have to push against the head grapes’ resistance.

4. They break the change into “bite-sized” pieces

Smart leaders understand that people need both information and time to accept a change.  They also realize that they can’t wait forever to get everyone onboard.  So, they break big changes into small pieces that people are willing to accept more quickly.  By moving in stages, smart leaders move their organizations with steady forward progress instead of periodic quantum leaps.

5. They build positive momentum

By breaking big changes into bite-sized pieces, smart leaders set themselves up to build positive momentum.  Smart leaders know that an early failure or setback can create more resistance later — even if they overcome the initial setback.  Building a record of quick, early wins helps people accept the upsets that will happen on the way to success.  Smart leaders understand the power of momentum — either positive or negative.  They break changes into small pieces then pick their first move because it has a high-probability of success.