Keep looking up: four ways to leading for change with positivity

This little bit of philosophy from Snoopy (“the world’s coolest dog”, Washington Post) isn’t a bad one to live by generally. 

But I think it’s especially useful if you’re trying to lead for some kind of organisational change, as most leaders are (certainly most of my coaching clients) most of the time these days. 

It’s useful because if you’re leading change you can easily drain your energy by looking down too much: looking down at what’s not progressing and who isn’t coming with you. 

And in these uncertain times with much already draining our energy, consciously keeping energy and motivation up is more important than ever for leaders.

So try being more Snoopy and look up, instead. Lead for change from a positive place. 

Focus on what is working, what progress is being made, who is already coming with you? It will help you sustain momentum and energy (yours and others) for the tiring marathon that organisational change can be.

Focusing on the positives also fuels a sense of tangible progress too, which is motivating. As Amabile and Kramer wrote in their HBR piece on the power of small wins, “Of all the things that can boost… motivation… during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work.”

So next time you feel your energy flagging or your frustration rising when you’re leading for change, here are four ways to lead for change with positivity.

1. Inspire change, don’t demand it

Unless forced to, people generally only change their behaviour for reasons that make sense to their view of world and that feel positively motivating. 

So when your teams understand why change is needed and what will be better as a result for them, for the organisation and for those the organization is serving, they are much more likely to come with you. Inspire them with a picture of the brighter future change will bring, what the progress milestones will look like and why their efforts matter to the change journey. 

And keep the positivity up along the path. 

It’s easy to get frustrated with people who aren’t coming with you, or with pockets of stuckness, and that can easily tip you into ‘scolding’ mode: “it’s not good enough, we’re not going fast enough…” 

But if people feel scolded that can easily trigger them into ‘rebellious child’ mode, dragging their heels with cynicism. 

So keep inspiring with the ‘why’, keep praising pockets of progress and also keep listening to stay in touch with how people feel about the change process.  Tread carefully to not make those who are still struggling with the change feel isolated or scolded. 

2. Show people what positive change looks like in practice

Resistance to change often comes partly through confusion – what exactly do you want me to do differently? 

It’s helpful then for people to understand exactly what you mean when you say “be braver” or “aim higher”, for example. What does that mean you want them to do differently in the next meeting? 

Showing people exactly what positive change looks like in practice helps people make the leap from theory to action faster. Here’s a great example from ‘Switch’, the Heath brothers’ practical book on change: 

Professors fighting the obesity epidemic in The States discovered that full-fat milk is the largest source of fat in the US diet. They ran a successful campaign, not saying ‘eat healthily’ but just ‘next time you‘re buying milk, buy 1% fat milk’.

3. Find your change champions 

The received wisdom on leading for change is that roughly a third of your people will come with you willingly, another third will get there more slowly, and another third will not ultimately come with you, effectively self-selecting themselves out of the journey  (through lack of motivation or aptitude, or both).  It may not look exactly like that but it’s inevitable that some people will be more energised and aligned than others.

It’s easy to drain your energy into fixating on converting the people who seem furthest away from the change path. That can be an exhausting fixation. 

So don’t give up on them of course, but fuel your energy by spending as much time as you can with your ‘change champions’, the people who get it and are already modeling the behaviours you’re asking for, or willing to. Your shared sense of clarity and momentum will start to create pockets of change faster and start to entice the resistors towards the party.

4. Celebrate small steps forward

Change usually happens gradually, in small wins. Those small wins can often be ignored though, which will dampen that crucially motivating sense of progress. 

In Jim Collin’s seminal leadership book ‘Good To Great’ he emphasises just how gradually sustainable organisational change usually happens: “Like pushing on a great, heavy flywheel, it takes a lot of effort to get the thing moving, but with persistent pushing over a period of time, the flywheel builds momentum, eventually hitting a point of breakthrough.”

Spotting and celebrating the small positive examples of change around you as the flywheel starts to turn will help everyone understand what behaviours to repeat or stop, one small step at a time, to make it go faster. 

Behaviour is also contagious and praise is highly motivating, so it will also help grow your gang of change champions.