Change by Attraction

Power is ever present in organizations--and in change. Most change efforts rely on power over--the sorts of power that involve directives and rewards, and some times threats. But you'll get better results using power with. In this episode I'll talk about the sort of power most commonly used in organizations--and why you might not want to use them to accomplish change.  If you want to learn more, y...

What do forests have to do with organizational change? The ecological process of forest succession shows us that new plant communities take hold when the environment is ripe for them. That each new plant community, in turn alters the environment—making it possible for another plant community to take hold.  And I think that is a very useful way to think about making sustainable changes in organizat...

Convincing someone to do something different isn’t easy. Especially when they’re already working long hours, and the new thing requires effort and learning. When it may not work, or isn’t directly endorsed by their boss, it gets even more difficult. But persuasion isn’t the only way to entice people to try new ideas. In this episode, I’ll explain the difference between persuasion and influence and...

Words matter. One in particular matters in organizational change: Resistance. The way the term was originally used in the sense of electrical resistances—factors that inhibit the flow of electrons, or in the case of change restraining forces that work to maintain the status quo.  But most of the time, I hear it as a label--slapped on people who haven’t jumped on the change bandwagon.  Unfortunatel...

People who lead change talk about wanting others to own the change. But how? How do you get people to feel like they own something that's fully formed and rolled out? You don't. The key is to let people get their fingerprints on a change. And that's what I'll talk about in this episode. For more ideas on how to involve people in change, check out Chapter 7, Guide, and Allow for Variation, in 7 Rul...

How do you get your ideas put into practice without pushing and persuading?  I'll tell you about Dan--who inflicted help and failed-- and offer some alternatives for working by attraction:  Visit my website www.estherderby.com.   Sign up for my newsletter to receive information about workshops, online classes, and more. 7 Rules for Positive Productive Change is available on Barnes and Noble ,...

The words we use shape our thinking, and our thinking shapes our actions.  The way people talk about change, influences how they plan for a change, what they expect, and how they interact with the people they hope will make changes. What if the language we use makes it harder to bring about the differences we want to see? In this episode, I’ll talk about how metaphor can shape expectation for chan...

I realized early in my career, that even when my job was writing code, it still involved change.  The programs I wrote changed the way people did their jobs, and sometimes how they felt about their jobs. Four pain points in organizational change:  People may not want to change.  This is often called resistance.... but it can be a resource.  Nothing really changes,  in spite of extensive (and expen...