How to Use the Most Common Phrase to Generate Hope in Times of Change
Laura Cole is a Solution-Focused practitioner working with organizations to build resilient and empowered cultures during times of change. She is the founder of Your Latitude, and the creator of innovative leadership tools including Watson’s Rule: 3 Essentials to Empower Action.
We have all said it. People don’t like change. It is such a common phrase associated with change management that both leaders and team members use it as a blanket phrase to explain away the tension and frustration they are feeling in times of change. In over 20 years of corporate change management, I have heard this phrase uttered countless times and every time it is with the same defeated tone, a resignation that this tension is inevitable and hopeless. But that doesn’t need to be the case. This article will unpack what’s behind this cliché and show you how to use it to generate hope in times of change.
People don’t like change?
Let’s first sit with all the assumptions and unspoken rules that seem to come with the empty cliché, people don’t like change. This phrase has been dissected and discussed in so many ways it is almost treated like a riddle that holds the magic key to understanding change management.
There was even a leadership trend for a while where we treated this phrase like a myth arguing the opposite in an attempt to convince everyone that people did like change. You remember the trend where examples would be given of change people did enjoy, like vacations or buying a car, with the hope this comparison would make the current change more palatable.
Unfortunately, the trend of comparing a vacation to a corporate restructure doesn’t work. But what this focus and ongoing debate did do was uncover a very important relationship between change management and hope.
The purpose of hope in change management
When leaders and team members say people don’t like change, they are saying more than simply an empty cliché, they are signally that they have lost hope.
For example, “The team isn’t onboard with the new process and there is nothing I can do about that because people don’t like change.” The defeated tone is unmistakable and signals a sense of hopelessness that this experience could be different for the leader or the team.
In over 20 years of corporate change management, I have witnessed the turning point of hopelessness lead to the same outcomes of blame, suspicion and mistrust from leaders and team members. At a time when collaboration is more important than ever hopelessness creates a divide that seems inevitable and permanent.
Finding ways to generate hope in change management should be more important than debating whether people like change, and the impact has the possibility to create collaboration, creativity and a sense of empowerment.
Start here, at the beginning
The problem isn’t whether people do or don’t like change, it is understandable that people may not like change, hopelessness shows up when this phrase is used as an ending, instead of a beginning. For example, “The team isn’t onboard with the new process because people don’t like change. The end.” Or, “I’m having a hard time with this new structure because people don’t like change. The end.”
Honouring that people don’t like change can be hopeful if used as a beginning instead of an ending. For example, “People don’t like change, so resistance to this new process should be expected and isn’t a sign of failure or lack of team spirit, but rather something we should plan for. What would that look like?” Or, “People don’t like change, so it makes sense that I am feeling frustrated today and that doesn’t mean that my leader is untrustworthy or incompetent. What do I need to move forward?”
So, what if the focus of change management was not on the likability of the change, but on the presence of hope? If the same empty cliché could be used to generate hope instead of dismissing the possibility, what difference would that make?
Read more from Laura Cole
Laura Cole, Solution-Focused Coach, Speaker & Professor
Laura Cole is a Solution-Focused leadership and communication coach, and the creator of tools and frameworks designed to empower action, transform conflict and build collaboration in times of change. She is the creator of Watson’s Rule: 3 Essentials to Empower Action, an innovative leadership tool inspired by Equine Assisted Learning. Laura is a professor, facilitator, executive coach and international keynote speaker with a degree in Communication and MBA in Innovation.
