“If no action is happening, it’s for one reason only—
you haven’t reached the threshold of activation.”
Last time we talked about the real reason behind resistance to change:
“People are not resistant to change—they are resistant to losing control.”
In this Influential Leadership Tip, we take this a step further, and discuss the concept of the Threshold of Activation. If you lead, sell, coach, or influence others, this concept is a game-changer. It’s also critical in a career search, leading to more effective strategies for successful interviews (as the candidate).
Even when you identify in what ways a change will cause someone to lose control, and show them how they gain control in some important way, that may not be sufficient. Even a perfect solution won’t prompt action without sufficient tension. You need to manage tension properly to gain the best chance of influencing action:
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Too little tension → apathy
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Too much tension → overwhelm and paralysis
So your aim needs to be to bring that tension to the threshold of activation. This 6 1/2 minute video gets into all the details.
Watch it—and rethink how you approach making change happen.
Transcript For Why People Don’t Change
Go here for part 3 of this discussion.
A collaboration with David C Miller, Author of The Influential Actuary
I agree. When there is no tension, there’s apathy. Having a deadline can be good tension. I’m retired so no deadlines on a job but paying bills on time. When I leave too many things to the last minute, that’s too much tension. I go into overwhelm.
Exactly – if there are too many things to deal with at once, it creates overwhelm. So one solution is to simplify. Think about what is the one thing that absolutely must get done, and forget about the others until that one is out of the way.