Chapter 18Identification of the Emotional Triggers
How many social workers does it take to change a light bulb?
Only one. But the light bulb must want to change.
This is supposed to be a joke about social workers. But it is actually a truism about change. People only genuinely change if they want to. So, in order to help them to want to change, we need to help them find their trigger, and a purely rational trigger will be inadequate, as we have discussed in earlier chapters. Furthermore, everyone's trigger will be different.
‘Change or you will be fired’ is a strong motivator – but not enough for anyone genuinely to embrace new ways of working. ‘Change and you will learn new skills and help the company move into new areas, but, even more importantly, it will make you even more employable’ is the sort of emotional motivation that may enthuse people to put their heart and soul into a new way of doing things.
If we are successfully to instigate change that is sustainable, we need to find the appropriate emotional triggers at all levels of the organisation. While there will be certain emotional triggers that will be common to the members of specific groups (the executive team, managers, team leaders, sales, investment departments, compliance, ...
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