Start Where You Don't Have to Explain It

Most leaders who want to change how their organization develops people make the same assumption about where to begin. They start at the top. They build a business case, secure time with the executive team or the board and try to win approval before anything happens.

Sometimes that works. Often it stalls, because the people at the top are the furthest from the problem and the most invested in how things already run.

I learned this firsthand.

When the top isn’t the right starting point

Not long ago, a leader at a healthcare organization arranged for me to meet with his board. Some board members embraced the ideas; others saw them as a threat to how the organization made money, and the meeting stalled.

When we regrouped, we tried something different. We decided not to go back to the board and not to start at the top at all. Instead, he would go directly to his people and ask a simple question: do you want to be part of this?

The younger physicians in his organization said yes almost immediately. One of them couldn’t stop talking about the method. Within a short time, the leader told me he could have brought in ten or fifteen people without trying. We had a group.

The difference was that we no longer had to explain why the work mattered. Those physicians already felt the problem every day. They didn’t need a business case. They needed an invitation.

Find the people who already feel it

In every organization, there are groups who feel the gap between how things work and how they could work more acutely than anyone else. They’re often closer to the front line. They’re frequently newer or earlier in their careers. And they’re usually more willing to try something different, because they haven’t spent decades adapting to the old way.

That’s where change should start. Not because the top doesn’t matter, but because a working example is far more persuasive than a presentation. Once a group is operating differently and getting better results, the conversation with senior leaders changes. Instead of asking them to imagine something, you’re showing it to them.

Starting there also builds credibility for whoever is leading the change. When a small group can point to concrete results, the case for expanding rests on the group’s experience rather than one person’s opinion.

In project-based firms, that starting group is often the leads who run a single project and the people who report to them. It’s small enough to manage, close enough to the work to show results quickly and visible enough that others notice. People rarely resist ideas themselves. More often they resist being surprised by them, which I explored in Resistance Is Usually Unpreparedness.

Let the data start the conversation

One of the most effective ways to start is to skip the explanation entirely and let people see their own reality.

When a small group takes a well-designed assessment of how they lead and how they see opportunity, the results do the persuading. People see their own gaps. They recognize the scenarios. They start asking the questions you would have tried to convince them to ask.

This matters even more in organizations that make their living with data. Analytical people trust evidence more than arguments. Show them their own numbers, then walk through the scenarios that match the situations they face every week, and you’ll find they lean in rather than push back.

The scenarios matter as much as the scores. When the situations people respond to mirror the dilemmas they face at work, such as a budget cut that forces a choice between people and output, the gaps stop feeling theoretical. People see exactly where their instincts help them and where they get in the way.

A small start, built to spread

Starting small isn’t the same as thinking small. The point of a pilot group is to create proof, and proof travels. When people on other teams hear that a project ran more smoothly, that the leads actually got along or that someone finally fixed a recurring problem, they start asking how.

That’s when change stops being something you have to sell. Leaders start asking for it.

Keep the first group’s commitments modest and visible: a few sessions, a shared set of practices and a simple way to track what changes. The goal is to make progress easy to see, not to build a program before anyone has asked for one.

So if you’re trying to bring a new way of leading into your organization, resist the urge to start where everyone thinks it should start. Start where people already feel the problem. Start where you don’t have to explain it.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.