Hello, you!

If you’ve ever been a child, you know the feeling:

Someone tells you, “do this!”

And your first reaction is “no!”

You never grew out of that feeling. It’s a phenomenon that psychologists refer to as ​reactance​. And it is one of the most dangerous obstacles you face when you’re communicating change.

It happens when someone feels out of control of a situation, when they feel like they’ve lost their agency to choose. And reactance is that response where they will do just about anything to regain that feeling of control.

And that includes, by the way, saying no to things that they would otherwise have said yes to.

​Change isn’t just an action. It’s a reaction​.

And when it comes to communicating change, much of what people are reacting to is you.

So when you’re making the case for change, give people options—real options—and give them the freedom—the real freedom—to choose to walk away.

Thanks to another nifty trick of human nature called “reciprocity,” when you do that, when you give your stakeholders control over that choice, they are much more likely to give you control over the space to make your case to them in the first place.

Until next time,

Tamsen