Selling change
All change is a sales job. People don’t want to change. They want their situation to change. They want their discomforts to change. They want others to change. But seldom does anyone want to change.
Change has to be sold. How do you sell change? There are lots of ways. One way is to paint a picture of how great everything will be when you change. “If you do this you will have a 300% return on investment and a 3 month pay back!” You’ll feel great. You’ll be free. You’ll have much more joy in your life. If only you will change.
In this way leaders create a compelling version of the future state that induces people to change.
Another way to sell change is to amplify any discomfort or pain that is in the current state. It’s been famously stated that we only change when the pain of change outweighs the pain of staying where we are. “We’ll continue to lose $100k a day until we implement this change!” We call that opportunity cost – the cost of not changing.
Our consumer goods industry is expert at convincing people to buy stuff by making them feel ugly or unloved. In this way they create a dynamic tension in the mind of the buyer that can only be resolved by buying or buying into the inherent change.
These two methods are combined to great effect. On the one hand create a compelling future vision. On the other emphasize the discomfort of the current state and the risk of not doing anything. Then position your change project or product as a solution to resolve this dynamic tension between the pain of where you are versus the promise of where you could be.
A third way to create change is to access the animal brain and use fear. Politicians create changes by using fear. The best way to create fear is to start by telling you how bad everything is, but then telling you it’s not your fault. They create a bogeyman to blame all the problems on. This is the us versus them, or more accurately us versus other.
It’s not your fault it’s the other’s fault. If you can create an enemy, an other, to be the manifestation of that fear you can convince people to readily give up their freedom and act irrationally. The ultimate destination of fear of the others is a black place in history filled with atrocity.
That’s a 3rd world problem right? That’s a medieval problem, right? That can’t happen here, can it? That can’t happen now, can it? Let me remind you of the red menace in the 30’s. The blacklists of the 50’s. The race riots of the 60’s. The near constant dehumization of newcomers right now, today, in your community, to sell you the fear of others so you will trade your morals cheaply and betray your intellect.
But, to return to our thinly veiled metaphor of change, the interesting thing about being a buyer or a seller is that you don’t have to. If someone is trying to sell you how miserable your current state is, you don’t have to buy. If someone is trying to sell you a Pollyanna vision of their future, you don’t have to buy. If someone is trying to sell you that it’s not your fault it’s the fault of others, you don’t have to buy.
Because you know what? There are no others. There is only us. There is only me and you and all of us. And you know what else? It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. We are accountable. We are responsible.
There is only us. And we are the solution.
You don’t have to buy. You can realize that you are being sold or asked to trade something valuable and you can choose not to partake in that trade.
If you want change, consider the advice of Mahatma Gandhi and “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”