Girona, SP / June, 2021
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Hello,
Welcome to Connecting Dots the innovation leadership newsletter.
Last month, you learned how to self-motivate empowered teams.
This month, you meet the five levers of Emotional Capital that enable you to overcome change resistance.
~ Brett
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Overcoming Change Resistance
Rarely do you get to watch and study the practice of leadership in action. Only if you’re in the meeting room might you have the opportunity though you’ll almost certainly be a member of the cast consumed by the action. Even if you are an independent observer, as I'm sometimes asked to be, what happens in the room stays in the room.
Like me, you may be interested in the how of leadership as much as the why. To best understand the how, we need to find ways to watch leaders lead, to see what they do and how others react to them. You can't just rely on what they say they think there are doing.
Fortunately, you can study a key phase of an organization going through a phase of elevating its performance in the doc-series All or Nothing featuring Mikel Arteta. In this series, we get to be a fly on the wall of Arteta trying to turn around the fortunes of the Premiere League football club Arsenal in terms of business and football results.
Mikel Arteta is our protagonist of change and innovation. The goal is to win at the highest levels. The requirements of financial sustainability, talent acquisition/retention and fan engagement are also clear. However, what makes the show relevant for innovation leaders is we see very little of the “product” in football and focus on the organizational and leadership work off the pitch that is the cause of the winning effect.
I see the series as a continual negotiation between Arteta and the organization around him regarding how much change the system can tolerate. It’s a process that comes with friction and moments of deep emotion. We also see maladaptive responses and acting out as the system learns and tries to defend itself from change.
What will be less visible to most viewers are the hidden saboteurs of change and innovation that Arteta is negotiating with. These behavioural defences are typically unthought but subconsciously known assumptions embedded in the stakeholders. Dynamics that are often labelled change resistance.
What is evident in All or Nothin is Arteta generates and deploys a powerful force that successfully increases change tolerance and behavioural evolution—Emotional Capital. I was first introduced to this mechanism by Quy Huy, a leading expert on strategy realization. It is a practice I use with the majority of the leaders I support and you consistently see impressive results.
Over the course of a change journey, a leader will find different levers most impactful. Often I find it’s quickly obvious which one is most relevant to a leader and their situation when I first introduce the levers. Think of an initiative you’re leading right now and note which lever jumps out as most helpful.
Emotional Capital
The Five Levers of Emotional Capital
ACTIONS that express or generate:
RESPECTFUL AUTHENTICITY:
Alignment between actions, thoughts, and feelings. Being sincere and considerate to myself and others
DESERVED PRIDE:
Feeling that we are appreciated for our differences and concrete contributions to others
REALISTIC HOPE:
Feeling that today’s actions will improve our future
THOUGHTFUL PASSION:
Feeling of deep personal engagement and high energy experiencing timelessness
ASPIRATIONAL DISCONTENT:
Unhappy that we have not realized our full potential. We can if we want to
Theory to Practice
For many leaders, Emotional Capital connect the dots between their wanting to be good people and having high standards. Yes, friends, you can be excellent and kind. For many innovation leaders, especially in research or design roles, Emotional Capital is a blueprint for the leader they have long aspired to be. A more complete and inspiring image for themselves and for how others relate to them.
I think of it as a golden rope woven by the threads of behaviours, thoughts and feelings that pulls forward you, the team and the organization toward its goals. Each lever comes with a host of specific strategies and tactics which generate the tangible creativity and energy of change and innovation.
While Mikel Arteta and Arsenal did not win their big goal this year, they have done the work and have a realistic opportunity to do so in the coming years. Getting themselves to a position to achieve their goal has been a series of massive wins guided by Emotional Capital.
I felt his 2022 end-of-year speech was a powerful demonstration of emotional capital.
What other examples of Emotional Capital have you seen or experienced?
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Ask Brett how you can amplify your impact as a leader by sharing the change resistance you are facing. - info@brettmacfarlane.com.
Or click here to learn more about how to drive change more effectively.
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