Here’s the link…

Here’s an excerpt:

The conventional wisdom says that crisis is a powerful motivator for change. But severe heart disease is among the most serious of personal crises, and it doesn’t motivate — at least not nearly enough. Nor does giving people accurate analyses and factual information about their situations. What works? Why, in general, is change so incredibly difficult for people? What is it about how our brains are wired that resists change so tenaciously? Why do we fight even what we know to be in our own vital interests?

Kotter has hit on a crucial insight. “Behavior change happens mostly by speaking to people’s feelings,” he says. “This is true even in organizations that are very focused on analysis and quantitative measurement, even among people who think of themselves as smart in an MBA sense. In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to help others see the problems or solutions in ways that influence emotions, not just thought.”

Changing behavior is not the result of more and more information. It’s a result of getting to the person’s - or organization’s - heart.

Here’s another excerpt:

Steve Jobs’s turnaround at Apple shows the impact of reframing and telling a new narrative that’s simple, positive, and emotional. When he returned to the company after a long exile, he recast its image among employees and customers alike from a marginalized player vanquished in the battle for market share to the home of a small but enviable elite: the creative innovators who dared to “Think different.”

It’s a positive message that is simple and emotional. And it’s a story.

So how does that affect our preaching? We too often give people too much information in our preaching. I am seeing it in my own preaching. Get to the heart of the matter. Don’t go off on too much teaching and background unless it’s necessary for the understanding the of the point.

It also affects our style. Narrative, not so much expositional. We’ve known that for a while, but people doing change analysis are now being heard about the impact of narrative on organizational and personal change. But our schools turn out 3 points and a poem kind of preaching, meaning that much of our narrative style has to be developed on our own - through our own study.

Is it worth it? If lives are changed, it is absolutely worth it.