A few weeks ago, at Agile Development Practices West 2010 conference in Las Vegas, my friend and colleague Bob Payne hosted me for an episode of his Agile Toolkit podcast. I invite you to listen to our half-hour conversation and to other episodes about all things Agile.

Bob’s podcasts are always conversational—the conversation wanders where it will, but seldom strays far from the topic du jour. Our wanderings touched on:

• Resistance is mutual
• Bridging the gap between hamsters and wolverines
• Solving the deeper problem is sometimes easier than solving the surface problem
• Ineffective patterns of coping with stress (blaming, placating, distracting)
• Joe diffuses the boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s blaming
• The power of aggregation
• The power of giving yourself choices
• Payson Hall’s terrific keynote about the dilemmas of risk management
• Dale fails to grok space and time
• Three definitions of resistance
• Overcoming resistance (boo!) versus resolving resistance (yay!)
• Resistance is feedback
• To encourage change, start by meeting people where they are
• Two styles of Agile adoption: “By the book” and evolutionary
• From balance to differentiation—from “how much” to “which”
• My upcoming Resistance as a Resource workshop at Agilistry Studio, July 14–15

Only in retrospect could I name the central topic of our chat: social challenges at work. In further retrospect, that central topic is nearly inevitable, given my interests.

Is it too much to ask that people show up to meetings on time? Is it too much to ask that software developers care about craft? Is it too much to ask for an honest politician? Is it too much to ask that drivers drive as if they were sharing the road? Is it too much to ask that immigrants learn how to speak English?

Here’s how to tell whether you’re asking too much: How do you feel when you don’t get it?

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. This proverb has always puzzled me. People say it as a lament, as if it’s frustrating that you can’t make a horse drink water.

Here’s what I don’t get: Why the heck do you want the horse to drink? Horses are pretty smart about water. When they’re thirsty, they drink. When they’re not thirsty, they don’t drink. If they aren’t drinking, it’s probably because they’re not thirsty. Why do you want a horse to drink if it’s not thirsty?

The proverb is a metaphor. What does the metaphor map to? “You” is the change agent. The water is some good idea that the change agent thinks would benefit some people. The horse is the people that the change agent thinks would benefit. “Lead” is what the change agent does by offering or advocating the obviously good idea. “Drink” means to apply the idea.

So “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” means “We smart change agents can tell people about our brilliant ideas, but we can’t make them adopt the ideas.”

And this is offered as a lament, as if it’s frustrating that we brilliant change agents can’t make people adopt our brilliant ideas.

Horses are pretty smart about whether to drink water. Maybe, too, people are pretty smart about whether to adopt the ideas we’re offering. Maybe they know when to adopt them and when not to. Lamenting the fact that people don’t adopt our ideas seems to me to be about as useful as lamenting that horses don’t drink the water we’ve led them to.

Here’s an idea: Try leading a thirsty horse to water and see what it does. If the horse is tired, lead it to shade and a soft place to lie down. If the horse is hungry, offer it hay and oats. If the horse doesn’t need anything, maybe leave it alone.

I’ve been invited to be a guest presenter at this year’s Amplifying Your Effectiveness Conference (AYE). I’m honored to join the AYE hosts and the other guest presenters, all of whom I’ve known and admired for years.

AYE is a unique, powerful conference based on experiential learning, and focused on amplifying our ability to bring our unique talents more fully to work that matters. I’ve attended AYE twice before, and both times came away with helpful, practical tools and ideas, renewed energy, and new friends. If you have found value in the things you’ve read on my web site, then you’re just the kind of person AYE was created for. I highly recommend it.

I will present two workshops: Resistance as a Resource and Putting Your Power to Work. If you’re a regular reader, you know that these topics are my great passions.

Join me and 100 wonderful people in Phoenix, Arizona, November 5–8, for four days of powerful learning, conversations, and fun.

I’d like your help to help guide my energy as I write during October. I’m more motivated when I know I’m writing about something that real people care about. So I’d like to know What questions do you have about resistance?

You can either post your questions here or send them to me by email. I’ll do my best to answer your questions here at Conversations with Dale, or in the book, or by email, or by some combination.

If you stumble upon this post after October, even years after, I’d still like to hear your questions about resistance, because whatever I write in October will be just the beginning.

Read my latest article “Rewriting the Story of Resistance” on the Amplifying Your Effectiveness (AYE) conference web site.

Also check out the articles by the other presenters, and the AYE wiki that hosts an ongoing conversation for AYE enthusiasts.

Motivation consists of three elements:

• Expectations about ability
• Expectations about results
• Preferences

When we’re deciding whether to do an action, we evaluate all three of these elements, often intuitively or unconsciously. The end result—our motivation for or against the action—comes from a combination of these elements. I will do anything if:

• I believe I am able
• I believe I have a reasonably clear idea of what the results will be
• On balance, I want the results I expect.

Each factors is important. If I am certain that I will not be able to do a given action, I will be less likely to try, even though I would enjoy succeeding. If I have no idea what might happen, I will be less likely to try, even if I believe I am able. If I don’t want the results I expect, I will be less likely to do the action, even if I believe I am able. Motivation combines these factors in a manner akin to multiplication:

Motivation = Ability × Results × Preferences

Don’t take this “equation” seriously as being mathematically precise. I use it only as a handy summary of my Motivation Model. Each factor (confidence in ability, certainty about what will happen, strength of preference) can be high or low. If any factor is near zero, motivation will be low. And preferences have not only magnitude but also valence (or sign)—we may be attracted to a given result (positive valence) or averse to it (negative valence).

This model may seem at first blush to oversimplify the complex concept of motivation. In describing the model, I’m not ignoring that complexity so much as summarizing it. To explore the hidden richness of the model, pick one of the factors and expand it. What factors influence a person’s expectations about whether they are able to do a given action? What factors influence a person’s cause-and-effect expectations about the results of a given action? What factors affect a person’s preferences? (For my partial answer to the question about preferences, see my article “The Structure of Values.”)

I’ve found this model very helpful in a number of ways. The most important is that it helps me to explore my own motivation. If I find myself avoiding some task that I wish I would do, I can quickly check which element is missing. Am I able to do the task? What would happen if I tried? Which of those results do I want? Which do I not want? My answers usually give me a hint about how I can motivate myself. Sometimes my answers tell me that I really don’t want to do the task after all. In those cases, I stop trying to motivate myself (which is a perfectly fine result).

I also use this Motivation Model as I try to understand other people’s reasons for their actions (or inactions). The model is one of the foundations of my work on resistance. For details, see my article “Resistance as a Resource,” especially the section called “The First Factor: Expectations”. (If I were writing the article today, I would call that section “The First Factor: Motivation.”)

I developed this Motivation Model about 10 years ago, as I began to study resistence in earnest. Not long after I first formulated the model, I discovered that many other people had already described very similar models. You can read about some of those models in Edward Lawler’s book Motivation in Work Organizations.

Here’s a new game I’ve invented, called
The Resistance as a Resource Game.

Objective. To create, learn, remember, and express ideas about how to respond to resistance.

Where to Play. The game can be played anywhere that ideas can be posted, such as mailing lists, electronic forums, and conference rooms with walls, white boards, or flip charts.

Players. Any number of players can play.

Turns. It is always your turn.

Moves. There are four kinds of moves:

1. Change.
   Post an example of change that you are promoting.
2. “Resistance.” Choose one of the posted examples of change, and post an example of a statement that expresses “resistance” to that change.
3. Reason. Choose one of the posted examples of “resistance,” and post an example of a reason that an intelligent, competent, sincere person of good will might say such a thing. My article “Resistance as a Resource” might give you ideas for this move.
4. Response. Choose one of the posted reasons, and post an idea about how to respond effectively to someone who has that reason for making that statement.

Virginia Satir once said, “People prefer familiarity to comfort.”

In a recent conversation on the Extreme Programming mailing list, that phrase came up. Alistair Cockburn, an influential change agent in the software development industry, said, “I don’t know about you, but that phrase, besides ringing true, frightens the bejeebers out of me.”

My initial reaction was that it doesn’t frighten me at all. But given how frequently I advocate one change or another, I wasn’t sure why it didn’t frighten me. So I pondered.

I think it doesn’t frighten me because my persuasion style includes ways to make change familiar to people. I never thought about the things I do in those terms until I read Alistair’s message, but as I look at how I encourage change, much of it is about making the unfamiliar familiar.

For example, an HR executive named Susan once sought my help with some resistance she was encountering. I asked her a few simple questions, and that was all she needed from me. Though I wasn’t advocating any particular change in that situation, my questions had the effect of framing Susan’s problem so that it was suddenly very familiar to her. And once the problem became familiar, she knew exactly how to solve it.

Another example: Paul, an executive at a company that builds people’s dream houses, wanted my help with a customer relations problem. As I talked with Paul about the situation, he suddenly realized how he could solve the problem. As I look at that story now, I see that Paul’s epiphany was largely a result of casting his customer relations issue in a familiar light. Once the problem was familiar, he knew what to do.

In those examples, though I wasn’t advocating any particular change, familiarity played a key role in the changes my clients made.

When I’m promoting change, I do a number of things that have the effect of making change familiar. For example, I often work hard to find safe ways for people to try whatever I’m advocating. A small demonstration, maybe, or a “toy” situation to practice on, where failure doesn’t matter. Making it safe for people to try the new idea in a small way invites them to get a teeny tiny bit of experience, from which the new idea becomes a teeny tiny bit more familiar.

Also, I often tell stories, like the ones I linked to above, which can help to make new ideas more familiar.

I suspect that much of my persuasion style is about familiarity, though I never thought about it that way until recently. This gives me an idea for becoming a more effective change artist: What if I attend purposefully to familiarity, and the ways in which familiarity influences the way people respond to change? What new ideas does that give me for how to encourage change, and how to respond to resistance?

Here are some of the ways I may gain value from any given activity:

• I value having or using the product. When I cook a pot of chili, I end up with a pot of chili that I can eat. I like chili.
• I can exchange the product for something I value. When I write software, I end up with a product that I can sell to a customer. I like money.
• I enjoy doing the activity. When I play my dale-o-caster guitar, or watch a movie, or read a book, I simply enjoy the activity itself.
• I value a side effect of the activity. When I rub Lisa’s feet, she is happy and relaxed. I like that.
• I receive rewards for doing the activity. When I present my ideas about leadership and resistance, people tell me how much they appreciate my ideas. I like appreciation.

Any activity that I choose to do is probably providing one or more of these kinds of value. Any activity that other people are doing is probably providing one or more of these kinds of value. If I want to persuade people to change what they’re doing, I will probably need to take those sources of value into account:

• How can I replace the value people gain from what they’re currently doing?
• How can I increase the value people will gain from what I’m asking them to do?