Leading with NLP

On the Road 89

‘The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously

considered as a means of communication. The device is in-

herently of no value to us.’

Western Union internal memo, 1876

‘I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.’

Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

And finally...

‘We don’t like their sound and guitar music is on the way

out.’

Decca Recording Company, rejecting the Beatles in 1962

reluctance

So far we have talked about motivating others, but what
about your own motivation? Becoming a leader means
changing and change is both a promise and a threat. What-
ever your present circumstances, at least they are familiar
and habitual. Habit acts like the force of gravity, stopping
you from floating away. Our habits are the personal equiva-
lents of those organizational procedures that keep a
company running. They are designed to produce the same
result consistently with minimum effort. They are extremely
valuable parts of an organizational system, until it wants to
change, and then they become its enemies.
It would be unusual if, at some point on your journey, you
did not feel reluctance. Reluctance lives in that no-man’s-
land between inertia and willingness, where flesh and spirit
are both weak and willing at the same time. We want the sta-
bility of what we have, but also the promise of what we want.
Reluctance speaks for all those habits that we have built up,
so honour that reluctance, it is important. It has a positive in-
tention – to protect you from possible harm and to conserve
those things that are important to you about your present sit-
uation. Reluctance is the steward of the psyche.
Organizational resistance has the same intention. Organi-
zations have many procedures to achieve consistent stable