Today I want to talk to you about thinking vs. feeling when leading change. Now, my favorite explanation of these approaches comes from John Kotter and Dan Cohen’s book, The Heart of Change. So, let’s take a look.
In the analysis-think-change model, you provide people with information, logic and reason, data and analysis. This information then, supposedly, influences their thinking and their new thinking changes their behavior.
Now in the see-feel-change model, something different happens. You help people see the problems or issues in a new light. It may be uncovering something that they haven’t even noticed before. But doing so impacts their emotions, which then leads to a behavioral change.
While both thinking and feeling are essential to the change process, the true heart of change, they would say, lies in people’s emotions. Now you would expect that church leaders would be more inclined to do the see-feel-change methodology, but we don’t. We are often like our business counterparts, and we try to explain these things logically and rationally. And we fall into that same trap.
As Kotter and Cohen conclude, changing behavior is less about getting people’s rational motives and rational analysis to move forward and it’s really more about helping them see a new reality that will influence their feelings and behavior.
Now that you better understand the differences between thinking vs. feeling when leading change, what are you going to do about it?
Want to learn more about change? Download our FREE ebook Leading Change in Your Church here.
