Hope – This Four-Letter Word Can Change Perspective and Accelerate Change

People who are full of hope tend to approach change with enthusiasm, determination, resilience and POSITIVE emotion. People who are low on hope tend to approach change with mixed feelings, uncertainty and NEGATIVE emotion. Developing hope is a skill set and a mindset and can be the difference between falling down and continuing to ride the waves to success.

By David Ogilvie

We all navigate change differently

I spend a lot of time working with people and helping them understand how to develop resilience in themselves and the people around them. Often I find myself coming back to the word “hope” and that surprises people as they wrongly assume it’s just a spiritual word. It’s also a word you will find in psychology and much of management theory – it’s just not called that.

Let me explain.

What is hope?

Hope for me is best thought of as a combination of “will” and “way” in that you have the willpower to move forward and can see plenty of ways forward. You will probably be familiar with the phrase “where there’s a will, there’s a way” and for me, people who use that phrase are talking about hope. They are talking about a positive future. They are talking about change. Take the flip side of that for a moment. Imagine you have no will to move forward and can see absolutely no ways forward.

You have no hope.

Hope is a very practical word

When viewed in terms of “will” and “way” hope is intrinsic to much of performance in organisations. Performance management in terms of setting stretch goals is supposed to be about giving people the will or the motivation to move forward. Creativity, innovation, strategy and coaching are all about developing multiple ways to move forward. Sound familiar?

Hope is a matter of perspective

It’s likely that if you are leading change that you are full of hope. You’ve probably got tons of energy to keep pushing towards your goals and can see lots of ways forward which means if you hit a setback you will have the energy to improvise and turn an obstacle into an opportunity. But we are all different.

Some of the people around you will not share your hope

We all navigate change differently. Where you have lots of “will” and “way”, some people around you will have less. The way forward will seem less obvious to them and finding that extra energy when setbacks occur to keep pushing will feel alien to them. It will make much more sense to them to save their energy for another challenge.

Now here’s what it’s got to do with change

People who are full of hope tend to approach change with enthusiasm, determination, resilience and POSITIVE emotion. People who are low on hope tend to approach change with mixed feelings, uncertainty and NEGATIVE emotion. Doesn’t that make sense? Imagine if you couldn’t see ways forward and didn’t have the energy to move forward because things seem just a stretch too far? When we are low on hope we are saying tomorrow looks worse than today and it’s always going to be like that.

This is why hope is a word I constantly come back to

Because it’s more than a word.

Developing hope is a skill set and a mindset and can be the difference between falling down and continuing to ride the waves to success. On our resilience programmes, we help you uncover your current levels of hope and develop practical skills and strategies to leverage your strengths and minimise the times your focus hinders you. We show you how to engage with others with a different level of “will” and “way” and how to include the diversity of people around you. This is one of the many tools and techniques we teach leaders. This is the new approach to change.

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