“Always Day 1” – Amazon’s great spirit of challenging yourself every day, reinventing yourself, motivating yourself and creating success!

“Change” is one of the key topics in today’s world. It feels like the world is spinning faster than ever before and we know that things will never be the same again. SPARKPOINT coaches support managers and teams in the preparation and implementation of change communication.

Everything should stay as it is

Change means uncertainty. And uncertainty initially causes fear, because uncertainty is accompanied by the worry of losing control. As in this coffee commercial: “Everything should stay as it is”.

Eduscho Gala advertising from a time long before today

I don’t like the taste of your coffee

Hand on heart: if everything remained as it is, we would have no progress, our life expectancy would be half as high and our world would only consist of what we can see for ourselves from the back of a horse. Without change, we would wear the same clothes, eat the same food and do the same things every day. And the coffee advertisement would still look like the following spot. We can be really glad that society is constantly changing.

Jacobs Coffee – Advertising 1972

Perceived control

The desire to be in control is a basic human need and therefore has a decisive influence on our well-being. When you give people a sense of control, you increase their sense of autonomy and therefore their well-being, because we humans tend to evaluate the outcome of an action or process as more positive if we can influence it ourselves.

Having control is a feeling. A positive feeling. Feeling also means that it doesn’t really matter whether you actually have control or not. Just the conviction of having control is enough to make people happier, more motivated and more productive. Many studies confirm this and it therefore has a scientific name:“control illusion“.

Loss of control

Changes coming from above or from outside can quickly trigger a feeling of loss of control. The fear and uncertainty of what may come, what will happen to your own job, familiar structures and processes, can trigger stress and paralyze and demotivate people. No matter whether in the company, in private life or in society.

Changes in companies usually only interest those people who want to change. Therefore, successful change management is above all about dealing with people in the right way with regard to the upcoming changes and making the effects clear. In short: take people seriously and give them the maximum possible self-control.

Cogito ergo sum

“I think, therefore I am”, said one of the founders of rationalism, René Descartes, emphasizing the unique role of the mind. This is why rationality plays the central role in all areas of life in our world – especially in companies.

Rationalism” explains the world according to logical and calculable laws. In order to recognize the truth, only the mind is needed. Our senses – feeling, seeing, hearing, etc. – play a subordinate role. If people use their reason correctly, they can also become better and more mature, according to the credo of rationalism.

That has brought us a long way. However, this is not enough to successfully shape change, because we humans are one thing above all: not rational.

How rational are we?

The special thing about us humans is that we want to understand the world. Our nature drives us on and on. And if we know the reason for something, we can change it. Without reason or explanation, we feel at the mercy of others. Because we can’t explain every situation rationally, we make up connections, some of which are (rationally) nonsensical: If we eat up, the sun will shine the next day. I don’t get sick because I always have a chestnut in my pocket.

We don’t consider ourselves superstitious, but we would never wish someone a happy birthday too early. In some tall buildings we don’t find a 13th floor and many airlines don’t have a 13th row. There are buttons at many traffic lights, although they do nothing except give people the illusion of control.

We feel better when we can do something that we believe could have an effect, even if it has none. “Illusions of control” and superstitious behavior therefore arise because they are a successful technique for dealing with stress (or uncertainty). “When people believe that they can control harmful events, they are better able to cope with these events,” according to an academic paper.

Together, we will consider how you can incorporate these findings into your change communication and thus successfully master change, transformation and change projects.

Communicating well means leading well

If you ask people about the most important skill of a manager, communication is at the top of the list. This has been confirmed in many studies. Unfortunately, communication skills are taken for granted today and are not included in school and university curricula. We would treat each other differently and work much more efficiently if we could all speak, present and write well.

A SPARKPOINT training course combines state-of-the-art knowledge and the experience of decades of consulting work with quickly implementable options that directly improve your own communication skills.

What are you waiting for?

And if you’ve ever wondered what Day 2 looks like on Amazon:

Here you can find the answer from Jeff Bezos!