Lead Local is a dynamic panel event highlighting opportunities in business, education, entrepreneurship, and community leadership. It showcases how people in the Limestone Coast are building meaningful careers, launching enterprises, strengthening organisations, and contributing to community life.

 

Date: Thursday 26 March

Time: 5:30pm - 8pm

Where: Noky 96 Jubilee Hwy, Mt Gambier

 

Michael McQueen presented to Rotary Leaders at the International Assembly in January.  The below is a thought-provoking extract from their blog with a link to the full speech at the end.

We all know that change is essential. We spend a lot of time talking about what needs to change in Rotary and how that change ought to happen. But the truth is this: nothing changes until minds do.

You can have the best change strategy in the world. But if you can’t get people to willingly open their minds, you’ll never get liftoff.

The good news?

While opening people’s minds is by no means easy, it is possible. (There are) three research-based keys for doing just this:

1.  Aim for Affinity

The essence of this first principle is simple: people won’t listen to you until they like you. You’ve got to win people over to you before you have any hope of winning them over to your view.

 

2. Lessen the Loss

There is one emotion that is always involved when someone resists change — fear.  The fear that causes us to shut down and resist new things is actually the fear of loss. And typically, there are three losses that trigger resistance most frequently:

• The loss of Power — when change makes us feel sidelined or less significant.
• The loss of Familiarity — the discomfort of leaving behind what’s known and predictable.
• The loss of Dignity — the fear of looking foolish, being seen as out of touch, or losing face.

The key in helping people to embrace change is not to push harder and sell the change, it’s to lessen the loss.

That might mean asking for advice instead of giving instructions. It might mean involving people early in the process so they can take ownership. Or it might simply mean giving them a choice, even a small one, so they feel in the driver’s seat of change. If people don’t feel they have agency or choice, they’ll instinctively resist rather than engage.

3. Reframe Reality

You don’t change minds by winning arguments — you change them by helping people see things differently. Your reality is not the reality.

One of the most powerful ways to open someone’s mind is simply to help them see things from a different perspective. To get them to a point where they say — either out loud or to themselves — I’d never seen it that way before.