Employees who feel confident they can succeed are 49% more likely to support change. A study of 31,000 workers shows self-efficacy matters more than self-esteem. Try asking each person weekly: what do you want to learn, and what are you better at than last week.
Employees often resist a change because they're afraid they will personally fail at it. My team studied 31,000 employees and leaders to figure out why people resist change, and one finding stood out. Employees who are confident they'll personally succeed with the changes are 49% more likely to support the change. That's self-efficacy, and it's different from self-esteem. Self-esteem says, I'm good as I am. Self-efficacy says, I can handle what's coming. And here's a simple way to build every employee's self-efficacy. Meet with them every week and ask 2 questions. What would you like to learn or get better at next week? And then, what are you better at now than you were last week? The first question makes learning normal instead of embarrassing. The second forces people to notice that they are in fact actually growing. Sometimes people don't need a better pitch for the change. They just need to feel confident and some real evidence that they can succeed at it.
