2025: Adaptive Reset: Attunement Accelerates Change

02 Mar 2025: Adaptive Reset: Attunement Accelerates Change

Adaptive Reset: Attunement Accelerates Change

Tod Bolsinger, PhD
Executive Director, Church Leadership Institute
Senior Fellow, De Pree Center for Leadership
Associate Professor of Leadership Formation
Principal, AE Sloan Leadership

Taken from Leading Through Resistance by Tod Bolsinger. Copyright (c) 2024 by Tod E. Bolsinger. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, USA. www.ivpress.com.

Two masked men storm a bank in Brooklyn, taking hostage two tellers and an older unarmed security guard. A militant Islamic group in the Philippines kidnaps a twenty-four-year-old American and demands a ten-million-dollar ransom. The elderly aunt of a prominent Haitian politician is dragged from her car and held during a spree of kidnappings in the Caribbean nation that averaged eight per day. At the center of all of these crises was the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator, Chris Voss. What Voss learned in the most high-stakes situations possible is that the place to begin is with the words often attributed to an eleventh-century saint known more for living in poverty—and, as the legend goes, talking to animals—than conversing with brutal kidnappers.

“Seek first to understand and then to be understood,” both FBI negotiator Voss and Saint [1].Francis would say. That is, that the secret weapon for getting people to join with you in coming to a good resolution when they are most adamant about wanting their own way is less pushing and more pulling by—connecting, letting them speak first, listening deeply, and utilizing empathy—or more specifically from the work of neuroscientists, creating “attunement” between you and your counterpart. [2]

Behind Voss’s work as an FBI hostage negotiator were the groundbreaking research and insights from Daniel Goleman on emotional intelligence [3] and the work of Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his partner, economist Amos Tversky, on the functioning of the human brain as a two-system entity. [4]

Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is often compared to intellectual intelligence (IQ). While IQ is assumed to be fixed at a rather early age, EQ can be developed in people and makes the greatest difference in the performance and capacity of a leader.[5] In Goleman’s groundbreaking work applying emotional intelligence to leadership, he found that “nearly 90 percent of the competencies that distinguished outstanding performers was attributable to emotional intelligence factors rather than purely cognitive abilities.” [6] And as one group of church consultants concluded, “The emotional  competencies of pastors and church leaders are probably the most important factors in pastoral effectiveness.” [7] As Goleman, other researchers, and leaders worked with the concepts of emotional intelligence, they began to identify four core competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.[8]

All of these core competencies are profoundly personal and relational. They require the leader to be focused on the personal and relational dynamics, on making a connection with the resisting person and believing that if you have to “make someone” do something, then it will likely not succeed as an adaptive change.

The old mental model teaches leaders to meet the pushback of resistance with their own pushback of power and authority in order to get people in line and moving toward a desired goal. The adaptive reset is rooted in the awareness that any true adaptive change requires the willing assent and transformation of those who lead and experience the change. That happens most effectively not through reason, power, or authority, but through attunement.

Attunement is the precognitive, intuitive, emotive process of human connection that happens prior to and at times disconnected from rational thought. It is literally the experience of humans who begin to connect, to trust each other and lower their defensiveness even while not agreeing on the “facts” or “decision” of an outcome. While both parts of our thinking (the intuitive and the rational) are always at work and necessary, decision-making begins and is dominated by the intuitive, emotional, and relational. In the words of moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, “The first principle is Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.” [9]

Haidt coined a famous metaphor of an elephant and a rider to describe how the intuitive process and rational thinking interact.

The mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant. The rider is our conscious reasoning—the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes—the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior. [10]

BRINGING BRAINS TOGETHER

What we have learned from experts in the fields of leadership and neuroscience is that real, genuine, transformative change does not occur through power and control, but through relational connection, empathy, and the trust that comes through attunement.

Perhaps no research has made more of an impact on the development of leaders in the past twenty years than the discovery and application of mirror neurons in the human brain. Mirror neurons are the cells in the brain that fire or interact with other cells when a person acts or sees another person act in the same way. [11] In other words, when one person “mirrors” back the behavior, words, or feelings of another person, both brains begin to fire in a similar pattern, creating an experience of connection. Like lovers who complete each other’s sentences, friends who break out laughing at just the mention of a shared joke, teammates who can anticipate each other’s action for a no-look pass, or colleagues who “just know” what a partner would do in the same situation, there is ample evidence that this kind of connection is not just emotional but emotional and biological. When humans feel similarly, they begin to think together. [12]

The cornerstone of emotional intelligence—self-awareness that leads to empathy with others—is so powerful because, in the words of Brené Brown, “empathy fuels connection.” [13] For leadership  development theorists, the impact of this insight is almost impossible to overstate.

In a rapidly changing world, the ability to work well with people and teams of people is becoming more important than any technical know-how. Even Google, with its capacity to hire the smartest individual players, conducted a famous study where they “reverse engineered” the best teams in order to create the algorithms that would help them learn how to create good teams at scale. (A very Google-y thing to do!) What did they discover? Great teams run on “psychological safety” that is built through empathy, good listening, and communication: “The paradox, of course, is that Google’s intense data collection and number crunching have led it to the same conclusions that good managers have always known. In the best teams, members listen to one another and show sensitivity to feelings and needs.” [14]

Further, empathy is not just a tool that enables us to support, connect, and care for our teammates and followers but also a way to give others courage, lessen anxiety, lower defenses, encourage collaboration, and move forward with changes that need to be made.

“Leadership is not domination, but the art of persuading people to work toward a common goal.” Daniel Goleman

One senior executive of a major manufacturing company told me a story of what happened when the company decided to pay for tools for their workers and no longer require each worker to have their own tools or tool cart. The executives assumed that the employees would love this decision (they would no longer have to spend their own money on their own tools), but they encountered deep resistance. The workers didn’t want the company tools; they liked their own tools. No matter how hard the executives tried to explain the rationale (it saved both the individuals and the company money, it increased productivity, it was fairer toward employees who couldn’t afford good tools), the employees still resisted giving up their personal tools. Finally, they discovered that there was an even deeper issue that none of the C-suite leaders expected and that no one talked about in the economic and “rationale” conversation. One day, the senior executive was walking the floor and one of the workers who was opposing the decision to do away with personal tools asked to talk with him. The executive told me the story.

He invited me to come over and look at the big tool chest that he kept all his tools in. As I got closer, he said to me, “Sir, you have an office, right? And you have pictures of your wife and kids in your office?”

“Yes,” I said, “I like having pictures in my office to remind me of why I work so hard, who I am providing for, and why I want to do a good job every day.”

The worker showed me his cart. It was covered with pictures of his family. “This is my office. If you take away my tools and my tool cart, you are taking away my office.”

The executive told me that having heard that story, they were still able to make the move they needed to make for the company to pay for and provide tools, but they provided every worker a locker with space for pictures and personal effects to be each person’s “office.” [15]

This emotional attunement, this capacity to listen deeply and feel with a person is almost always developed in conflict, while walking the floor, in a tough staff meeting, or even when negotiating with an international terrorist.

For Voss, the key to negotiating with terrorists is the same as negotiating a business deal or with an employee. It’s what he calls “tactical empathy” or “understanding the feelings and mindset of another in the moment and also hearing what is behind those feelings so you increase your influence in all the moments that follow.”

Tactical empathy sounds manipulative, but in truth it is about being completely honest about one’s objectives and open to the concerns and needs of other persons. “It’s bringing our attention to both the emotional obstacles and the potential pathways to getting an agreement done.” [16] It’s about the combination of “caring personally” and “challenging directly” that Kim Scott has described in her bestselling book Radical Candor. [17] It’s attuning to people and accompanying them through change.

“For the change leader, attunement is not just about caring and convincing but being with people in such a way that they can face the losses that change will inevitably bring to them and helping them grow as a result.” [18] It’s about managing emotionally volatile situations as Jesus did with the woman who was caught in adultery and about to be stoned by a crowd. [19] It’s rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep; it is bearing each other’s burdens (see Rom 12:15; Gal 6:2) as we go through the change process together. Leading change requires the capacity to help others feel accompanied in the transformational journey as we prepare to make adjustments that will require genuine effort in the face of loss. This requires connection, empathy, courage, and support.

For Voss, whose work for years was in persuading terrorists to release hostages (and who today teaches negotiating skills to corporate executives), attunement is not a touchy-feely concept, but a genuine leadership skillset that is as important as forecasting, communication, strategy, administration, supervision, talent recruitment, and financial oversight. In a rapidly changing world where the biggest challenges go beyond our old expertise and best practices, adaptive leadership requires the skills grounded in attunement to help pull the counterpart in the negotiation (he never says “opposition”) into a less-resistant space.

Some of these skills you have already encountered in this book, and in the narrative, but let’s look at what it takes to move from pushing a resistant person to pulling them into the change work with you.

Slow it down.

Many of the most energizing moments of change leadership come from responding well to crisis.[20] Crisis offers both a rationale for change and the fuel of urgency that most leaders acknowledge is critical for bringing changes to fruition.[21] Good leaders convene their people because they are seeing a pain point that needs to be addressed and a changing environment that requires organizational adjustment. But when they bring the team together, they must resist the tendency to turn urgency into frenetic action.

When I served as a pastor in a congregation on the edge of the Camp Pendleton Marine Base, I learned from Marine Corps officers the maxim, “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” Even—maybe especially—in times of crisis, when urgency is stimulating the need for adaptation or change, leaders need to move with haste but without hurry.[22]

This could be the core concept for “stop pushing back, pull them by.” The urgency of a situation must not keep us from doing the good, sometimes slower work of listening, gaining trust, and understanding. These get us to the kind of collaborative agreement where people stop pushing back and instead join arms and go forward together. Yes, there is urgency. Yes, there is a need for change. And yes, that change needs to happen soon. So let’s slow down, bring the team together, and get clear on what we need to preserve and what we need to change.

Get clear on two convictions.

Every leadership decision always has within it the necessity of two decisions: “What are we going to preserve?” (the preservation conviction) and, “What are we going to change?” (the change conviction). Good leaders are crystal clear on the first so that they can lead the group through the hard reality of the second. The preservation conviction keeps us clear on what is so genuinely valuable to a group that to lose it is to lose ourselves. We are preserving our core purpose and integrity, our mission and core values. The change conviction helps us face the reality of a changing context, a disruption, or a crisis that requires us to change in order to preserve our core purpose and integrity.

Give the work back to the people.

With both the preservation conviction and the change conviction clearly defined, good leaders invite key stakeholders into the process as early as possible. In the words of Patrick Lencioni, “If people don’t weigh in, they can’t buy in.”[23] They engage the people who are most necessary to the change process, and they convene them with the expectation that their very purpose for being is to fully engage in the challenge that the organization is facing and the necessary changes that need to be implemented well. For John Kotter, this group is called a “Guiding Coalition” [24]; we often call it a “Transformation Team.”[25] To be most effective, this group of people has been authorized to take on the challenge, but oftentimes that includes—and should include—those who will push back against ideas or strategies that they find objectionable for any reason.

In other words, to “give the work back to the people” does not mean to find a coalition of people who will simply go along with anything the leader says, but instead to work with the people with the most amount of genuine concern about the challenge at hand and the confidence of others in the organization; they have the strength of self to both challenge and support the strategies that need to be implemented. For Voss, this means that he dislikes the term “opponents” (even when negotiating with terrorists!) and prefers “counterparts” who are equal and necessary to the negotiation.[26] The invitation to engage in discussion—including bringing their “pushback,” opposition, and concern—is critical to the process.

Give an accusation audit.

At the very moment when most leaders have been rehearsing all the exciting possibilities for a new change initiative, they meet a sober reality they must acknowledge right up front: people are twice as motivated by fear and loss than by the potential gain of a decision.[27] So, when introducing a new strategy or initiative, it is best to start humbly, with openness to all of the ways that even the best idea—especially when it is your idea—can be the wrong idea. As the conversation begins, introduce it with both your enthusiasm for it and with all the potential objections and obstacles to the new idea. Chris Voss calls this an “accusation audit.” [28] An accusation audit names the fears and puts on the table all of the possible objections. This creates a sense of psychological safety and eventually helps people lower their defenses and become more open to the necessary changes.

Practice mirroring.

As the conversation around the changes truly gets underway, focus on listening so intently that you can literally repeat back one to three of the most important words that the person said. This “mirroring” is an intentional replication of what people do unconsciously and naturally to establish trust and become comfortable with someone they may not know.[29] As we listen deeply and mirror back to people the words, tone, and emotions that they are communicating, we can build a more trusting relationship and, in an even deeper way, enable the person who is resisting to begin to explore the direction that they have previously feared.

The goal is to get to “That’s right.” In other words, in your conversation, overcome the temptation of trying to explain or argue for your position so that your conversation partners eventually say, “Okay, I see, you’re right,” but instead get them to listen to you mirror back their position, hesitations, worries, or concerns and then say to you, “Yes, that’s right. That is exactly how I am feeling.”

Look for the unexpected and unknowns.

As you listen and create trust by mirroring back emotions and worries, “look” for surprise insights that will be revealed in the process of a good, honest conversation. Using an ancient proverb that assumed that black swans didn’t exist (until they were discovered in Australia in 1697), Nicholas Nassim Taleb calls “Black Swans” the “hidden and unexpected pieces of information—those unknown unknowns—whose unearthing has game-changing effects” on the conversation, strategy, or negotiation happening at the moment. [30] The metaphor of black swans as rare and utterly unexpected, and as a situationally transformative event, insight, or piece of information has become a powerful mental model in several arenas from business to military to academia.[31] But for our purposes, the very existence and the awareness of the existence of unknown unknowns inspires both curiosity and humility. To “look for the unexpected and unknown” means to acknowledge that there are unintended consequences—potentially very great and very harmful—in every decision. There are insights and learnings that are only going to be revealed as we engage in the process of change, and a necessary prerequisite for leading is the humility to lead as a learner. The more you (and your resistant partners) learn, the more you can together make the best possible decisions and the more you can continually reframe the two convictions and the change process in a way the resistant partners (as fellow discoverers) can embrace.

Use the safety of “no.”

It is natural to focus our attention on whatever will move the conversation to an agreement. It makes sense that most of the work that we do would be about getting to a “yes.” But for leaders who need not just win an argument, but win the hearts, minds, energy, and commitment of their people, the huge trap is getting a “counterfeit yes.”[32] A “counterfeit yes” is an agreement that someone gives to an idea or suggestion in order to avoid the discomfort of saying no or to play for time. It is the opposite of what is needed, which is a “commitment yes.”

A “commitment yes” is one where the resistant person comes to understand that her agreement is actually in their own best interests and she desires to genuinely join in, lock arms, and pull together in a common direction. But a “commitment yes” is costly. And people usually don’t get to a “commitment yes” until after they have felt the safety of asserting either a “counterfeit yes” or a “no.” And for a leader, a genuine “no” is better than a “counterfeit yes.” A “no” both clarifies the boundaries and points of discussion and allows the resistant person to know that they too have concerns and opinions that are being taken seriously. A “no,” when offered and accepted, communicates respect and can build rapport.

As Chris Voss writes, “In every agreement, the result comes from someone else’s decision.” In other words, the resistant person feels and accepts agency for joining with a decision, and only then does he stop pushing back and join you in pulling together for the future decision.[33] When we work with leaders, we coach them to “keep going until you get a ‘no.’” Insist on getting to a “no” because until you know where the “no” is, you can never be sure if the “yes” is counterfeit or commitment. In this way, there is more safety in a “no” than in most “yeses.”

But once we get to a real “no,” we can then come to an agreement on a true, committed “yes.” The pushback from a resistant team member becomes part of the process for growing trust, increasing commitment, and building a true team.