Man stores his emotions and desires like springs compressed, and then awaits the opportunity to release them. —Brett Clay

The principle that a body must be in motion if a force is applied assumes the body is rigid and that the force is completely transferred to the body. An interesting characteristic of human behavior is that people are not “rigid bodies” in the physics sense, but more like springs. When a force is applied to a spring, its energy is stored as “potential energy” before it is suddenly released and converted into motion.

People rarely immediately and continuously respond to every little stimulus, like a soccer ball bouncing around the soccer field in response to every kick. In fact, Lewin, Maslow, Jung, Freud, and every other psychologist would probably call that behavior neurotic. Rather, people store the forces they feel as potential energy and then they take action in finite amounts, called “discontinuous” motion. So people are tricky to understand because they are composed of many springs of different sizes. It can be a challenge to discover the size of these “springs” and what will trigger their release.

While in some cases change happens slowly and incrementally, the process of change leadership is often similar to firing a catapult. Much energy is required to load the payload and compress the spring. Then, a trigger is pulled and the change happens suddenly.

As a change leader, seek to understand:

Once you understand where the springs are, map your strategy for which ones to avoid (“land mines”), which ones to trigger, and in what order to trigger them. Be careful not to trigger springs prematurely as it is often more effective to line people up for one big push in unison. Think of pulling a bandage off with one, quick motion. The change will be finished before people realize and the perceived pain will be much smaller.

Remember, most of the effort goes into loading and lining up the various springs for action. Once the triggering event happens, change may happen quickly. Be sure to set expectations accordingly among your change coalition.

Be prepared for people to act suddenly. Identify sensitive issues and people who could spring in your face (“land mines”). Try to have the springs release at the same time.