Changing people’s behavior can only happen when you embark on having a relationship first.
We know this instinctively, yet we pursue the “command and control” model of authoritarian, top-down, imposed change repeatedly.
Maybe it’s because the narrative that we tell ourselves about other people—and the way that they change—is so deeply embedded we can’t extricate ourselves from it.
Maybe it’s because we are incessantly seeking a shortcut to the easy outcome and the easy solutions to genuinely hard problems.
Maybe it’s because we know that the hard work of relationship building is a long term game rather than a short-term “fix.”
Or maybe the real reasons have nothing to do with any of those reasons at all.
