Why I Pledged to STOP Posting Bad News

This summer I made a personal pledge to stop posting bad news on social media. I want to tell you why and show you how making that choice matters for us as leaders.

Let’s
start with why I made that pledge. This summer, I found my social media feeds
on Facebook, etc. overwhelmed with bad news postings: stories about melting ice
in Greenland, dire warnings about how fast climate change is accelerating,
whales dying from ocean plastic, elephants going extinct, mass shootings and on
it went. I then noticed that most of the comments to the postings were equally
grim- those of us who were reading them were feeling even less inspired to
change things for the better. So, I made a simple pledge: I would no
longer post the latest bad news, instead I would only post stories
about people stepping up to try to do something about the big problems we face.

Now before you tune me out, let me tell you WHY I think this will create
more change and WHY this is as relevant for you in your business as in society. Let’s
first do a CHANGE 101 lesson. Human beings are herd creatures for the most
part. It turns out that if you tell people that other people are Stepping Up,
it makes them more likely to do so themselves.

So, whether it is bad news in your business or your neighborhood, spreading
bad news only makes people complacent but posting stories of people doing
something good makes us feel we CAN and SHOULD do something.

Fascinating
studies were done in hotels trying to get people to re-use their towels to save
energy. Turns out the best way to get people to do that is to post a sign in
the bathroom that says something like “80% of the people who stay in the hotel
choose to re-use their towels”. The average increase in compliance was 20%! It
went up another 10% when you changed it to “80% of the people who stayed in
THIS room.” In other words, all the signs about the world going to hell
in a hand basket didn’t motivate people, but saying other people were stepping
up motivated them.

The second thing is that from a brain perspective, bad news activates the
most primitive part of the human brain. I will spare you
neuroscience details, but the bottom line is that when we activate fear, it
provokes fight or flee. Fleeing often means trying to forget the bad news,
fighting means just trying to survive.

Most of the time, when an organization is facing bad news- the last thing
we want is people running around in flight or fight. We want them to be
creative, to find innovative ways to make changes, and it turns out that
showing people how others are doing that very thing activates creativity.

Now I
can read your mind so here goes. Whether in society or business, isn’t
that the equivalent of putting your head in the sand? Didn’t Jim
Collins find in his book Good to Great that one of the first things you need to
do if you want BIG change is to “face the brutal facts?” And he was
right…BUT! Facing the brutal facts is important whether it is climate
change, plastic in the ocean or a competitive business challenge requiring a
shift.

But rubbing people’s noses in the brutal facts doesn’t work. I have seen so
many leaders spend several years reminding their people of the harsh facts,
change or die, we are on a burning platform and on it goes. And once people get
it, it makes things worse. Better to focus on the Burning Ambition- here is
what it looks like when we take action to change.

So now
I am spreading stories of people stepping up to make things better, to do
something about plastic, climate, violence and I challenge you as a
leader to think about this: If you want your people to do more of anything,
start telling more stories about people who ARE already stepping up to do those
very things.

Maybe
you will join me in this pledge and see what happens. Thank you for your
support in making the world a better place.

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