Introduction
Apply psychological insight to improve organizing practice with this series on psychology, trust, and joy by Leading Change Network.
On March 27th, April 24th, and May 29th, 2025, more than a hundred people from around the world participated in the Psychology, Trust & Joy in Organizing, a three-part learning series facilitated by Kate B. Hilton, JD, MTS, Co-Founder & Principal of Innovation Capital.
In the first session, Psychology of Change, participants learned about adaptive challenges and resistance to change, and practiced using open honest questions to activate people’s agency.
In the second session, Building Trust, participants gained an understanding of the three drivers of trust, which are empathy, logic, and authenticity, and practiced trust-building communication with those who disagree.
In the third session, Joy in Organizing, participants learned about the drivers of workforce wellbeing and experienced an approach to engage organizers in collective wellbeing and joy in work.
In each session, participants also explored how they can apply these concepts in their organizing work.
Below is an excerpt explore the full write up, including videos and images, via this link.
The 5 Habits of the Heart
All three sessions set as the communication norm the five habits of the heart by Parker J. Palmer, which guide us on how to engage with each other to create a robust, democratic space.
- An understanding that we are all in this together
- Choose interdependence and co-creation instead of isolation
- An appreciation of the value of otherness
- Hold otherness as positive
- An ability to hold tension in life-giving ways
- Be self-aware about how to hold my own feelings in a way that is productive to myself, to my peers, to my collective learning
- A sense of personal voice and agency
- A capacity to create community
- Take the intention and attention to create a community, even on Zoom
Sessions
Session 1: Psychology of Change
Adaptive challenges and resistance to change
An adaptive challenge, distinguished from a quick-fix-by-expert type of technical challenges, requires changes in behavior, beliefs, roles, relationships, and approaches of the stakeholders themselves, often across organizational boundaries. Sometimes people even resist acknowledging that adaptive challenges exist, and when they are identified, solving them involves experimenting and discovering and can take time.
In organizing, such changes are resisted due to power struggles, lack of commitment, competing demands on people’s time, fear of failure, lack of leadership, poor team planning, etc.
Although, today, we know a lot more about ourselves, very little of this knowledge has been put into practical effect. – Doris Lessing, Prisons We Choose to Live Inside
Kate introduced two other concepts to explain resistance to change. In the Diffusion of Innovation by Everett Rogers, which explains that the rate at which change spreads is based on people, there is “the chasm” between the early adopters excited about the change, and the early majority adopting the change.
In other words, there is a gap that we need to fill for the change to be adopted by enough people to reach the tipping point (early majority) to bring along those who are more resistant to change. (Kate added that newer research has updated the percentages in the graphic and suggests that we actually just need 25% total to move people along.)
The Transition Model by William Bridges illustrates that transitions are non-linear and people can feel more than one thing during transitions. Just like our response to COVID-19, we often face emotions of denial and resistance when confronting change, and then over time, progress into areas of experimentation, hopefulness, understanding, and integration.
It feels comforting to be with those who are most like us, ideologically and otherwise. That’s a challenge. That’s a big challenge for us, because we also know that building power across stakeholder groups and ideologies is how power is built. – Kate B. Hilton, JD, MTS
Kate emphasized that resistance is what we want. Resistance to change is expected, and indicates engagement with change. As such, when we face resistance, rather than polarizing and defending ourselves, we should work with people’s resistance by asking “How can I get people to do what they want to do?” instead of “what I want them to do.”
Read more about this in this article.
The Transtheoretical Model (TTM), also known as the Stages of Change model, proposes that behavior change is a process that unfolds through distinct stages, and individuals progress through these stages at their own pace; so how can we enable each other to move through this process and make the decisions to change behaviors?
In considering how to enable each other through adaptive change, we may also consider the 3 R’s to reach the learning brain, studied by Bruce Perry, a neuroscientist in the field of trauma. It lays out the three steps of neurological response to change.
In the first fight, flight, or freeze step, people might feel out of control or anxious and stressed, as the command center of the brain releases adrenaline cortisol, which puts us on high alert. To regulate this hormone, we can remain calm, acknowledge that that might be a totally normal reaction, and create a psychologically safe space where people can breathe and feel soothed. Next, as the amygdala, the feeling center, decides whether to move with positive or negative feelings into our prefrontal cortex, we can relate and connect through attuned relationships to decrease fear. In the prefrontal cortex, we reflect, learn, and become self-assured.
This is what we need as organizers to be creative, innovative, and resourceful, so we as organizers must make sure our prefrontal cortex is freed from fear and stress.
Psychology of Change
The Psychology of Change is the science and art of human behavior as it relates to transformation. Its core concept is activating people’s agency, which is the ability of an individual or group to choose to act with purpose.
Agency is built on power, which is the ability to act with purpose, as well as on courage or the emotional resources to choose to act.
We can activate agency on multiple levels across our systems and societies, including self, interpersonal, and system. IHI Psychology of Change Framework provides five domains of activating agency:
- unleashing intrinsic motivation,
- co-designing people-driven change,
- co-producing authentic relationships,
- distributing power, and
- adapting in action.
Read more about IHI Psychology of Change Framework in this white paper.
Open honest questions as a fundamental skill in organizing
In the session, we focused on co-producing in authentic relationships, out of the five domains of the IHI Psychology of Change Framework.
To co-produce change, people must inquire, listen, see, and commit to one another. We can do that by asking open honest questions.
An open, honest question invites narrative rather than a yes or no response, and doesn’t show preference for a specific answer. We listen to understand, and not to fix or respond; in this way, it is less intentional than coaching. We meet the other person where they are at in their process of change, and leave it to their exploration, instead of our prescription, to move based on their own inner truth and wisdom to the next stage in committing to change.
Click here for a guide on open honest questions.
Participants asked open honest questions about each other’s adaptive challenges in pair breakout rooms. One of the takeaways shared during the debrief was that when there is uncertainty, we want to create certainty and control the situation, but we must stay curious about the other person’s experience and think what will help them arrive at their own solution. Such questions are a fundamental skill for us as organizers in our one-on-one’s, team meetings, and conversations with various stakeholders, in leading change.
Session 2: Building Trust
Why is trust important?
We are seeing eroding trust like never before. With immigration, climate crisis, war, we trust each other less and less, questioning who to believe, as shown in polls from Gallup.
Research shows that when we feel a high degree of uncertainty, we look to people who are similar to us, which means this leads to further polarization.
If we cannot trust each other, we cannot bridge the chasm in the Diffusion of Innovation explained during Session 1 and create a critical mass for change.
A recent study by Nicola Burgess showed that when healthcare professionals in five hospitals were given the same resources, the outcome of improvement and organizational performance can vary based on the social connectedness of the people, specifically the network density (the number of connections present within the network). Thus, the relational work we do in one-on-one’s and house meetings are critical in leading change.
Three drivers of Trust: Empathy, Authenticity, and Logic
In order to explore how we can build trust, participants first shared their experiences with relational and trust-building tactics, to build relationships, not just with you but with each other. One of the ideas was socializing with a purpose–doing silly and fun things together or eating together before meetings–which enables us to meet people where they are and move at the speed of trust.
Another was hosting public narrative sharing sessions or workshops to get to know each other’s values. Once the values are shared, balanced facilitation, which means not remaining fully neutral as a facilitator but embodying the group’s shared agreements and balancing any dynamics that go contrary to those established values, can also help build trust, as well as reflexive dialogue for collective sensemaking.
Additionally, making one’s communication styles and preferences explicit with each other can reduce fear of judgment. Finally, turning individual tasks (e.g. phone banks) into a collective team effort with a structure that promotes connections, accountability, and leadership development, are critical.
You’re creating an intentional community to put people in relationships with one another. That part of our design is so critical that we have to dedicate time to it, because it’s out of those relationships that not only trust is built, but commitment happens. – Kate B. Hilton, JD, MTS
The three drivers of trust, established by Francis Frei, show that people experience trust when these three elements are in place: empathy, authenticity and logic.
Empathy
Empathy is our capacity to understand the feelings of another person from their frame of reference. We attempt to place ourselves in another’s position by getting curious, asking questions and listening to understand, observing (not judging or fixing), and not making assumptions.
Authenticity
Authenticity is experienced as a person showing up as their true self. We demonstrate authenticity when we are transparent, share how we feel, make sure people understand and see us act on our values, vision and goals, acknowledge different perspectives, and accept and act on feedback from others.
Logic
Logic is experienced when you trust another person’s judgment. We demonstrate logic when we explain not just what to do or how to do it, but why it matters, act in ways that are logically coherent with what we say or ask others to do, communicate logic effectively (which may depend on our audience).
Each of these drivers can wobble and diminish trust. For example, our empathy wobbles, often unintentionally, when we micro-manage, jump to provide solutions, and do not invest in others’ learning and growth.
Authenticity wobbles can be seen in lack of transparency or withholding of information, lack of psychological safety for others, lack of sharing authentic self or feelings, and lack of openness to feedback or unwillingness to change. Logic wobbles are not just about what the logic is but about how we communicate the logic; when we fail to communicate consistently, effectively, or regularly, when we say one thing but do another, when we offer criticisms without solutions, we have logic wobbles.
Read more about the three drivers of trust in this article.
Trust Self-Assessment helps us identify if there are any wobbles in our empathy, authenticity, or logic. Participants discussed in pair breakout rooms how trust wobbles show up in our work.
In order to steady those wobbles, we can listen for understanding, ask open honest questions, elicit and share what matters, create psychological safety, and communicate logic effectively. Regarding the last point, being right does not matter, if we are unable to connect to our logic what others think and feel. We must understand others’ logic in order to communicate our logic effectively. Some participants also made a point that backing away from conversations is also a strategic choice in certain situations.
Communicating with those who disagree
Especially when we communicate with those who disagree with us, resist us, believe in misinformation, what does it look like to listen for understanding, ask open honest questions, elicit and share what matters, create psychological safety, and communicate logic effectively?
Kate presented below five steps. Participants practiced these steps in pair breakout rooms, discussing preference for cake vs. pie.
- Ask open honest, genuinely curious, non-judgmental questions
- Listen to what people you disagree with say and deepen your understanding with follow-up inquiries
- Reflect back their perspective by summarizing their answers and noting underlying emotions
- Agree before disagreeing by identifying ways in which you agree with their point of view (Where can you find a shared value or shared agreement? What common ground do we have? It’s important to name that)
- Share your perspective by telling a story about a personal experience
In the debrief, participants mentioned that sharing perspectives through stories, sometimes from childhood memories, makes it easier to connect. While we focused mainly on interpersonal trust, we can also unpack institutional trust. Read more about that in this report.
Session 3: Joy in Organizing
Why address the systems?
Studies in the healthcare field, which are applicable in many other fields, found that 80% of the burnout experienced by healthcare professionals are attributed to systemic factors related to the workplace, organization, and outside influences, while 20% is attributed to personality, individual coping skills, and social support. There are things we can do productively and positively to build our resilience, but at the end of the day, we are affected by the systems.
Kate introduced the drivers of workforce wellbeing, which centers happy, healthy, productive people in the middle. For example, if you are not physically or psychologically safe, that will affect whether you are happy, healthy, and productive. If you do not feel a sense of meaning and purpose in the way in which you express yourself every day, that will also affect your ability to be happy, healthy, and productive.
- Choice and autonomy is having a sense of control over our day to day, not being totally surprised all the time, being told what to do all the time.
- Recognition and rewards include not just compensation but also just being seen, valued, heard, acknowledged, and thanked.
- Participative management is the idea that you might not get to decide everything, but you get to contribute, and you know your perspectives are taken into account.
- Camaraderie and teamwork in the workplace also impact wellbeing.
- Daily improvement is the idea that if we see something we want to fix, we can fix it without permission, without a lot of red tape.
- Wellness and resilience is largely an individual factor, but can be affected by policies and procedures within our organizations or within our broader macro system.
Real-time measurement means knowing the outcome–did we win or lose? Were we able to create the change we wanted to create?
Framework for Wellbeing and Joy in Work
IHI Framework for Wellbeing and Joy in Work describes the five steps to improve those drivers of workforce wellbeing. Before jumping into each step, Kate pointed out how this framework connects with the concepts we learned in previous sessions.
This process helps us activate our agency–activate our power as well as our courage, and create some of the emotional resources we need to feel encouraged to make these choices. The framework also weaves in the domains from the Psychology of Change framework: co-designing with one another, doing this in authentic relationships, creating psychological safety to have these conversations, connecting to our intrinsic motivations, thinking about how we can adapt and learn as we go, and making it something everyone is part of contributing to improve.
- Ask staff “what matters to you?”
- Identify unique impediments to Joy in Work in the local context
- Commit to making Joy in Work a shared responsibility at all levels
- Use improvement science to test approaches to improving joy in your organization
1. Ask staff “what matters to you?”
Instead of asking “What’s wrong?” or “How can we fix something?” invite people to start with what is working as an appreciative inquiry.
Establish the space to engage people in meaning-making (What makes a great day at work? How can we do more of that?) in a facilitated and supported way. Using post-it’s to gather ideas in this step is helpful, as it allows anonymity and makes it easy to group ideas together based on the drivers of workforce wellbeing (e.g. recognition and rewards, camaraderie and teamwork, etc.).
2. Identify unique impediments to Joy in Work in the local context
Ask people to what gets in the way of what matters (What gets in the way of a good day? What frustrates me in my day?). Try to be specific. Ask open honest questions to try to get underneath what is happening.
As a facilitator, just listen and do not get defensive or try to fix or respond to things in the moment (never defend deltas). After identifying the pebbles that get in the way of what matters, group them based on the drivers of workforce wellbeing and consider which ones they can solve; we do not need to address bigger stones that we might not have agency over (for some of those things, we can give feedback to other people).
3. Commit to making Joy in Work a shared responsibility at all levels
Map the change ideas on the two axes: how much time, planning, structural or process changes are needed, and how much involvement from internal or external teams it requires.
What are some quick wins? What requires collaboration across teams but are do-able? What is on a smaller scale but complex? What is blue-sky thinking? Revisit at team huddles how we are along in our process on making these change ideas stick.
4. Use improvement science to test approaches to improving joy in your organization
Set an aim for how much we want to improve around the kind of days we have. Using Termoclimate, which is a ballot box with ping pong balls, helps people evaluate the workplace climate that day (e.g. if people felt a collaborative and participatory shift that day, put the orange ping pong ball in a bin, and if not, then put an orange ping pong ball in the bin).
This framework has been proven effective in various cases. In one case at a general clinical unit, the percentage of healthcare professionals who agree with the statement “I participate in the decisions related to our work process” increased from 40% to 65%, from June to December 2018. The net promoter score increased from 40 in 2019 to 74 in 2021, and the rate of adverse events with harm to the patient decreased from 9.91 in 2018 to 1.80 in 2021. It has also been used in 90 hospitals and 10 ambulatory units in Brazil.
Read more about IHI Framework for Wellbeing and Joy in Work in this white paper.
Click here for a more detailed guide on the four steps.
I also wanted to note that how you do it is as important as doing it. By bringing in the same practices of psychological safety, participative management, creating meaning and purpose in the work, having a sense of team and camaraderie–those help create the psychologically protective behaviors that we need like empathy, perspective taking, adaptability, flexibility, and agency [to act].
Those are all protective factors for us, so the process itself can help us in taking care of our own wellbeing. And it’s the number one reason why so many of [us] are in the work of organizing… it is about activating people’s agency. – Kate B. Hilton, JD, MTS
As a parting gift… enjoy the Psychology of Change podcast playlist!
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About the Facilitator
Kate B. Hilton, JD, MTS
Co-Founder & Principal, Innovation Capital
Steeped in LCN’s organizing practices since 2003, Kate Hilton has taught and coached thousands of health and health care leaders and organizations around the globe to use community organizing and change management practices to achieve equitable health and wellbeing. Kate is currently a Co-Founder and Principal at Innovation Capital.
She serves as Senior Leadership Faculty at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and the Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity at the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Healthcare Workforce Equity at The George Washington University. Formerly a founding director of ReThink Health, Kate contributes to a leadership academy with the American Health Care Association and a course for building trust funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She supports the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation’s work on organizational trustworthiness and coaches health justice grantees of the Rx Foundation.
Kate is a Principal in Practice of the Leading Change Network, given her many years of organizing in health and teaching with long-time mentor and friend, Marshall Ganz, whose Harvard Executive Education organizing course Kate co-designed and led in 2009-10. Kate authors peer-reviewed articles, conversation guides, and white papers, and is a global keynote speaker on topics such as leadership for health justice, workforce wellbeing and health equity.
Explore Further
- Psychology of Change: Evidence Based Strategies to Create Social Change
- Finding Joy in Resistance: 12 Inspiring Podcasts
- Pathways to Repair: Guides to Navigate Healing, Trust building and Human Messiness
- Movement Memo – Developing Strategic Capacity and Cultivating Collective Care: Towards Community Power
- Activist Burnout Guide with Videos
- 10 Great Resources on Activist Wellbeing