The laptop on which I write this has an i7 core 2.8 GHz processor, 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 memory, Intel HD Graphics 630 1536 MB, bluetooth, iBridge, and so on. What does most of this mean? I don’t know. Is it what I need? I don’t know, it works for me, so I guess so. Why did I buy this one and not one of the other thousand options out there? Because it was familiar, because of how it looks, how it feels, how it makes me feel.

I bought it because of the story I tell myself about it, not because of the specs. I don’t think I am alone in this.

Yet we try to sell our products/services or get people to change by talking about specifications all the time. We talk about efficiencies, effectiveness, cost savings, which are all different specifications, but how often do you wake up asking yourself ‘how can I be 5% more efficient today?’. No, we think about how we need to be able to pick up our daughter from school or how we hope our boss is happy with our presentation and that she will give us a nod of approval.

We like our phones because it is easy now to share photos of our kids with their family members across the world; because we like the feeling of connection. We resist change because of fear, anxiety, insecurity; it is rarely about the specifications – we debate the specs as a form of hiding.

When we create change, I know I am guilty of talking about the specifications of the change and I forget about the emotions, how about you?