The Carrot, Not the Stick: How to Build Capability and Bring Everyone Along for the Journey

Fear gets attention. Hope gets action. Here's how to transform your organisation without leaving anyone behind.

Yesterday (or maybe a few days ago by the time you read this), I had a conversation that changed how I think about everything I'm trying to do with Teachnology.

I was talking with someone I deeply respect. A leader who has successfully transformed organisations, built high-performing teams, and navigated the kind of change that breaks most people. We were discussing the state of enterprise technology, the capability crisis, the dependency trap. All the things I write about.

I was on a roll, describing the burning platforms. The talent exodus. The vendor lock-in. The organisations that have forgotten how to build. I was passionate, articulate, and (I realise now) relentlessly negative.

He listened patiently. Then he said something I haven't stopped thinking about:

"Jason, you're right about all of this. But if you want people to actually change, you need to give them something to run toward, not just something to run away from. Fear gets attention. Hope gets action."

He was right.

The organisations that successfully transform aren't the ones that scare people into changing. They're the ones that make the future so compelling that people want to be part of building it.

I sat with that. I'm still sitting with it.

The Problem with Burning Platforms

The "burning platform" is a classic change management metaphor. The story goes: workers on an oil rig faced a fire and had to choose between certain death on the platform or possible death jumping into freezing water. They jumped. The lesson: people only change when the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of changing.

It's a powerful metaphor. It's also incomplete.

Burning platforms create movement, but they don't create direction. People will jump off, but where do they land? Fear-driven change produces compliance, not commitment. People do the minimum to escape the immediate threat, then return to familiar patterns as soon as the crisis passes.

I've seen this play out dozens of times:

The organisation that announced layoffs to "create urgency" around transformation. People changed. They updated their résumés and left. The ones who stayed were too afraid to take risks. The transformation stalled.

The IT leader who used vendor horror stories to push for internal capability. The team became paranoid about vendors but didn't develop confidence in building. They traded one form of paralysis for another.

The executive who constantly reminded people that competitors were ahead, that disruption was coming, that jobs were at risk. The culture became anxious and defensive. Innovation dried up because failure felt too dangerous.

Fear works in the short term. It gets attention. It creates urgency. But it doesn't sustain change. And it certainly doesn't build capability.

Capability requires confidence. Confidence requires psychological safety. Psychological safety is incompatible with chronic fear.

You can't scare people into becoming builders.

What the Research Actually Says

Let me put on my educator hat for a moment, because the science here is clear.

Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan) identifies three fundamental psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When these needs are met, people are intrinsically motivated: they engage because the work itself is meaningful. When these needs are threatened, motivation becomes extrinsic: people engage only to avoid punishment or gain reward.

Fear-based change threatens all three:

Autonomy disappears when you're running from a fire

Competence feels irrelevant when survival is at stake

Relatedness fractures when everyone is competing for lifeboats

Carol Dweck's research on mindsets shows that people with a growth mindset (those who believe capabilities can be developed) outperform those with a fixed mindset. But fear triggers fixed mindset responses. When we feel threatened, we protect our ego rather than stretch our abilities. We avoid challenges rather than embrace them.

Amy Edmondson's work on psychological safety demonstrates that high-performing teams share a common trait: members feel safe to take interpersonal risks. They can admit mistakes, ask questions, propose ideas without fear of humiliation. Burning platform rhetoric destroys psychological safety. If failure means death (metaphorical or professional), nobody will risk failing.

Prosci's ADKAR model, which I'm certified in, breaks change into five elements: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement. Notice that Desire comes before Knowledge and Ability. You can't skill people up until they want to change. And "want" is an emotional state. Fear can create awareness of the need for change, but it rarely creates genuine desire. Desire comes from believing the future state is better than the current state.

The research converges on a simple truth: sustainable change requires positive motivation. People need to believe the journey is worth taking and that they're capable of taking it.

The Carrot: What It Actually Looks Like

So what's the alternative? How do you create urgency without fear? How do you drive change without burning platforms?

You paint a picture of the future that's so compelling people want to help build it.

This isn't about being naive or ignoring real challenges. It's about shifting the emotional centre of gravity from "what we're escaping" to "what we're creating."

Here's what that looks like in practice:

1. Lead with Possibility, Not Threat

Instead of: "If we don't build AI capability, we'll be disrupted and people will lose their jobs."

Try: "Imagine if every person in this organisation could build tools to solve their own problems. Imagine the innovation that would unlock. That's what we're building toward."

Instead of: "Our competitors are already doing this. We're falling behind."

Try: "There's an opportunity right now to become the organisation that others try to copy. We have everything we need to get there."

Instead of: "The consultants are extracting value from us. We need to stop the bleeding."

Try: "What if we could solve our own problems? What if we had teams who could build exactly what we need, when we need it? That capability is within reach."

The facts might be the same. The framing is completely different. One makes people defensive. The other makes people curious.

2. Make the First Steps Achievable

Change feels impossible when the gap between current state and future state is overwhelming. The answer isn't to minimise the gap. It's to break it into steps that feel achievable.

This is where capability building has a huge advantage over other types of transformation. You can demonstrate progress quickly.

Week 1: Someone builds their first small automation. It works. They feel the rush of creation.

Week 4: A team ships an internal tool that solves a real problem. People use it. The team feels pride.

Month 3: A project that would have taken six months with vendors is done in six weeks internally. The organisation starts to believe.

Each win builds confidence. Each success makes the next step feel more possible. The future stops being an abstract destination and starts being a series of achievable milestones.

3. Celebrate Publicly and Specifically

Recognition is one of the most powerful tools leaders have, and one of the most underused.

When someone takes a risk and builds something, celebrate it. Not with generic "great job" praise, but with specific, public acknowledgment of what they did and why it matters.

"Sarah built an automation that saves the accounts team four hours a week. She'd never written code before. She learnt, she tried, she shipped. That's exactly what we're trying to become."

This does multiple things:

It reinforces the behaviour you want to see

It shows others what's possible

It builds Sarah's confidence and identity as a builder

It creates social proof that capability building is valued here

The stories you tell become the culture you create. Tell stories of builders, learners, and people who tried.

4. Protect People from Premature Judgment

Nothing kills capability building faster than punishing early failures. If the first person who tries something new gets criticised when it doesn't work perfectly, nobody will be second.

Leaders need to explicitly protect the learning phase:

"We're going to try some things that might not work. That's intentional. I will personally shield anyone who takes smart risks from political consequences. The only failure that concerns me is the failure to try."

And then you have to actually do it. When something doesn't work, you model the response you want: "What did we learn? What will we try next?" Not: "Who's responsible? What went wrong?"

This is Edmondson's psychological safety in action. It has to be demonstrated, not just declared.

5. Connect Individual Growth to Organisational Purpose

People want to know their work matters. They want to grow. They want to be part of something larger than themselves.

Capability building offers all of this, if you frame it right.

"When you learn to build, you're not just gaining a skill. You're becoming someone who can solve problems that don't have solutions yet. You're becoming more valuable to this organisation and to your career. And you're helping us become an organisation that can create its own future instead of buying it from vendors."

This connects personal development to organisational transformation. It makes capability building feel like an opportunity, not an obligation.

The ADKAR Model: A Framework for Positive Change

Let me walk through how this plays out using Prosci's ADKAR model, which I've used in dozens of transformations.

Awareness

People need to understand why change is necessary. This is where most organisations default to fear: "The burning platform! The existential threat! The competitors eating our lunch!"

But awareness can come from positive framing too:

"There's an opportunity we haven't captured. AI has made it possible for small teams to build things that used to require armies. Organisations that develop this capability will have advantages that can't be bought. We want to be one of those organisations."

Same urgency. Different emotional register.

Desire

This is where my mentor was right. You can't scare people into wanting to change. Desire comes from:

Believing the future state is better than the current state

Believing you can personally succeed in the future state

Believing the journey will be supported, not punished

How do you build desire? Stories of possibility. Early wins that people can see. Leaders who model the behaviour. Protection from premature judgment. Clear articulation of "what's in it for me."

"The people who develop building capability will be the most valuable people in this organisation. They'll have skills that are rare and getting rarer. They'll be able to solve problems nobody else can solve. I want everyone to have access to that opportunity."

Knowledge

Once people want to change, they need to know how. This is the training, the resources, the documentation, the mentorship.

But knowledge alone isn't enough. I've seen organisations invest heavily in training programmes that nobody uses. The training exists, but the desire doesn't.

Knowledge must come after desire is established. And knowledge delivery must be psychologically safe. People need to feel okay not knowing yet.

"Nobody expects you to know this already. We're all learning together. The resources are here when you're ready. Ask questions. Make mistakes. That's how this works."

Ability

Knowledge is theoretical. Ability is practical. The gap between them is bridged by practice, feedback, and time.

This is where protected time for building matters. Where sandbox environments matter. Where mentorship and pairing matter. Where early projects are chosen for learning potential, not just business value.

"Your first build doesn't have to be perfect. It has to be real. We're building muscle here, and muscles develop through use."

Reinforcement

Change doesn't stick without reinforcement. People revert to old patterns when the attention fades, when leaders move on to the next priority, when the daily grind overwhelms the transformation agenda.

Reinforcement is:

Continued recognition of building behaviour

Metrics that track capability development

Leaders who keep talking about it, visibly prioritising it

Systems that make building easier than not building

Stories that keep being told

"Six months ago, we started this journey. Look at what we've built. Look at who's building. This is who we're becoming."

The Psychology of Transformation

Let me go deeper on the psychology, because understanding why this works makes it easier to do consistently.

Identity Shift

The most powerful changes are identity changes. Not "I'm doing something different" but "I'm becoming someone different."

When someone goes from "I'm not technical" to "I'm someone who can build things," that's an identity shift. It's durable in a way that behavioural change isn't. They'll keep building because that's who they are now.

Fear-based change doesn't create identity shifts. It creates compliance that evaporates when the fear subsides. Positive change, when supported, celebrated, and connected to personal growth, creates new identities.

Your job as a leader is to help people see themselves as builders before they've built anything significant. "You're a builder. You just haven't built much yet. Let's change that."

Social Proof and Permission

Humans are social creatures. We look to others to understand what's possible and permissible.

When one person builds something successfully, others see that building is possible here. When leaders celebrate that person, others see that building is valued here. When that person is protected from criticism during the learning phase, others see that building is safe here.

Every visible builder gives permission to potential builders. Every celebrated win becomes evidence that the future state is achievable.

This is why early wins matter so much. Not for their direct value, but for their social proof. "If they can do it, maybe I can do it."

Loss Aversion and Framing

Kahneman's research shows that people feel losses more intensely than equivalent gains. This is why burning platforms get attention: they emphasise potential loss.

But the same psychology can work for positive change. Frame capability building as avoiding a loss:

"Every day you're not building, you're falling behind. Not behind competitors. Behind your potential. Behind the skills you could have. Behind the impact you could make. You're losing opportunity."

This uses loss aversion without creating fear. The loss isn't your job or your security. It's your growth, your potential, your future self.

Autonomy and Ownership

People support what they help create. This is basic psychology, but transformation programmes routinely ignore it.

If capability building is something done to people (mandated training, required certifications, forced adoption) it generates resistance. If it's something done with people (co-designed, responsive to feedback, owned by participants) it generates commitment.

"What would you build if you could build anything? What problems would you solve? Let's figure out how to make that possible."

Autonomy doesn't mean absence of direction. It means involvement in shaping the direction. It means choices within constraints. It means feeling like a participant, not a passenger.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Let me paint a picture of an organisation doing this well.

Monday morning all-hands:

The leader doesn't start with threats or warnings. She starts with a story:

"Last week, the procurement team faced a problem. They needed to reconcile data from three different systems. A task that usually takes two days of manual work every month. Instead of submitting a ticket and waiting six months for IT, Maria learnt enough to build an automation over two afternoons. It's not perfect. It's not enterprise-grade. But it works. And now her team has two days back every month. That's 24 days a year. A full month of human capacity, created by someone who'd never built anything before. That's what I want everyone to have access to. That's the organisation we're building."

The team meeting:

The manager doesn't demand adoption of new tools. She asks questions:

"What's the most annoying part of your job? The thing you do every week that feels like it should be easier? What if we could experiment with making it easier? No pressure. No deadlines. Just curiosity about what's possible."

The one-on-one:

The senior leader doesn't evaluate. He explores:

"Where do you want to grow? What skills do you wish you had? If you could build anything to make your work better, what would it be? Let's talk about how to make that happen."

The Slack channel:

It's not called "transformation updates" or "capability building programme." It's called "#things-we-built" or "#learning-out-loud." People share what they're trying, what they're stuck on, what worked and what didn't. Leaders engage, ask questions, offer help. Nobody gets criticised for failures. Everyone gets recognised for trying.

The quarterly review:

The metrics aren't just adoption rates and training completions. They're stories. "47 people built their first automation this quarter. Here are three of them talking about what they learnt." The dashboard shows experiments run, not just successes achieved. The narrative is about growth, not compliance.

This is an organisation running toward something, not running away from something. The urgency is real, but it's fuelled by possibility, not fear.

The Hard Part: Being Patient

Here's what the conversation with my mentor didn't prepare me for: positive change is slower than fear-based change.

When you scare people, they move immediately. When you inspire people, they move sustainably. But it takes longer to get momentum.

This requires patience that most leaders don't have. It requires faith that the early investments will compound. It requires resisting the temptation to reach for the stick when the carrot feels too slow.

I've watched leaders start with positive framing, get frustrated with the pace, and revert to fear. "I tried being encouraging, but nothing happened, so now I'm going to be direct about the consequences."

The switch destroys trust. People learn that the positive stuff was just manipulation. A thin layer over the same old fear-based management. They become cynical. The next attempt at positive change is poisoned before it starts.

Commitment to the carrot means commitment even when it's slow. It means celebrating small wins when you want big ones. It means maintaining hope when progress is invisible. It means believing that sustainable change is worth more than fast change.

The Balance: Honest Optimism

I want to be clear: this isn't about toxic positivity. It's not about pretending everything is fine or ignoring real challenges.

The balance is what I'd call honest optimism:

Honest about the current state. Things aren't working. Capability has atrophied. The gap is real.

Optimistic about the future state. It can be different. We can build it. The path exists.

Honest about the difficulty. This is hard. It takes time. Not everyone will make it.

Optimistic about people's potential. Most people can learn. Most people want to grow. Most people will rise to the occasion if given the chance.

Honest optimism isn't naive. It's clear-eyed about challenges and confident about possibilities. It doesn't minimise problems. It contextualises them as obstacles on a journey worth taking.

"This is hard. We're going to struggle sometimes. But I believe we can do it, and I believe it's worth doing. Are you with me?"

My Commitment

That conversation with my mentor changed something in me.

I've spent a lot of words describing what's broken. The capability crisis. The vendor trap. The consultant industrial complex. The meetings where ideas go to die. The developers updating their LinkedIn. The $2 million platforms nobody uses.

All of it true. All of it important to name.

But naming the problem isn't enough. And fear of the problem doesn't create change.

So here's my commitment:

For every article I write about what's broken, I'll write one about what's possible. For every burning platform I describe, I'll paint a picture of the future that makes the journey worth taking. For every warning, I'll offer hope.

Because he was right. You can't scare people into becoming builders. You have to show them a future worth building, then help them believe they can build it.

The organisations that successfully transform won't be the ones that were most afraid. They'll be the ones that were most inspired.

The capability crisis is real. So is the capability opportunity.

Let's build toward it together.

The Invitation

If you've read this far, you're probably someone who cares about building capability. Maybe you're a leader trying to transform your organisation. Maybe you're an individual trying to develop your own skills. Maybe you're somewhere in between.

Wherever you are, here's what I want you to take away:

The future is buildable. The capability that seems impossible today can be real in a year. The skills you don't have yet can be developed. The organisation you wish you worked for can be created.

You can be part of building it. Whatever your role, whatever your background, you can contribute to this transformation. Builders don't come from a special factory. They come from people who decided to try.

The journey is worth taking. Not because the burning platform demands it. Because the destination is genuinely better. Because growth is its own reward. Because building things is one of the most satisfying human experiences.

You don't have to do it alone. Find allies. Find mentors. Find communities of people who are on the same journey. The path is easier when you're not walking it solo.

This is the carrot. Not a manipulative incentive to get compliance. A genuine invitation to build something better.

The capable organisation isn't just an organisation that can build software. It's an organisation where people grow, where problems get solved, where creativity is unleashed, where the future is shaped rather than received.

That's worth running toward.

Are you in?