People might do what you ask them to do for a number of reasons. It might be your charisma, or the position you hold, or fear, or compliance, or perhaps a new rule you just came up with. It is possible to get people to do things they don’t want to do. In fact, it is not even that difficult. But that is not change.

For change to happen, for it to bring a positive impact on the people around you and your environment, there needs to be a conversation. To build rapport, to draft a common way to view the world, to list a series of actions that might make sense in that world, and to eventually agree on which ones we will pursue that will make that world better.

It is extremely difficult, and that’s why many take the shortcut and jump right into the actions that will make the world better – essentially a list of tasks that they think might be the right thing to do.

It never has a lasting impact.