Ep11 The Change Equation

Introduction

Geoff Watts:

Hello, and welcome to the Agile Skills Library. I’m Geoff Watts, and I’m here with my good friend and colleague, Paul Goddard.

We’ve created this podcast to share our favourite tools and techniques from the last 50 years between us — helping teams and organisations become more effective at whatever it is they do.

In every episode, we’ll explain a specific technique and share a downloadable template to help you put it into practice.

Thanks for listening — and welcome back to the Agile Skills Library, where Paul and I share practical agile tools you can use to help yourself, your team, and your organisation become more effective.

In this episode, we’re looking at something we call the Coaching Equation for Change. Bit of a mouthful — but essentially it’s a simple tool you can use when you’re coaching someone, or supporting a team, to make a change they want to make.

That distinction matters. This isn’t about forcing change you want — it’s about helping people act on changes they’ve already identified.

For example, maybe a team keeps coming up with great retrospective actions… but never actually puts them into practice. Or maybe someone you’re coaching wants to build confidence — perhaps presenting at a leadership all-hands — but they’re nervous.

This model can help.

So Paul — change is hard. Why don’t people just make the changes they say they want to make?

Why Change Is Hard

Paul Goddard:

Well, I’m very guilty of this myself.

There are lots of things I’d like to change about myself — but I put them off because they feel too difficult, too time-consuming, and life just gets in the way.

For example, I’d love to be a stone lighter. I’ve wanted that for the last three years. But other things always take priority.

This tool helps me understand the levers I can pull to make change stick — or at least give myself a better chance of success.

Whether it’s a behaviour, a skill, a new role, or even something like losing weight, it helps me see which parts of the equation I can influence to improve my odds.

Geoff Watts:

Exactly. Change is hard.

We all have good intentions. Anyone who’s set New Year’s resolutions — or run a retrospective and generated great ideas — knows how easy it is to fall off the wagon.

So yes, this is an equation. A formula.

Paul Goddard:

Hang on — it better not involve maths. You know how bad I am at maths.

Geoff Watts:

It is a formula — but don’t worry. You don’t need to be good at maths.

Think of it like E = mc². You don’t need to fully understand physics — just that it’s a relationship between a few elements.

The Coaching Equation for Change is:

P × B > C

In plain terms:

For any change to stick, the benefit of the change (B), multiplied by the probability of success (P), must be greater than the cost (C).

Let’s walk through each part.

B — Benefit

Geoff Watts:

First, B for Benefit.

Any change worth making has to deliver something valuable to you — otherwise it won’t happen.

A lot of the things we procrastinate on sit on our to-do list because we haven’t really internalised why we want to do them.

“Because I should” or “because someone else wants me to” usually isn’t enough.

So the first coaching move is to explore: What will genuinely be better for me if I do this?

Let’s go back to your example — losing a stone. What would be better for you if you did?

Paul Goddard:

On a day-to-day level, I think I’d feel healthier. I’d have more energy. I’d probably run my Saturday Parkrun faster — carrying less weight around.

If I go deeper, from a mental health perspective, I think I’d feel happier and better about myself. And that would affect everything I do — and everyone I live with.

And longer term, there are health benefits too — less strain on my heart, potentially adding years to my life.

Geoff Watts:

That’s a great range of benefits — short-term, long-term, physical, emotional, values-based.

You don’t need certainty here — thinking those benefits will happen is often enough. Later we can test them as experiments.

There’s no single “right” benefit. Some are superficial — ticking something off a list, rewarding yourself. Others are deep — identity, values, who you want to be.

A coach can really help here by surfacing and naming those benefits clearly — not inventing them, just bringing them into focus.

C — Cost

Geoff Watts:

But there are always costs.

People often underestimate how hard change will be — especially at the start. January enthusiasm fades quickly.

So what are the costs for you?

Paul Goddard:

Well… I don’t get to eat that hot cross bun I wanted this morning. I can’t have crisps every day. Eating is my joy.

There’s time — more exercise, fewer pub nights. Maybe a gym membership — financial cost. And honestly? Pain. Effort. Misery.

Geoff Watts:

This is really important — because you’ve surfaced some assumptions.

For example: is it really impossible to lose weight and enjoy food?

Paul Goddard:

Probably not, no.

Geoff Watts:

Exactly. Until you name those perceived costs, they sit in the background and quietly block you.

Some costs are exaggerated. Others are real — but manageable once acknowledged.

We’re attached to the status quo, even when it’s suboptimal. Naming what we feel we’re losing helps us let go of it consciously.

At a basic level, this is a cost-benefit equation. If the benefits don’t outweigh the costs, we won’t act — and sometimes that’s a perfectly valid conclusion.

But usually, there’s more to it.

P — Probability of Success

Paul Goddard:

So where does the P come in?

Geoff Watts:

There’s always a chance a change won’t work.

Teams want more ownership — they see the benefits — but there’s a risk it fails. Humans are loss-averse and risk-averse.

So even if benefits outweigh costs, we discount them because success isn’t guaranteed.

That’s why P matters.

But here’s the twist: if you’ve tried something before and it failed, you now have data. You’ve narrowed the options.

Sometimes we don’t act because there are too many choices. Failed experiments reduce uncertainty.

And the best way to increase probability?

Make the change smaller.

Small experiments. Short feedback loops. Evidence of progress.

You’re not going to lose a stone overnight — but you can notice more energy, better mood, encouragement from others.

That keeps momentum going.

Making Change Stick

Geoff Watts:

There are lots of ways to increase probability:

• habits and routines
• constraints (e.g. one improvement per sprint)
• accountability partners
• social commitment
• pre-mortems: How might this fail?

When I was doing rehab exercises I hated, I told my kids I’d do them every day — and let them “punish” me if I didn’t. Suddenly I cared.

That tapped into a deeper driver: the kind of dad I want to be.

Paul Goddard:

That emotional connection seems more powerful than data.

Geoff Watts:

Exactly.

Numbers don’t motivate — meaning does.

Ask questions like:

• Why should you bother?
• Why does that matter?
• If this were already true tomorrow, how would that feel?

That helps bypass temporal discounting — where future benefits feel less real than immediate costs.

Make the future vivid now.

Wrapping Up

Paul Goddard:

So what’s next?

Geoff Watts:

We’re sharing a simple Change Equation canvas you can use on your own or with others — to clarify benefits, costs, and ways to improve the odds.

And as future episodes come out, you’ll see how other techniques plug into this equation — increasing benefits, reducing costs, or improving probability.

Paul Goddard:

Brilliant.

If you’ve got a challenge you’d like help with, get in touch. We can always fast-track something from our Agile Skills catalogue to the top of the backlog.

Thanks for listening — and make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Geoff Watts:

Cheers, all.