Why Organisations Run on Hope
“It’s the hope that kills you.”
I first heard Gary Lineker use the expression when discussing the fortunes of his beloved Leicester City. Since then it has become part of football folklore. Every supporter knows exactly what it means.
At the start of every season there is renewed optimism. A new manager. A few promising signings. A decent run of results. Maybe this will finally be our year.
By Christmas the dream may already be fading. By spring it may have disappeared completely. Yet somehow hope returns the following season.
The same thing happens in organisations.
Every restructuring, transformation programme, culture change initiative or new Chief Executive arrives carrying hope. Employees begin to imagine that this time things will be different. Decisions will be made more quickly. Resources will improve. Workloads will become manageable. Recognition will finally follow effort. Managers will understand what is really happening on the front line.
In fact, hope may be the most important and least discussed emotion in organisational life.
We spend a lot of time talking about strategy, leadership, performance and culture. We analyse structures, systems and processes. Yet beneath all of these sits something far more emotional.
Organisations run on hope.
Employees invest effort today because they hope tomorrow will be better. They hope for recognition, development, promotion, influence or simply a more manageable working life.
Managers hope for greater autonomy, better resources and support from senior leaders.
Senior leaders hope their initiatives will succeed, their vision will be realised and their organisation will become something better than it is today.
Everyone is investing in a future that does not yet exist.
Hope is the currency.
Hope is not the same as optimism. Optimism assumes success. Hope merely allows for the possibility of success.
Many employees are not optimistic. Experience has cured them of that. They have seen projects delayed, budgets cut, targets revised and promises quietly forgotten.
Yet they remain hopeful.
That is why even the most sceptical workforce still pays attention when a new leader arrives with a new plan.
We can see this happening with AI.
Across organisations there is excitement about increased productivity, reduced administration and more time for higher-value work. The promise of AI sounds remarkably familiar. Better decisions. Greater efficiency. More time to focus on what really matters.
These promises may well prove true.
But many employees have heard similar promises before.
They remember the last major technology programme. The one that promised efficiency but initially created confusion. The one that required staff to run old and new systems side by side for months while problems were fixed. The one that never quite delivered everything that had been promised.
And yet here we are again, listening carefully, wondering whether this time might be different.
Hope has a surprisingly short memory.
Or perhaps hope is stronger than memory.
Every organisation develops its own folklore about hope. Employees can recite the names of transformation programmes from years ago. They remember the launch events, the slogans and the promises. The official documents disappear. The stories remain.
These stories shape how people respond to the next initiative. They become the emotional history of the organisation.
Ironically, the same employees who can list every failed change programme are often the first to ask questions about the next one.
Cynicism is often described as the opposite of hope. In organisations they frequently coexist.
Leadership requires the ability to create belief in a better future. Without that, leadership quickly becomes administration. Nobody follows a leader who says, “I can’t promise things will improve and I don’t expect much to change.”
This creates a tension.
Too little hope and people disengage.
Too much hope and disappointment becomes inevitable.
Leaders are often accused of selling false hope. Sometimes that criticism is justified. Yet most leaders are not cynical salespeople knowingly exaggerating the benefits of change.
More often they are buyers of the very same hope they are selling.
The newly appointed Chief Executive genuinely believes they can transform the organisation. The senior team genuinely believes the new strategy will work. The programme director genuinely believes this change initiative will be different from previous attempts.
New Chief Executives rarely arrive thinking they are the latest chapter in a long cycle of organisational optimism. They arrive believing they can make a difference. Without that belief they would probably not take the job.
Hope is not something leaders manufacture and distribute to employees. It is something they share.
Sometimes they need it even more than everyone else.
Observers often assume people should become entirely cynical after enough failed initiatives. Yet that rarely happens.
Even the most sceptical employee can find themselves listening carefully when a new leader arrives. Even the most cynical manager may find themselves thinking that perhaps this time things really will be different.
Hope is not entirely rational.
Faced with uncertainty, people reach for hope in much the same way a drowning person reaches for a lifebuoy.
The alternative is harder to contemplate.
Repeated disappointment leaves its mark. Employees become more cautious. More sceptical. More resistant to grand claims and ambitious visions.
Yet even accumulated disappointment rarely eliminates hope completely.
It simply makes people more careful about where they place it.
Leaders think they are managing budgets, performance targets and organisational structures. They are.
But they are also managing expectations, belief and hope.
Handle it carefully and people will attempt difficult things, persevere through uncertainty and commit to change.
Abuse it and cynicism grows.
But organisations cannot function without it.
Because before commitment, before effort, before change and before disappointment comes one thing.
Hope.
blairmcpherson.co.uk
