Michael is an over-achiever who has written 10 books about change, the future and human behaviour. I’ve written one, and it was mostly about gin.
I invited Michael onto my new podcast, StoryWork, because I always leave our conversations thinking differently. But if I’m honest, I probably didn’t expect one of the biggest lessons from this conversation to be about startups. After all, aren’t I the so-called entrepreneur who co-founded and sold a gin company?
As it turned out, Michael wasn’t trying to teach me about startups. He was just telling me what he’s learned about what it takes to change people’s minds and bring people with you.
Every founder eventually discovers that building a business has surprisingly little to do with just building a great product. It’s also about building the belief that there is a better way, and changing the minds of anyone who might have doubts about your ambitions. Investors have to back a vision that doesn’t yet fully exist.
Employees have to leave comfortable jobs to join you in your moonshot. Customers have to abandon habits they’ve spent years forming. Partners have to trust that your way of doing things is better than the old one.
In other words, building a startup is one long exercise in changing minds. Most founders understandably assume the best way to do that is through inspiration. Paint a bigger vision, tell a more compelling story and project absolute certainty. But often I suspect we’re trying to solve the wrong problem.
When we seek to change someone’s mind we’re really asking them to abandon a previously held belief and position. This is where Michael’s insight into the human psyche is really important.
People aren’t afraid of change, he told me. They’re afraid of loss. Michael explained that when people resist change of any kind, they’re rarely resisting the future itself or rejecting the positive upside you’re offering. Instead, they’re protecting something they fear losing. It might be familiarity. It might be influence.
Often it’s simply their pride and the fear of looking foolish as their old worldview is disproven and replaced.
Once you start actively looking for this truth, you’ll start seeing it everywhere.
Founders think they’re selling upside. The person sitting across the table is calculating downside.
The founder sees an exciting new opportunity. The employee sees the secure salary they’re about to leave.
The founder offers equity. The candidate sees shares that might one day be worth nothing.
The founder sees innovation. The customer sees a trusted solution they’re being asked to stop using.
We’re usually discussing exactly the same decision. But often we’re standing on opposite sides of it.
Listening to Michael, I realised I’ve made exactly the same mistake myself. Probably multiple times.
When we launched Four Pillars Gin, I loved talking about everything that made us different. The product. The experience. The possibility of helping create a new Australian gin category. What I underestimated was the importance of reassurance.
For a while it didn’t matter. Our earliest customers were gin obsessives. They actively sought out new brands, new flavours and new experiences. But as we grew, we needed to convince people who were less interested in novelty and more wary of unfamiliarity.
Asking someone to buy Four Pillars Gin meant asking them to put back the familiar bottle of Hendrick’s they’d trusted for years. So we didn’t stop telling inspiring stories. But we became much more aware of the need to reduce the perceived downside risk of trying something new.
Michael’s second big insight explained how leaders effectively earn the right to reassure. He argued that the most persuasive leaders don’t lead with certainty. They actually lead with vulnerability.
At first, that feels wrong. Startup culture celebrates certainty. Founders are expected to have all the answers, project unwavering confidence and convince everyone that success is inevitable.
But if the people around you are worried about what they might lose, pretending there is no risk doesn’t build trust.
Acknowledging the risk does. It tells people you’ve seen the sacrifice they’re being asked to make. It tells them their hesitation is rational. It tells them they’re understood. And showing uncertainty and vulnerability has a measurable effect on people’s attention: it draws them in and gets them listening more deeply.
It increases their receptiveness to what comes next.
The risk of not getting this right is material.
We ask customers to abandon years of accumulated habits in favour of our new products. We ask talented people to leave secure jobs for uncertain futures. We pitch investors on exponential upside while forgetting they’re also calculating downside risk.
No amount of inspiration makes those fears disappear. Whereas actually having the confidence to say “I don’t know”, to acknowledge their doubts and to share their fears (while never backing away from your bold ambition) might be the things that earn you the right to be heard more.
That’s what I’ll remember most from my conversation with Michael McQueen.
That leaders (including founders) consistently overestimate the power of inspiration and confidence and underestimate the importance of vulnerability and reassurance.
So perhaps the founders who bring people with them most effectively aren’t always the ones who project absolute certainty. Instead, they’re the ones who are confident enough to acknowledge uncertainty, honest enough to recognise what people stand to lose and generous enough to reassure people before asking them to believe.
Talking of vulnerability, I fear I haven’t done the depth of Michael’s research and thinking justice in this quick snapshot.
So I hope you tune in to the whole conversation and see what you take from Michael’s extraordinary mind.
- The StoryWork podcast with Matt Jones, exploring the role of story in building brands, businesses, movements, and ideas, is available on Spotify, Apple, Youtube and Substack.
Matt is a keynote speaker and brand growth adviser at Think Story Experience.
