The Power of ‘We get to’

Last week I sat with a leadership team planning their response to a mandated change. Within minutes, the language in the room shifted into a familiar pattern. “We have to get this implemented by Term 2.” “We have to bring the staff along.” “We have to ensure everyone’s aligned.” The energy visibly dropped with each sentence. No one seemed to notice.

Here is what I have learned supporting schools through mandated change – whether in curriculum, teaching frameworks, assessment or inclusion policy: when the work is genuinely obligatory, “we have to” becomes the default narrative. Over time that narrative drains the collective momentum you need to drive implementation forward.

The idea: Look for the “we get to” inside every “we have to”

Even when change is mandated, you can find genuine opportunities worth emphasising. Making that shift in narrative can unlock energy, creativity and momentum.

30-Second Version

• Mandated change work defaults to “we have to” language, which signals obligation and removes agency.
• “We have to” is poor fuel for sustained change. It limits creative thinking and elicits procrastination.
• Finding genuine “we get to” elements inside obligatory work takes deliberate leadership effort.
• Even partial reframes can unlock significant energy and commitment from your team.

The Full Read

Most of the change work landing on your desk this year is not your choice. System directives. Compliance requirements. Mandated curriculum, pedagogy or assessment shifts. You did not get to decide whether to do this work. You only get to decide how you will approach it.

That is where the narrative matters.

When change is genuinely obligatory, it is easy to slip into “we have to” language. We have to implement this. We have to get staff on board. We have to meet the deadline. It feels accurate. After all, you literally do have to do it.

But here is the problem: “we have to” is poor fuel for the kind of sustained effort that meaningful change requires. It signals that this work is being done to you, not with you. It removes agency. It activates compliance thinking instead of creative problem-solving. People will do what is required, but they will protect their energy and creativity for other things.

Start with yourself

Before you think about your team, start with yourself. When you think about the major mandated initiative currently on your plate, which story are you living in? “We have to do this because the system says so”? Or “We get to use this as a chance to improve something that matters”?

If you find yourself procrastinating on this work, feeling unusually frustrated, or talking about it as something to “just get through”, you are probably already in the “we have to” mindset.

Notice your own language over the next few days. Pay attention to how you describe the work in leadership meetings, in emails, in corridor conversations. If you catch yourself repeatedly saying “we have to”, that is useful information. It tells you something about the narrative you are constructing.

Once you have clarity on where you are, check in with your core leadership team as well. Where are they on this work? If your senior leaders are living in the “we have to” story, it will be almost impossible for anyone else to move beyond it. Staff listen very closely to how leaders talk about change.

Find the opportunity

The unlock comes from doing the creative work to find “we get to” elements inside the work you genuinely have to do. This is not spin. It is not pretending the mandate does not exist. It is asking a harder question: “If we do this well, what might genuinely be better for our students, our colleagues or our community?”

No matter how challenging or mundane the mandate feels, there is almost always a way to connect the work to outcomes that genuinely matter for your students, your staff or your school community. That question forces you to get specific. Not vague positivity. Real impact.

Perhaps the mandated literacy framework gives you a pathway to finally improve reading outcomes for your struggling learners. Perhaps the new assessment requirements create an excuse to build the consistent moderation practices your team has wanted but never prioritised. Perhaps the compliance work around wellbeing opens the door to simplify the patchwork of disconnected programmes you have been running. Perhaps this work becomes an opportunity for your team to build new expertise in an area they will use for years to come.

When you spend creative energy finding those connections, something shifts. The work still has to get done. But the narrative is now about opportunity, not just obligation. You reduce procrastination because the work connects to something meaningful. You unlock creativity because people are not just ticking boxes. You build momentum because your team feels like active problem-solvers, not passive recipients.

The whole initiative might not feel like a “we get to”. That is fine. The goal is not to transform every mandated change into joyful opportunity. The goal is to find some genuine “we get to” elements worth emphasising. That partial reframe alone can release significant energy.

We spend weeks building change management plans. We design monitoring frameworks. We create professional learning sequences. But we often miss this: the narrative you use every single day in casual conversation is either amplifying all that work or quietly undermining it.

The work has to get done either way. You might as well choose a narrative that helps.

Small step → This week, pick one mandated change initiative currently on your plate. Ask yourself and your core leadership team: “If we do this well, what might genuinely be better for our students, our colleagues or our community?”

Draw out concrete answers. Write down at least two specific “we get to” elements you can genuinely stand behind. Then begin using that language consistently when you talk about the work with staff.

Notice what shifts when you look for the “we get to” inside the “we have to”.