There are ideas I prepare before a speech.
I write them down, arrange them, test the language, and decide which stories can help people understand them. By the time I step onto the stage, I usually know where I want to bring the audience.
But some of my best ideas did not exist in the same form before I began speaking.
They appeared while I was talking.
One of those ideas came during a speech about leadership and change.
I do not remember the exact date or every detail of the event. I remember standing before the audience, trying to explain why change often fails even when leaders have good intentions.
Leaders announce a new direction. They present the plan, explain the urgency, and ask everyone to commit. The change sounds important, so the expected action also becomes large.
Transform the culture.
Improve performance.
Become more innovative.
Take greater ownership.
Work as one team.
These are worthy ambitions. But they can feel distant from what people will actually do after the meeting.
I wanted the audience to see that gap.
Leaders often announce the destination
A leader may tell people where the organization needs to go.
That is part of the job.
People need direction. They need to understand the purpose, the challenge, and the result the organization hopes to create.
But a destination is not yet a movement.
Telling people to become more accountable does not show them what accountability looks like during the next meeting. Asking them to become innovative does not identify the idea they should test this week. Calling for collaboration does not resolve the broken handoff between two departments.
The large word remains suspended above the daily work.
As I spoke, I could feel that the audience understood the problem. People had heard many declarations about change. Some had probably made similar declarations themselves.
But I had not yet found the clearest way to explain what should happen next.
I kept talking.
I began describing the first move
I told the audience that leaders often make change unnecessarily large at the beginning.
They announce the complete transformation before helping people experience one meaningful difference.
A manager wants a more open team, so the manager tells everyone to speak freely. But during the next meeting, the same people dominate the conversation.
A company wants greater initiative, so leaders tell employees to take ownership. But every small decision still requires several approvals.
An organization wants people to learn from mistakes, but the first failed experiment becomes evidence that someone should never have tried.
The announcement and the experience contradict one another.
At that point, I began talking about small steps.
Not small steps as a way of lowering ambition.
Not small steps because the goal does not matter.
Small steps because people need evidence that change is real.
A leader can say that everyone’s voice matters. But one meeting in which the leader invites a quiet employee to speak—and listens seriously—creates more evidence than another campaign about openness.
A company can declare that it supports innovation. But allowing one team to test one responsible idea creates proof that experimentation is truly permitted.
A manager can talk about trust. But delegating one meaningful decision and supporting the employee who makes it allows trust to become visible.
As I explained these examples, the idea became clearer to me.
The sentence arrived while I was speaking
I said something like this:
Small steps do not merely create small results. Small steps create the evidence that change is possible.
I paused.
The sentence had not appeared in my notes.
I had not planned it as a punch line. It emerged while I was trying to help the audience understand what I had been seeing in organizations.
I heard myself say it and thought, That is good.
It may sound strange to become surprised by your own idea. But that is sometimes what happens when I speak.
The thought may already be forming somewhere inside me. I may have seen examples of it in classrooms, workshops, leadership meetings, and conversations. But the idea remains incomplete until I try to express it.
Speaking forces the pieces to meet.
One example connects with another. A sentence becomes more precise. A distinction I had not noticed becomes visible.
I was not merely presenting my thinking.
I was thinking through the presentation.
A small step changes what people believe
After the speech, I continued examining the idea.
Why do small steps matter so much during change?
The obvious answer is that they make a large goal manageable. A person who cannot complete the whole project today can still write one page, call one customer, or make one decision.
But there is another reason.
A small step changes what people believe about the environment.
Suppose leaders tell employees to speak honestly.
At first, employees may remain cautious. They remember what happened the last time someone disagreed. The new message sounds encouraging, but the old experience remains stronger.
Then one person raises a difficult issue.
The leader listens.
The leader does not punish the person, dismiss the concern, or explain why the employee is wrong. Instead, the leader asks questions and addresses the issue seriously.
That single moment does not transform the entire culture.
But it changes the evidence.
People now have one experience suggesting that honesty may be safer than it was before.
The next person becomes slightly more willing to speak.
One small action changes what becomes possible for the next action.
Momentum is built through proof
We often try to motivate people with promises about the future.
“Things will become better.”
“We are building a new culture.”
“This time will be different.”
But people who have experienced several failed initiatives may no longer be persuaded by promises.
They want proof.
Proof does not require the entire transformation to be complete. It requires something observable.
A delayed decision is made.
A broken process is repaired.
A leader keeps one commitment.
An employee’s idea receives a response.
A difficult conversation happens without destroying the relationship.
Each move becomes evidence.
That evidence creates willingness for the next move. This is how momentum begins—not as a burst of emotion, but as a growing belief that action can produce a result.
This is part of the value I try to create when speaking to leaders and teams. The message should not remain above the work as another inspiring declaration. It should help people identify the move that can change what they know, believe, and do next.
Leadership becomes visible in critical moments
The lesson also changed how I thought about leadership.
Leadership is often described through large responsibilities: setting direction, developing strategy, creating culture, and delivering results.
All of these matter.
But employees experience leadership through specific moments.
What happens when someone makes a mistake?
What happens when an employee disagrees?
What happens when a customer problem reaches the manager?
What happens when two priorities compete?
What happens when the team must decide without complete information?
These are the moments when values become visible.
A leader does not create trust by repeatedly talking about trust. Trust grows when the leader behaves consistently during moments in which trust could easily be broken.
A leader does not create accountability by placing the word on a slide. Accountability grows when commitments are clear, follow-through happens, and leaders accept responsibility for their own decisions.
The culture changes through repeated moves inside critical moments.
Small steps create change because small steps are where people experience leadership.
Speaking helps me discover what I know
That speech also reminded me why I value speaking as a way of thinking.
People often assume that speakers first complete their thinking and then present the finished ideas to an audience.
Sometimes that is true.
But speaking can also become part of the discovery.
As I explain something, I hear whether the language works. I notice where the idea is too broad. I recognize a contradiction. A story brings back a detail I had forgotten.
Then a sentence appears.
I may stop and repeat it because I want to hear it again.
“That is the idea,” I tell myself.
The audience may think I am emphasizing a prepared line.
Sometimes I am discovering it with them.
This does not mean preparation is unnecessary. Preparation gives me the material from which discovery can happen. The stories, questions, and experiences are already there.
But expression brings them into motion.
Writing helps me think.
Conversation helps me think.
Speaking before an audience helps me think.
Expression is not only the final product of thought. It is one of the ways thought becomes clear.
Begin with the change you can make visible
Leaders sometimes hesitate to begin because the change they want is enormous.
They want to transform the culture, rebuild trust, improve collaboration, or create accountability across the organization.
These outcomes take time.
But leadership does not have to wait until the complete system has been redesigned.
Ask:
What is one moment in which people need a different experience?
What is one action that will demonstrate what we now mean?
What is one promise we can keep?
What is one decision we can stop postponing?
What is one behavior leaders can practice repeatedly?
The first move should not be symbolic. It should touch the real work.
It may seem small compared with the ambition.
But when people experience it, the move becomes proof.
Proof changes expectations.
Changed expectations make the next action easier.
Repeated action becomes a pattern.
The pattern begins changing the culture.
The idea continued after the speech
I entered that speaking engagement wanting to explain something about leadership and change.
I left with a clearer idea than the one I brought onto the stage.
Small steps are not merely a convenient way to divide a large goal.
They are how leaders make change believable.
They allow people to experience the future before the complete transformation arrives. They show that the new expectation is not another slogan. They create evidence that the organization is capable of acting differently.
That realization appeared while I was speaking.
Perhaps the thought had been building for years. Perhaps every classroom, workshop, project, and conversation had contributed something to it.
But I found the words in front of an audience.
That is one reason I continue to speak.
I enter the room with stories and ideas I want to share. Yet if I stay present, listen to what I am saying, and pay attention to the people before me, I sometimes leave carrying something new.
The speaker brings the message.
The audience gives the message somewhere to become clearer.
And sometimes, in the middle of speaking, one small sentence creates a change in the speaker too.
About Jef Menguin
Jef Menguin is a Filipino motivational speaker, leadership consultant, and creator of Move First. He helps leaders, teams, professionals, and students turn hesitation into meaningful action through memorable stories, practical shifts, and one meaningful move.
Explore his work as a motivational speaker in the Philippines or connect with him on LinkedIn.