“Hope” is something we should think about every time we embark on change: Part 2. The comments on my last post about hope being grounded in operational reality (from a paper by Alyson Meister, Nele Dael & David Bach), from across multiple social channels, were outstanding. Sadly I only have space for some of them. Rory van der Merwe shared a 2025 Gallup poll that reframes the discussion. Hope isn't a "soft" add-on. Asked what they want most from leaders, followers put hope top at 56%, ahead of trust (33%), care & compassion (7%), & certainty (4%). Five themes stood out from the comments: 1) Hope requires infrastructure, not just intent. Commenters rejected the idea that hope can be "willed" into existence. Jonathan Sunkersing called "inflated hope" a systemic risk in primary care, where grand narratives substitute for diagnosis & resources. Paula Beattie noted teams with focus, agency & infrastructure can achieve a lot quickly, but multi-team change falters without proper leadership & structure. Rebecca Blackwood added a governance angle: mobilising hope is structurally impossible when a board withholds permission for leaders to be wrong or take risks. 2) Small steps & agency build durable hope. Richard Perry argued anticipation-driven hope depletes like a finite reserve, while small, real, felt results build confidence that's self-renewing. Lisa Evans offered a three-part formula: team, facts, small joint steps. Chris Cooper added that strategy without a credible "how" is empty, pointing to the power of Plan-Do-Check-Adjust. 3) Hope is co-created in relationships, earned incrementally. John-Paul Crofton-Biwer described hope as quick to spark, but earned through repeated, consistent action, and lost the moment that consistency breaks. Christina Jones & Søren Wieck Mellemgaard stressed credibility comes from naming hard truths & visible follow-through, not inspiring language. Kenny Ajayi noted hope starts with honest diagnosis, often overlooked when leaders rush to paint a vision. Amos Y. added it also needs a visible path forward. 4) Hope as constant discipline, not crisis response. Barbara Perry argued hope should be a daily companion, not something pulled out only during disruption. Victoria Hewitt shared a moving account of using stabilising & mobilising hope with a small team in a dysfunctional system. Noel Hatch described how his team's stabilising rituals, like weekly spotlights on less-visible teams, evolved into mobilising hope. 5) Broader & dissenting voices. Tatu Piirainen linked credible hope to how well an organisation's value-creation logic fits its environment. Douglas Anweiler flagged the risk of treating hope as a management tool rather than daily practice. Jack Ricchiuto distinguished "having hope" from "being hope". Kathryn L. Goetzke connected hope science to SDG progress & mental health outcomes. Together, the comments reinforce the article's core claim: hope is constructed through experience, not declared through rhetoric. We can't "message" our way to hope, we have to demonstrate it.