Have you ever wanted to change an aspect of your behaviour or your personality but haven't known how? Maybe wanted to give up smoking, lose some weight or be less of a stress bunny?
Before you look at what you are trying to change, you need to first work out how people change. There are two main types of ways people change – incremental and transformational or discontinuous change.
Incremental change is the way most of us try to learn new things or adopt different approaches. Incremental means we do one thing at a time, building one small core skill or success on another. Incremental change works well for learning of many skills such as computing, maths or reading. It requires a willingness to learn, a willingness and ability to apply the skills and a logical process of skill acquisition.
The problem is that it doesn't work so well with things like attitude shifts, cultural shifts, changes to established behaviour, or changes where there is an emotional underpinning. Try telling a smoker to cut back their cigarettes by one a day and you will know what I mean – very few people can sustain the change.
Brains lay down neural pathways or patterns. Incremental change over time builds new pathways, but it is a slow process and takes constant repitition. What is needed is a jump to a totally new way of thinking - jumping the railway tracks to take a totally new path or direction.
The most effective shifts seem to come from what is termed discontinuous change or transformational change. It is where some shock or massive aha moment totally changes the neural pathways and patterns of thinking to a new direction.
That is why many personal development programs have you walking on hot coals, across broken glass, leaping off tall towers, breaking boards with your bare hands. They are creating the possibility in your mind of a different way of thinking.
Now in most workplaces if you want to shift a particular behaviour or change culture you can't have your team breaking boards that just happen to be lying around. But, you still need to find that "whack on the side of the head" that will change the pattern of thinking.
One way is to show proof of results where other groups or teams are getting 10 times the outcomes that this team is getting. This forces some in the group to change their mental process to work out how the other group achieved those results.
It is like the old four-minute mile. It used to be seen of as humanly impossible, and yet once Roger Bannister actually broke the 4-minute mile record, the numbers of other people who could suddenly do it were remarkable. It just took a realisation that it was in fact possible.
Another way is through receiving feedback. 360-degree feedback is an extremely powerful tool. It is easy to discount feedback you receive from one person, but if 20 people all say the same thing about you, it is much harder to ignore. But just as not everyone is ready to walk over broken glass, not everyone is ready for a 360-degree feedback process.
A further way is through a crisis. The stories of people who turned their life around after a heart-attack scare are the stuff of legends. But it took a crisis to create the shift for people to be willing to take action.
Now, I am not saying create a crisis. What I am saying is to ensure that people have a big enough reason to change. Present the facts in a clear, honest, real, and unambiguous way. Paint the picture in big bold emotional colours of what it costs not to change, then paint another even more colourful and emotional picture of what you want to move towards. In many people, if this is done in a compelling enough way, they will find they have that neural spark that starts the thinking moving in a new way.
Marketers use this approach all the time. We look at the pain before sharing the pain relief. It is used so commonly because it works.
The trick is if you want to change behaviour, you need to find that metaphoric whack on the side of the head for the best results.
One of my clients has a team that struggled with what to say on the phone to clients. This is a busy practice and while they have massive amounts of repeat business, there is also a great number of new clients ringing for appointments.
Answering the phone correctly can be the difference between a new client and someone who walks away.
So, we created a range of phone answering scripts - the words to say when people ask certain questions. Of course these scripts need to be tailored to match the individual - but having a script means that they have a baseline to work with. They know the core information that they need to impart and the boundaries within which they need to work.
They don't have to be heavy, hard sell or clunky - just clean, simple words spoken from the heart.
So the next time your team stumbles over what to say, consider writing some scripts.
So why were these books transformational? They get to you to look outside of yourself to the value that you give to the others. They help you quantify this value in practical ways, and they are full of practical, pragmatic and implementable advice on how to build your business.
I referred these books onto one of my clients running an IT business. They read them, and then totally transformed how they run their business. It was the missing link to the puzzle they had been struggling with for a few years about which direction to take their business.
So, if you want to shift your thinking about how you value yourself and your business, then grab a few books by Alan Weiss.
Still on the theme of changing behaviour - this TV ad is one of the best recent ads that is creating a significant shift in buying behaviour for one of the stubbornest markets. Take a look and see if you can spot the reasons why it is so effective.
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Earnings disclaimer. Some of the content may include advertorial information, which means I may receive financial compensation for the products I recommend. But - unless I know and trust the product, I will not recommend it.
It's interesting how many companies out there continue to hire based on appearance, deportment, manners, resume and the interview yet terminate based on behaviour. Along the way there is the process of attempting to modify behaviour to create a fit with the team or the culture of the organization...often called a Perfomance Improvement Plan.
Rather that trying to modify the behaviour of the people on your team why not better understand their behavioural strengths, make sure they are a good fit for the role, the team and the culture and work to leverage those strengths. With disengagement levels at all time highs strength based coaching might just be the tonic an organization is looking for.
There are several excellent behavioural assessments on the market. I happen to work with the Predictive Index and have found that if we pay attention to behaviour as he recruit and select we rarely have to look at modifying it.
I agree with you Bob. People hire for skills and fire for behaviour & attitude. Taking both into account at the hire stage gives you more productive teams and greater business results
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One of my clients has a team that struggled with what to say on the phone to clients. This is a busy practice and while they have massive amounts of repeat business, there is also a great number of new clients ringing for appointments. 
One of the authors that I credit with transforming my thinking in a number of areas is Alan Weiss. 
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made a huge impact on me. 
