Tag Archives: behaviour change

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

The New Normal

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The usual or expected whether related to an activity, specific behaviours or standards is perceived to normal.  Although we can be surprised by things this is usually the exception or abnormal.

For the most part we become accustomed and familiar with the routines of our daily lives and expectations around travel, shopping, work etc.  Our expectations of how we do these things are fairly constant and constitute the norm.

Shifting Reality

The norm is not an absolute but if constantly shifting it not a norm.  Shifting norms generally occur gradually over time.  It is unusual for rapid alteration in the “norm” but it can occur.

The reality of how we perceive each other and our life circumstances  will typically need a drastic upheaval for a new normal to arise.

But it does happen, case in point is of course the global pandemic.

Normality Shifts

Our expectations about how we and others should behave do not arise in isolation.  Circumstances are a major driver of our perceptions, and these arise from reality.

Simply put, while we can classify actions or behaviours as normal, based  on our own perception, the determination of what constitutes normal can very much  arise from external forces outside our control.

Accept and Thrive

Adoption to the new norm is critical to our own survival.  Recognizing the need to adapt to changing circumstance is a key behaviour of all living things.

The alternative to adapting to the new norm is typically extinction.  And so as time passes the majority adapts to the needs of the external drivers and ultimately these behaviours become the new norm.

 

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Consequences

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Managing behavior based on consequences is a widely used approach.  The concept relies on fear as a motivator.  That is, behave accordingly or suffer.

Intuitively we believe fear has urgency and can drive behavioral change.   In some cases this true but often through the process of rationalization, we mitigate the fear and thus are not motivated to alter our behavior.

Rationalization

When advised, “stop smoking, it will kill you” many people consider and develop a fear defense by focusing on the positive.  Smoking might kill others but it won’t kill me.

A number of psychology studies conducted on cigarette package warnings (fear tactic) are all conclusive that these warnings have no impact on smokers’ behavior.

It is human nature to focus on the positive, that is things that make us feel good and avoid scary and unpleasant things as much as possible.

For Example

A neat example of this is investor behavior.  A recent analytic study compared investment account log-ins over a five year period with reported market highs and lows (based on the S&P 500 index).

High markets corresponded with high log-ins and low markets with a low volume of balance checking.  Basically, when the news is bad we just don’t want to know, classic avoidance.

Motivating Change

The bottom line, positive behavior changes are best motivated by instant reward, fact-based analysis, comparison and competitive incentive (others are doing it so I should too) NOT consequences.

When you want to make a change, or you would like to help someone else change, remember to focus on the positive, reward them (or yourself) at the moment and consider the fact-based analysis and what others are doing.

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Performance Feedback

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One of my pet peeves is the fact most feedback we provide to others about how they are doing is negative.

Social media is a great example of this, while positive reviews of things have a few positive comments typically negative reviews are both more common and more detailed.

My own experience, and many psychological experiments have proven humans first instinct is to provide negative feedback. Positive comments are usually the result of conscious effort, negative feedback flows naturally.

Focus on the Positive

Years ago I discovered my suggestions for behavioural change rarely worked when focusing on things I perceived to be below my expectations or basically in my view, bad.

On the other hand positive comments led to continuous improvement focused on the foundation of things that were perceived to be good.

In short, as an effective leader, I found little point in commenting on the negative or opportunities for improvement. By focusing on the winning behaviour I noticed consistently it not only became more frequent but also more effective.

Motivation

Success motivates us. Focusing on success when providing advice to others intrinsically includes an element of positive motivation. Not so when telling someone they are doing it wrong, usually in this case change is only motivated by consequences.

Consequences may work for a while to motivate change but observation shows this approach is typically not sustainable. The fear of negative impacts slowly fades away.

It may go against your natural instincts but I strongly urge you to give this approach a try. Drop the opportunities for improvement or changes in behaviour you want to and focus on the behaviours that are worked – provide positive feedback EXCLUSIVELY.

I think you will surprised by the results.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Reputation

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What others believe (their opinion) of you informs your personal reputation.  Reputation generally applies in a broader sense to what groups or collections of people think of you.

Different groups or random collections of people will often view a persons reputation differently and not surprising most often from their perspective.

Who Cares

Reputation is a powerful tool to leverage in achieving your goals.  Ideally you are keenly aware of your own reputation as it applies within a specific group or collection of people.

Understanding the required reputation to support your goals, coupled with an understanding with what your reputation is, allows you to modify your behaviour in ways to enhance your reputation to what you want it to be.

The viewing lens

Of course a critical aspect of knowing how to change your behaviour is understanding the audience.  If you are playing to an audience of folk music fans, playing electrified rock and roll will affect your reputation.

Bob Dylan did exactly this at the Newport Folk festival in 1965.  Predictably, on the whole the initial impact on  Dylans reputation  was negative.

For Dylan, he was fully aware of the effect this behaviour change would have on this audience, however, his personal goals required him to change his reputation.

History supports his decision.  His fame grew and he cemented his reputation across multiple music genres and fan bases.  Dylans approach was simple, he wanted to change his reputation and so planned and executed an approach to do so.

Of course this might not have worked, had that been the case I am pretty sure he would have tried another approach, until he achieved his goal.

More on this topic tomorrow.