What causes change?
Every time you try to influence an employee to do something differently you are trying to get them to [tag]change[/tag] behavior or, in reality to change their current habits. But what exactly will cause them to change?
As I think back on each role and situation I have been involved in as an HR professional where there was a challenge with [tag]performance[/tag], [tag]communication[/tag], [tag]results[/tag], almost anything you can think of, it seems the root cause came down to one or more people doing something one way when a different way of doing it was needed.
Sometimes it was communicating differently, better, more clearly. Sometimes it was doing the job in a different way, more safely, more quickly, more according to instructions. You get the picture. Granted, there were a few times when things just didn’t work out right, but generally those weren’t problems, they were just unfortunate situations.
As Richard Beckhardt is quoted as saying, “People don’t resist change, they resist being changed.” So what is the key to getting people to communicate, behave, perform, differently (better!)?
Cheaper Gas, New Driving Habits
Gallup reported today that “Despite Cheaper Gas, New Driving Habits Sticking.” You can probably remember gas prices over the summer perhaps as high as $4/gallon depending on where you live. The average price of gas is now $1.65 according to Gallup.
When gas quickly became more expensive a majority of people changed their driving [tag]habits[/tag] to deal with the increased expense. Why?
How long have we been hearing that we (as a country) need to change our driving habits and our fuel consumption? But we didn’t.
As gas prices have come down to levels even lower than a year ago, most people are still driving as they did when prices were high. Why?
I’m not going to go into the many other ways the economy is impacting peoples’ pocketbook. But I think this idea of changing driving habits is a great example of why people change (or don’t) and how you apply that in your organization.
A few points from Gallup’s survey:
- “[L]ower- and middle-income respondents…are more likely than upper-income respondents to say they have changed their driving habits in response to surging pump prices.”
- “Americans aged 35 to 54 are slightly more likely, at 67%, to say they have changed their driving habits. Of course, this seems logical because at this stage of the life cycle, as these Americans are more likely to have to commute and to have children involved in many after-school activities.”
- “Necessity is more likely to force lower-income Americans to make significant changes in their driving habits than their upper-income counterparts. Therefore, as pump prices plunged, it should not be surprising that 19% of lower-income Americans say they have returned to their old driving habits.”
Many theories exist about how to get people to change – internal [tag]motivators[/tag], external motivators, needs, wants, and so forth. I think this survey points out a simple reality: People change based on their own needs and interests (not on what you tell them).
WIIFM (What’s In It For Me)
This may sound simplistic. If you are in sales, you know you must sell to the need (the “pain”). If you are in [tag]health care[/tag], you know you must address the discomfort – present or future – to get a patient to change their behavior.
I’ve worked with many managers who tried to instruct (”train”) their employees to do something differently because it was a better way, but there was no need for the employee to do it differently – either they were able to accomplish their goals as they were acting, or there were no consequences for their current actions. Or, it didn’t matter, and they knew it.
As a business leader or manager, are you trying to get people to change because you see value in it, but they don’t? If so, your success will be greatly limited. Are you trying to get people to do things differently because you believe it will bring greater value to your organization, but they don’t?
When you can make it a direct impact to them – like the price of a gallon of gas and how that impacts their ability to take the kids to their activities – then they will start to change.
You can learn what is most important to your people and what will be meaningful to them just by talking to them and asking more questions than making statements. That may be hard if you have a lot of people. There are very good tools today that help leaders and managers get this kind of information from their organizations – what their interests are, their thoughts on leadership and management, their satisfaction with their job and work environment, and other critical workforce issues.
The choice is yours:
- Put in time and effort to get people to change only for the immediate time and need until the current crisis is over (e.g., until gas prices drop), or
- Invest in understanding what your people are thinking and what they need so you can link your objectives and desired change to their interests.
Which will you choose?
Great post. I will read your posts frequently. Added you to the RSS reader.
Thanks, Josh – I hope you continue to find value in my future posts.