In my executive coaching work with clients we are often working on changing specific behaviors. Clients are wanting to learn a new behavior or to stop doing something that is counterproductive. The behaviors are often part of the Competency Model of the client organization with each competency having specific behaviors delineated.
I was coaching an accountant who wanted to be more optimistic. She wanted to change her story and some hard-wired assumptions.
We incorporated some of the work of Byron Katie. Think of a specific thought you want to change and ask yourself the following four powerful questions. You might find yourself thinking and acting differently.
The Four Questions
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
3. How do you react when you think that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?
How hard is it for you to change your behavior? Do you find changing people's behavior a challenge?
Changing Minds
“All leadership comes down to this: changing people’s behavior.” – Alan Deutschman in Fast Company (“Change or Die,” May 2005)
Changing people’s behavior is the most important challenge for business leaders competing in unpredictable environments.
“The central issue is never strategy, structure, culture, or systems,” asserts Dr. John P. Kotter, a retired Harvard Business School professor who specializes in leadership. “The core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people.”
What works—and why is change so incredibly difficult?
A Fast Company article, “Change or Die” (May 2005), reveals that when faced with a health crisis like heart disease, only one in nine individuals makes the necessary, lifesaving changes required to live longer.
Minds are hard to change, yet so many aspects of our lives are directed toward doing just that. We face a supplier who needs to respond more quickly, a subordinate who must perform a task differently, or a peer who should recognize the importance of our project and commit to it. We clearly acknowledge the need for others to change their minds and act differently. We also know we need to change our own minds at certain times.
Many of us are professionally involved in the business of changing people’s minds. A CEO, executive, or team leader must convince and secure commitment; a salesperson must close the sale and persuade consumers to think differently about new product features; consultants and coaches must change minds to motivate groups and individuals to perform more effectively for improved results.
Why are our brains wired in a way that seems to resist change so tenaciously? In their book How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work (2001), authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey describe the process of resistance and our body’s and mind’s natural tendency to revert to what they’re used to doing—a process called homeostasis.
In this new millennium, with ever-increasing discoveries about the brain, has cognitive neuroscience discovered clues to what is required to help people change their way of thinking so they can modify their behavior? Professor Howard Gardner, a lifelong researcher and expert on the mind, believes we’ve reached this point:
“Of all of the species on earth, we human beings are the ones who specialize in voluntary mind change: we change the minds of others, we change our own minds. We have even crafted various technologies that allow us to extend the sweep of mind change: powerful mechanical artifacts like writing implements, televisions, and computers…In the coming decade, mind changing will continue and, in all probability, accelerate.” —Changing Minds, 2004.
Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the BarOn EQi and CPI 260 can help you become a fully engaged leader. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.
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