The truth of it is people are valuable, and the way they perform independently and as a collective will have a dramatic effect on the success of your organisation. As a result changing the way people behave is often taken into consideration. But how do you do that? Is it even ethical?
The latter I suppose is down to your own assessment of the change you want to make, but in terms of how you might achieve behavioural change here are 5 top tips to help plan your behavioural change strategy:
- What’s the reason for change?
Identify the key drivers behind why you need to create behavioural change. Are you looking to improve performance, is there an issue culturally within the business or perhaps individuals are causing conflicts that need to be addressed.
- What resources will you need?
Based on the key drivers resulting in you trying to change a person or groups behaviour it’s important to reflect on what resources you have available and where there may be gaps. Do you require external assistance or training resources? Do you need the time of another colleague?
- How much time do you have?
Depending on the reason for change and the resources required, it’s important to acknowledge the time frame needed. Some instances of change could be quick fixes requiring direct conversations. However other behavioural changes may be subtle tweaks to a high performer’s habitual routine taking longer periods of time.
- Who will be involved?
Understand who will need to play a role in the effort to change a particular behaviour. It is very important to identify what teams or individuals will need to be a part of the process so that everyone knows their role and works to the same objective.
- Measuring success?
Being able to measure or qualify whether you have achieved your objectives is the final step. Depending on the desired outcome of the change this may be measured in different ways. Some objectives such as an improvement in team KPI’s is a tried and tested approach where data can be used to accurately review cause and effect. Whereas some behavioural changes are more difficult to measure and might require a more qualitative approach.
