Changing behaviour is easy

Let’s get some clarity here. When we talk about changing behaviour we’re probably talking about habit change. Behaviour change is actually really easy - as humans we are incredibly adaptive, we literally change our behaviour in each and every different scenario we find ourselves in, from a funeral to a nightclub, from our living room to the office, from the supermarket queue to the swimming pool. If you described your behaviour in each of these scenarios and deleted the context, you’d be hard pushed to believe they were exhibited by the same person. When we’re faced with adapting to a different environment, we have little trouble at all. So ok, if changing behaviour is easy, what about habit change? If you look at all the situations mentioned above, the behaviour change is the result of a change in environment, context if you will. So, if you want to change your habits, a great way of doing that is by modifying the environment where you want the behaviour to recur. This can be simple things such as putting your regular medication next to the coffee machine so you remember to take them (bunching), bringing social consequences into play, if you want to get fitter, arrange to meet a friend for a run around the park.

In business, leaders create the working context for the people around them, so if your goal is to create a team with winning habits, there needs to be deliberate attention paid to the environment you create for them.