Habits, Commitment, Motivation & Context

One thing that puzzled Jeanette was how often a pattern was repeated. She’d mention it to Julie; Julie would respond in the short term; then seem to disregard the agreement to improve, and return to old ways. The most likely cause of this is habit. It takes a lot of time and effort to change an ingrained habit; Julie’s drift may simply be a return to what she was most used to and comfortable with. Imagine folding your arms. You probably fold them that way every time; it’s now your norm, your default, your habit. And though there is no right or wrong way to fold your arms, your pattern is now embedded, and it would take a lot for you to change this habit, so that you not only folded them the other way, but did so automatically. That’s possibly Julie’s situation. So until Jeanette found a useful lever, she would probably have had to regularly remind Julie, or Julie would have to have created her own reminders. Habits are easy to maintain, and very difficult to break – especially if they work for you!

This was one of the key to the solution. Simply, Julie was not motivated by punctuality, but was by her sales role, and being not only successful, but ‘the best’. And of course, she was also motivated by career advancement, and the MDP. So rather than try and motivate Julie towards something she was not motivated by (punctuality) Jeanette focused on what Julie was motivated by – the MDP.

To Julie, there was no apparent negative consequence to lack of punctuality; she assessed (probably correctly) that Jeanette would not want to risk losing her star performer – which is why she probably calculated she could get away with poor timekeeping. So to Julie, there was no serious threatening consequence of her poor punctuality. She could probably take the occasional admonishment, believing nothing more serious would happen. However, when Jeanette tied punctuality to being recommended for the MDP, there was now a serious consequence to punctuality which hadn’t been there before. So a key part of finding a lever, is to be able to tie a required action to an important consequence – so it is the consequence, rather than the action, that makes the difference.

Another key factor in the successful result. Julie was operating in the context of leading sales person in the sales team. That was her current role and context. But…;she wanted to change that role and context. She had aspirations to be a manager, to develop a new role and career – which is a different context. So when Jeanette changed the context, the reference point, from sales performer to possible manager, it significantly changed Julie’s perspective. When Jamie Oliver took on his 15 young school leavers, he insisted they look, sound, and behave like chefs, right from the start – so they changed their perspective, from young school leavers to potential chefs. And a friend of mine teaching students law, insisted that, in her class, they acted and spoke as lawyers. Reframing the context was possibly the main lever in bringing about a successful conclusion: Jeanette simply explained, then emphasised, how a manager would have to behave…and that of course, included punctuality.