Four Steps to Change Other People
Human beings don’t like change. We sit in the same seats, go to the same places, buy the same things and that repetition makes us comfortable. But what if you as a manager or leader NEED to change someone’s behavior? Is it really even possible?
Changing people’s behavior is a four-step process that starts with leaders becoming allies instead of critics and asking permission from the person they seek to change, say Peter Bregman and Howie Jacobson, who recently discussed their new book, “You Can Change Other People: The Four Steps to Help Your Colleagues, Employees — Even Family — Up Their Game,” which argues that when we use our influence in allyship and support, we have great power to effectively influence people in our life.
“[W]e don’t just want people to change, we want them to transform their sticky problems and unfulfilled desires into an opportunity to get better, stronger, and more resilient for the future,” Bregman and Jacobson write.
What’s the Bregman-Jacobson plan? It’s what they call Four Steps. Those steps involve deliberate actions, and those actions themselves are underpinned by four concepts.
Here are those concepts with a key quote from each description:
Ownership: “[W]hen someone tries to impose their solution or advice on us, we tend to resist or, at best, execute half-heartedly.”
Independent Capability: “[I]f someone comes to you with a recurring problem or one that requires their thinking and judgment, then giving them the answer or doing it for them will function as a crutch.”
Emotional Courage: “Change is hard. And admitting that you need to change can be very hard. Facing colleagues, and asking for their help in making that change, can be extremely hard.”
Resilience: “But we don’t just want people to change, we want them to transform their sticky problems and unfulfilled desires into an opportunity to get better, stronger, and more resilient for the future.”
And the Four Steps themselves are:
“Shift from Critic to Ally”
“Identify an Energizing Outcome”
“Find a Hidden Opportunity”
“Create a Level-10 Plan”
Lorein Brightwell, our own HR expert advises employers as follows. “These Bregman-Jacobson plan steps may be the ‘how-tos,’ but your best HR Professionals (whom you will want to enlist as plan advocates) know that there are only two reasons that the human makes a change of any kind—regardless of circumstances surrounding the change. Those reasons are either 1) To avoid pain, or 2) To gain pleasure. It all boils down to that in our ancient ‘lizard’ brains.
So knowing your employees’ pain points as well as their sweet joy spots is critical for the design function of executing Bregman-Jacobson’s steps. So it will be critical to enlist a professional HR practitioner (or a psychologist) to validate the applicability and validate the measurement of the outcomes of taking said steps. Measurement is important because you cannot control (influence, correct, etc.) that which you cannot measure.
And there you have it. Smart Employers know how to change employees’ behavior the right way. And the smartest ones KNOW PLB Resources can HELP them with this or any HR situation effectively and get/stay fully in compliance—while building that AMAZING workplace!
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