Posts Tagged behavior

A few years ago, I worked with a very successful individual who had reached a crossroads in her career.  She had been promoted several times and had risen to a very high level in her organization.  But she was worried.

As I began working with her, she opened up and revealed that she was scared of being found out.  She felt like a phony because she had a couple of weaknesses that she had successfully worked around for years.

The more we talked, the clearer it became that this very successful woman had never taken the time to look honestly at these perceived weaknesses, and so she never understood them or addressed them.  Instead, she developed a series of effective work-arounds that helped her get by at each level.  Finally, she reached a level where she knew she could not hide them any longer.

So what to do?  I encouraged her to be absolutely honest about what she had been hiding from herself, and it turned out that several of her issues were easily addressed with some focused effort.

However, some of the other “weaknesses” were more likely related to physical issues that she had never understood before.  For these we worked out a plan to go to a specialist to see if there were underlying physiological issues that had gone undiagnosed.  Once she learned about these she was able to work out a treatment plan with her doctor and discovered a completely new way to function.

The message here is that having someone ask us the right questions can point us in new directions with a renewed opportunity to stop working around problems and finally resolve them.

We’ve all seen it.  A particular behavior causes us problems, so we make a concerted effort to change it.  And the changes work, for a while.  Then we gradually slide right back to the old behavior and end up with the same problems.

Why does this happen?  And why is it so hard for human beings to effectively change a behavior pattern for good?

The answer isn’t because we are weak or unwilling to change.  It lies in brain patterns.  These are the brain pathways that develop when we repeat a behavior over and over again.  Each time we perform an action we strength the neuronic pathways in the brain, making them more efficient and easier to use.

The Interstate Highway in our Brain. A familiar behavior pattern is like speeding down the interstate on cruise control.  Even though we may slow down or change lanes once in a while, we are still on the highway.

Changing an ingrained behavior means getting off the interstate and getting onto a back road full of ruts and bumps.  Who wants to do that?  It is so much less efficient.  In order to create a new behavior, we have to slow down, try something new, and be aware of how much slower it is going to be, at least for a while.

Creating New Patterns. The key to real behavioral change is to create new patterns.  The only way to do that is to be intentionally different, even if (or especially if) it less effective.  As we perform these new behaviors, they create new pathways in our brain.  And the more we repeat them, the more they become like second nature—the more they become like a new interstate.

The steamroller.  The one who never seems to consider what anyone else on the team wants or feels is right.  The one who is convinced of the rightness of his opinion or proposal and then rolls right over anyone who gets in the way.

When faced with a steamrolling employee, many co-workers simply lie down and let the steamrolling begin.  It is so much easier and less time-consuming, but it is also so much less risky than standing up to them.

The problem with this approach is two-fold.

1. The behavior continues unabated, leaving everyone feeling vulnerable.
2. Team morale steadily erodes to the point where the team can become non-functional.

Approaches. There are a couple of ways to deal with a steamrolling co-worker.

1. Label the behavior in a non-accusatory way.  For example: “John, when you disregard what the rest of us on the team have said, it really shuts me down.  And I know that isn’t what you want, is it?  What you are proposing has a lot of merit, but we really need to take into consideration what the rest of us believe.”
2. If the team has tried to address the steamrolling behavior without success, then it is time to move up the ladder and address it with a supervisor who has more authority.

Early and Often. The key is to not let the behavior continue to the point where it is seriously detracting from the team’s effectiveness.  Addressing it early and often will usually help bring it to an end.