Changing Those Problem People (part 3) - Image building around the new personal behavior

Written by: Ralph Twombly

Published: July 2010

Last month I wrote about the second building block of building a collaborative plan to change personal behavior. If you want to look back and read it you can simply click here and it will take you to the June article http://aprioritylearning.com/articles/changing_problem_people_june2010.php.

Reflection of how people make/find success. After spending countless hours with business people and witnessing human success on a scale that still astounds me right alongside unexplainable human failure from people who should be achievers, I think I can say that the formula for personal success inside organizations is fleeting, fragile, and complicated. On top of all that fleeting, fragile and complicated stuff you can add scary because you can be on top one day and out-of-luck the next. As I scratch my head and think back I have witnessed people who failed at becoming good work-a-day employees but were perfectly matched and highly successful supervisors. I have seen amazing supervisors who could not make the leap to manager roles and highly functional managers who could not become leaders. So before you draw the conclusion that it is all without structure or method let me send you a little life-line of encouragement.  There are things you can do to create, add and reinforce success that will make it a lot simpler.

Years ago one of my bosses quoted the cliché ‘Results rewarded are results repeated’ (wish I were that smart) and I never forgot it. Some things stick because they are bad and some because they are good and this one was good. It played itself out with my children and still does with spouses, partners and employees and, yes, even with peers. In the last of these three articles I wanted to discuss and plant the seeds of something so fundamental and yet we forget to do it or maybe don’t ever recognize its value. “It” is the basic idea of image building around the new personal behavior.  If you are good and lucky enough to get one of these problem people to change behavior it is a temporary unless you find a way to “cement” that new behavior. If you don’t “cement” the new behavior quickly, it will slip, it may escape immediate notice and you will probably have moved on to your next challenge. One day you are wandering about and someone points out the person you worked so hard on demonstrating the old bad behavior. Ground hog day!!!

Small steps – So let’s start by understanding that people don’t make sweeping change. Instead the changes you get to introduce to troubled or troubling employees are usually small, incremental and less than earth shaking. Low-hanging-fruit kind of stuff like getting to work early each day or checking in when they are done with their current work to look for more work or simply being supportive of their team members by asking if they need help. The good news is, when placed together, small incremental success adds up and becomes real substantial change. So when you see small change, plan a small response. Bring up the small change in the form of an accomplished task and discuss it at the next staff meeting, or record it in a note and give it the employee or tell a colleague and have them tell the employee. Talking about the new behavior in a way that is positive and affirming will pay dividends and people will repeat the behavior. Yeah!!! You don’t need to go overboard. Too much will spoil the affect, however, as more and more positive behavior happens as a result of the reinforcement you will see bigger changes like proactive actions not anticipated. Now you can move on to more aggressive positive reinforcement like mentions in the company newsletter, openly advocating the change you see with your peer group to change image and positives in the performance review.

Be the model of follow-up. Once you get problem behavior “turned”, you need to be the master of following up on what changes the person who had the problem intends to make. If you don’t, it will be noticed and the behavior you desire will be lost under the umbrella of “the boss didn’t even notice” statements. This one requires perseverance, organization and focus. Things that can be victims of the crazy project-to-project, issue-to-issue world all business leaders live in. I don’t want to preach but remember you are in the people business. Stick with it and once the behavior is changed for good you will be off the hook a little bit.

Promote them behind their backs. The things you do behind the scenes like talking to your colleagues and having them observe and comment to the employee on the new behavior is powerful. You don’t need to tell them all the time what you are doing for them. They will hear and see when you are promoting them without motive. I just received an e-mail distributed to a team of people working on their development from one of the senior members of the organization. In the e-mail this senior member mentioned that they had heard from another senior manager what a great job this group was doing and wanted to congratulate them. The beneficiary of the good news was not only the group but also the senior member referred to. This group will remember the kindness for no motive beyond wanting to give the group credit.

Build on the success with more ways to reinforce the behavior. I would bet that people get a little tired of hearing us discuss and even harp on the idea of appreciation. Just remember, if you are looking for a problem, you will find a problem. If you are looking for a success, you will find one. If you want to really turn the behavior around and keep it turned, you will find more success by setting small goals and following up and giving positive reinforcement or success then you will by issuing kicks in the butt.

Just to wrap up right, let me leave you with this. It seems like we constantly talk about:

• Give away all the credit – even when it might belong to you
• Take all the blame – even when it may not be your fault
• Own everything – your environment, your work, you colleagues work and your companies work

Someone can turn a badly behaved person around. If not you who, and if not now, when?