Answering the next prompt (“What I liked about . . .”) makes people focus on the qualities and strengths of what was delivered. This situates the brain in a more-open attitude and identifies personal skills, interactions, or anything else that the person performs positively and that can be used by others for continuous improvement.
The last prompt (“If it wasn’t perfect . . .”) makes employees focus on the actions or behaviors that could be added or improved to increase the value of what was delivered. Thinking about how you will provide the feedback is more important than how the other person receives it.
Use the perfection game to discover strengths and stimulate positive and creative thinking using the feedback obtained. Individuals might feel uncomfortable on the first few occasions, but the activity will foster new experiences.
Although this technique is simple, it stimulates creative thinking and makes it possible for the initial subconscious positioning to be positive. It also improves the quality of conversations—all because individuals must not only provide a rating but also proactively give suggestions when their assessment is low.
I have played this game with executives and senior managers of organizations. After overcoming initial apprehension, it has always provided benefits and led to continuous improvement.
Remember, you can only play this game when people feel safe in their working environment.
Small Changes, Great Impact: Micro-Habits
Imagine you’re responsible for improving processes within a department that requires innovation. You’ve spent a few days with the team and witnessed how their challenges differ, almost daily, because of constant changes in the market. That variability causes motivation to fluctuate in disproportionate ways. For weeks at a time, people love their tasks, but during other weeks, frustration sets in.
FIGURE 4.5: Fluctuation of motivation levels
During motivation highs, it’s easier to implement changes or tasks involving important structural modifications. During low periods, it will be a challenge to make even small alterations in any process.
If employee motivation is too often on the lower side, then it won’t be a good idea to make structural changes such as implementing a new methodology or framework (Scrum or other). It would probably cause a rapid loss of traction in your plan, increased conflict, or greater resistance. The following ideas can help motivate your team:
Involve participants in making decisions that have an impact on their processes and interactions or on the product/service.
Use short work cycles. This will allow employees to see the impact of their work on clients or other areas of the company.
Propose small goals that can be achieved in days or weeks.
Empower them to choose their workload according to their capacity. This will make them feel responsible for their own work.
Reflect on what could have been done better and the potential impact on personal interactions.
Create a Transformation Team or similar group that provides support and removes obstacles.
Ensure there’s a clear vision of change or vision for the product.
Use software to automate processes that are difficult or where skills are scarce.
Decreasing multitasking and having a set of small tasks prioritized by business value (a Backlog) will help keep motivation high. In the case of software-development teams, unit tests that constantly and automatically verify product quality (Automated Tests) might bring greater emotional stability to the group and a substantial gain in positive traction during a change plan.
There is also a direct relationship between the business value delivered to the customer and the way in which habits are established within the organization. We know of this relationship after many years of observation of the habits and micro-habits of employees, the correlation with their work environment, and the success in achieving goals.
The initial definition of business value that I shared with you in Chapter 2 may help you establish healthy habits in your company.
The Foundations of a Micro-Habit
Half of the actions carried out in a company—reasoned decisions to the untrained eye—are actually small, subconscious habits. That’s why they require little motivation and are an ideal technique for teams with low or fluctuating motivation.
When a person learns a new task or activity in the company, the prefrontal cortex of their brain is activated. As the new task is controlled and done with greater fluidity, the experience begins to move toward the basal ganglia (the brain’s hard drive), responsible for automating the work. The brain stops feeling this activity as a reasoned thought and considers it a reaction (or habit) ignited in response to a stimulus. This process allows the task to be carried out repeatedly with minimal effort.
You might think that it’d be difficult for people in your organization to alter the way they work or follow processes, because they’ve worked the same way for so many years. But many habits are just a huge set of micro-habits—meaning that they are automatic behaviors instead of reasoned decisions, as one might think.
The implementation of micro-habits can be successfully used when motivation is really low and other transformation techniques could fail.
Imagine you intend to take on a sport to improve your health, but you’re not a big fan of physical activity. You’ll need a lot of motivation to join a one-hour gym class. However, going downstairs every time you can would require less willpower, because this option requires less effort. It’s also something you already know how to do (ability), and you have a clear stimulus that will fuel your effort—leaving to go shopping, for example.
A micro-habit works because of something called behavioral impulse, or virtuous cycle. When we make a small, positive change, this motivates us to make other small changes that are also positive. The sum of these creates an important change.
FIGURE 4.6: Motivation and effort needed to do a task
To the left of the graph are the actions that need more motivation, and to the right are those that can be performed almost automatically. As motivation increases, people are willing to take on greater challenges. On the contrary, when motivation decreases, the difficulty of the challenges must also be lower.
The skills each person possesses also affects the tasks they can perform. If I ask you to travel forty feet (12 meters) on a bicycle when you don’t know how to ride one, it’d be impossible for you to complete the task and you’d feel frustrated, even if your motivation was high. If, on the other hand, the task is partially automated (by a machine or computer application), it would require less effort, and the person would gain the same positive reward as if the task had been completed manually.
You should be aware of the motivation level of those affected by the change plan. Otherwise, you could use the wrong tools. High motivation provides an opportunity to carry out more complex modifications. In these cases, you could alter processes or key behaviors to achieve maximum change, add a new framework, or transform the values or principles of the organization. This would allow you to obtain a significant impact in the near future (within weeks or months).
The members of a team I helped during a period of high motivation decided they wanted to work in pairs to increase shared knowledge. They also wanted to use disruptive and sophisticated tools to improve product quality. These decisions established the foundations for the coming months and had a great impact on processes, interactions, and other work habits. But if motivation is low, you’ll have to think about micro-habits that will allow you to reduce barriers (remove blockades, increase skills, etc.) so that crucial behaviors can be reached at a later stage. In other words, making small changes that pave the path for that major change in the future.
At another company, I ran an experiment in which no meeting could last more than fifteen minutes. As a result, people connected informally (micro-habit), and information flowed more quickly within the org
anization.
Identifying and Establishing New Behaviors in Teams
At an investment bank, I helped a group that was constantly interrupted with requests from other departments. The situation stemmed from a lack of clear business value. For years, individuals on that team had to go to extra lengths before they could concentrate on their own tasks. Because of this, multitasking was high, motivation was low, and the quality of their results was poor—among other issues.
When faced with a complex task that required maximum concentration, they worked in pairs. Frustration grew when they were interrupted. They decided that whenever there were two people sitting in front of a computer, they would put a visible red sign on the desk. They informed their colleagues that when the signal was up, they were not to be interrupted.
This action increased their motivation and the quality of the product and decreased the amount of multitasking they were forced to perform—it certainly also reduced the fatigue they felt at the end of the day. Their self-esteem and confidence for future tasks increased. It taught people the importance of having rules to maintain a constant workflow. It also demonstrated the effectiveness of focusing on a single task.
Without realizing it, they had linked an existing behavior with a new micro-habit: Each time they sat in pairs (specific stimulus), the red sign (micro-habit) went up, which resulted in not being interrupted and being able to focus on the task at hand (reward).
A crucial moment is that exact point in time when you have a stimulus that could initiate a different habit.
You need to know the four steps of the formula to identify a crucial moment:
Identify the crucial moment or stimulus that initiated the habit you want to change and link it with a new one.
Be aware of the old routine or behavior and of the desired new habit.
Keep in mind the benefits of applying old and new behaviors.
CELEBRATE! You’ve integrated a new, healthier habit!
As you can see, a crucial moment is linked to unleashing a new habit. The brain is able to create neuronal connections when something new is concluded successfully. We call this behavioral impulse (or virtuous cycle). It’s of vital importance that there’s an internal reward that helps the new micro-habit turn into a sustainable routine.
When I add a new healthy habit into my life, I might (discreetly) applaud myself, offer myself a word of encouragement (Good job, Erich!), or give myself a pat on the shoulder as a way of celebrating my small success, thereby encouraging new micro-habits to turn into new routines.
The more often new habits are repeated, the more comfortable people, and their amygdalae, will feel. Repetition makes new neural networks connect more strongly, and you can learn more about this by searching “Hebbian theory.” Links are established between these new connections and areas of the brain related to creativity and thought-out decision-making.
FIGURE 4.7: Micro-habit loop
You must also pay attention to the existence of vicious cycles where negative habits reinforce themselves. Such is the case of companies where people do not feel safe or where there is excessive control.
If you focus on making small positive changes, the behavioral impulse will help you progress toward clear objectives and limit the effect of false steps.
“If you want people to trust you, to feel a real connection with your culture, you have to trust them first. By demonstrating that trust, others will trust you.”
Ross Shott, Human Performance and Systemic Innovation Consultant
You will have to teach everyone to commit to new healthy habits, which entails first believing in them yourself. If no one outside the team at the investment bank had trusted the “red sign” technique, they wouldn’t have included the positive routine into their daily tasks.
If you want employees to trust you and feel a real connection with the company’s culture, vision of change, or product, you must first trust them and make sure they can test, fail, adjust, and try their new habits. For this to happen, you must help them recognize the crucial moment when they could go in one direction or another. If they don’t see it, they’ll miss the opportunity to change their world for the better.
Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, tells us that to isolate a crucial moment, it’s necessary to recognize six areas:
Place – The exact place where the stimulus that produces the unwanted action/behavior occurs.
Moment – The moment when it happens.
Emotional state – How the person or group feels a moment before starting the old habit.
People involved – The individuals who are usually involved (changing individuals could start another crucial moment).
Type of behavior that is ritualized – The existing behavior or habit exactly before and after performing the routine to change.
Reward – The implicit or explicit reward that people get immediately after completing the action.
The more specific you are at identifying a micro-habit, the better the result will be. My recommendation is that you write down the place, moment (time), emotional state, the people around, type of behavior that is ritualized and the reward. You may need several attempts to identify this clearly. You will also have to create the new habit and ensure it is strongly associated with the initial stimulus.
If the change does not work as expected, you must be willing to try something different, something small and with a clear reward.
FIGURE 4.8: Identifying a crucial moment
Remember that no change plan is good if you do not know how to deal with the impediments that arise while attempting to implement it. In some cases, you’ll need time and external support to set the new micro-habits in action.
Social pressure is important. If everyone performs an action, then the probability of others doing the same will be higher. Therefore, it’s a good idea to ensure that those who have incorporated the healthy micro-habit are physically close to those still needing to adopt it. Sometimes you’ll even have to change the physical layout of the office. It’s not a bad idea to erect physical barriers to hinder unwanted habits, instead facilitating the desired ones.
Most of us will think twice about visiting the soda machine if doing so requires climbing four flights of stairs.
In some Asian cultures, people prefer to make group decisions, and they may feel uncomfortable when making them individually. It’s possible, then, to build a set of micro-habits so that independent decision-making is not threatening.
Remember that the micro-habit technique can generally be used with any other change approach in your organization and that it’s essential to create a remarkable organization.
When to Use Each Approach
You’ve learned, between this chapter and the previous, five approaches you can use to start transforming your company. You could end up using a mixture of them all, but there are situations where using a single approach will prove more useful:
Top-down approach
Changing from the local to the global (bottom-up)
Habits (or change in processes)
Introducing it little by little (Organic)
Micro-habits
FIGURE 4.9: Motivation and possible change technique to be used
The organic technique can be used with individuals or teams at any level of motivation. Since you already know how motivation works and its impact on the speed of change adoption, it’s a good idea to begin to relate this to different approaches.
Level of
Motivation
Possible
Approach
Example
High Motivation
Top Down
Or Bottom Up
Organic
Executives or
management initiate a business transformation (top-down) or the change starts from the teams (bottom-up; for example, implementing the Scrum framework).
Medium Motivation
Bottom Up or Habits
Organic
Habits mean a new practice, such as the addition of a continuous integration process in software teams.
Low Motivation
Micro-habits
Organic
Traffic-light signaling system to indicate that they are busy.
Table 4.1 Approach and motivation
Table 4.1 doesn’t mean that you don’t use other approaches if the motivational levels are different, but rather that you pay more attention when that happens.
Leading Exponential Change Page 13
