Credit: Ivanko_Brnjakovic

What is it about changing our behaviours that can makes it so difficult to maintain? Think back to the last time you deliberately worked on changing a behaviour in order to be more effective at work. How did it go? If you weren’t successful, can you put your finger on why? If you were, what was it that made it work for you?

Research and writings by Professor Shlomo Ben-Hur and Nik Kinley indicate that setting a goal to change is not enough in itself. We need to be aware of our inner and outer context. They have created a model that will help us to improve our chances of sustained behavioural change: the MAPS Model where MAPS stands for:

• Motivation
• Ability
• Psychological Capital
• Supporting environment

Let’s take a brief look at each in turn with a view to helping you know how to best support yourself to change a behaviour. As we review each one, we’ll apply them to our fictional character Amy who you may have met in previous blogs. Amy is 27 and keen to progress in her career. She is working at changing her behaviour from being reluctant to speak up in meetings with more senior employees to being able to stand alone to put forward her views.

Motivation

In essence, this comes down to whether or not you want to change. If you’ve had feedback that you need to change but you don’t really believe it, chances are that even if you make attempts to change these will be half-hearted at best.

Motivation can come in the form of extrinsic motivators (external to you, such as rewards and recognition) and intrinsic motivators (internal drivers such as the positive feelings we get when we find something fulfilling and enjoyable). There are 3 factors to focus on if you want to tap into your intrinsic motivation:

1. Autonomy

   The feeling of having a choice in what you do and not being controlled by others.
   How can you use this? Simply reminding yourself that you have choice whether to do something or not can make it more likely that you will do something if you choose to do it. For Amy, reminding herself that she has a choice about whether to speak up in a meeting or not enables her to feel more motivated about choosing when to do so.

2. Mastery

   Feeling competent in your abilities together with having the right level of challenge and achievement.
   How do you do this? Reinforce your sense of competence by identifying and reminding yourself of strengths that you have that can help you to change. Also, enrol a buddy who will see you as you practice the behaviour you are working to change and have them ‘catch you doing something right’, giving you positive feedback. Also, consider the types of challenges you like most and see if you can position this behaviour change as that type of challenge. Amy recognises that she is good at articulating her point of view – she has presented marketing pitches in the past and gets good feedback about answering questions. She can use this strength to help her stand alone. She has also asked Juan to provide feedback at the end of meetings.

3. Connection

   Being meaningfully connected to other people and what you are doing.
   How do you do this? Firstly, ask yourself how making this change will support you in any long term goals that are important to you as well as what the benefits are to you of making the change and what any negative consequences might be of not making the change. Secondly, take time to be clear about what’s next – what are the specific actions you need to take to enable the change. For Amy, her long term career goal is to reach the position of Marketing Director. She knows that she’ll need to be able to influence others and to be confident to voice her opinion. She can see the connection between the behaviour she is working on and her long term career aspirations.

Credit: Choreograph

Ability

This is about ensuring that you have the required skills and knowledge to be able to perform the new behaviour.
How do you do this?  Work out what skills and knowledge are required, make an honest appraisal of whether you have these skills and knowledge and, if you don’t, consider what you can do to acquire them. Also ensure you have any resources that are needed. Then it is a matter of practice, practice, practice. For Amy, this is about looking ahead to identify opportunities to practice, and, where possible, having Juan support her by asking her a question to invite her to give her view at first. She has decided to aim to try out the required behaviour once a day at least to build up practice. When you consider that the average toddler when mastering how to walk falls 17 times an hours (Ref 3) you can see that practice may not always run smoothly – perseverance is key – which is where the next MAPS factor comes in.

Psychological Capital

Research has identified four inner resources that together support ‘psychological capital’ and significantly impact whether people can sustain behavioural change. These are:

1. Self-belief – If you struggle with your self-belief, you may find it useful to work with a coach to help you identify the causes and blockers and to support you to overcome these.
2. Optimism – If you want to improve your optimism, you’ll find some tips in my previous blog on grit, ‘The four letter word that helps you succeed’.
3. Willpower – For willpower improvements, try some of the tips from this article in Psychology Today.
4. Resilience – To be more resilient, try some of the tips in my previous blog , ‘The strength to go on’.

Supporting Environment

Key elements in the working environment can support change. These include social support (do those around us support our aims, consciously or unconsciously), habits (finding ways to make the behavioural change more habitual) and environment factors that can nudge us to make the right choices.

Finally, the MAPS framework provides lots of ideas on how to better support yourself to make behavioural change. Reflecting on these points can firstly help you to see if you are ready to try the change and secondly, by selecting even one or two factors to focus on, can support you to make those changes stick. Good luck with ‘mapping’ your next change successfully!

Sources:

Kinley, N. and S. Ben-Hur. Intrinsic Motivation: The Missing Piece in Changing Employee Behavior, May 2016.

Kinley, N. and S. Ben-Hur. Changing Employee Behavior: A Practical Guide for Managers. London: Palgrave: MacMillan, 2015.

Adolph,K.E., Cole, W. G., Komati, M., Garciaguirre,J.S., Badaly, D., Lingeman, J.M., Chan, G. and Sotsky, R. B.; How Do You Learn to Walk? Thousands of Steps and Dozens of Falls Per Day: New York University