Why should your business consider behaviour change? What good will it actually do? There are a number of reasons for changing staff behaviour, but I am only going to focus on one today. Energy.
Energy is a stunningly unscientific concept that is not even defined by psychologists. We have a very vague vocabulary about it in modern english - we talk about low energy, apathy, lethargy, tiredness, sluggishness or, conversely, high energy, excitement, motivation, passion. But these things mean different things to different people. The ancient Greeks had a wonderful word for this - they called it Kratos which translates roughly (though not exactly) to power. Power is the energy which which we take on the world.
If you’ve ever worked anywhere, ever, you’ll know that many jobs these days are devoid of the immediate satisfaction of the more “fun” activities like gardening, reading, woodworking etc... that we fill our free time with. We tend to lack power. We get through the day, splitting our energy hither and thither, pulled in a million different directions. This is largely a product of a bad work environment which are often ill conceived to deal with these demands.
One of the goals of a behaviour change intervention could be to address this energy dispersal issue. Consider your own daily routine. Imagine yourself as a nexus point of energy, like a star burning all it’s energy out in 360 degree circumference. Your energy is strong in the aggregate but diffuse on a project-by-project basis. Each demand on your time takes more energy just to keep at bay, you might progress a little but at the end of the day, burnt out, hollow, you struggle home and collapse, no real work done - or so it seems.
Your energy of course, is finite, just like a star. You have only so much fuel before you are all burned out. A bad work environment often encourages people to act like stars - in a bad way. We expect people to burn in every direction. Multi-tasking is king and yes-men are given pride of place. A person tackling six projects is, on the surface, more capable than someone handling, three or two.
If you’ll indulge me I’ll stretch this example on a bit further - the nature of light and heat is such that it is weakest when dispersed. It has a physical nature and cannot be multiplied out without a loss of power. So too can we say of a person there Kratos - or power, or energy - cannot be forever stretched whilst expecting it to maintain it’s potency. Instead, consider what happens to light and heat when we focus it; have you ever heard of laser?
A laser is focused light and heat. It travels much further than diffuse light and heat does and is incomparably more powerful. To cut a piece of metal we don’t leave a light bulb hanging over it, we focus the light and heat and slice right through it. A good work environment will encourage people to focus, laser like, their Kratos, and cut through projects that are essential to achieve their goals. Efficiency standards rise, well being rises, and everyone is better off for it.
There are far too many behavioural interventions to go through in this blog post but if you have any questions or want to discuss how you can encourage your employees to become more like lasers and less like light bulbs you can contact us at the Wales Centre for Behaviour Change for a free consultation if you are in the Wales Convergence Zone (www.behaviourscience.org).
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