“Mr Joe, Sarah has done a wee on the floor…” or what we can learn from an 8 year old.
Me: “Sarah, I know you can do this! Sarah, do you think you can?”
Jonathan: “Mr Joe! Mr Joe! Sarah has done a wee on the floor.”
From me days as a teacher. Next, from my days as an advisor:
“The approach is strong. It just hasn’t gone anywhere. I just get so frustrated Joe. What are we doing wrong? What am I doing wrong? How do other CEOs do it? It just feels so overwhelming.”
Thankfully the CEO was in better control than Sarah. Last week I talked about how much everyone loves meeting and what to do when your day is stacked full of them. I gave a very straightforward approach to reduce meeting overload and left you with the thought that yes, culture eats strategy for breakfast and it probably won’t work.
My drop of advice in a sea of a problem won’t help. The problem needs to get bigger before it can get solved.
Demanding a change in behaviour rarely works. It’s why 8 year old Sarah weed. It felt impossible. To understand how to shift behaviour, we need to look at what drives behaviour. It’s the Inner Game.
Everyone has an inner game and it is made up of their Identity, Beliefs, Value and Capabilities. If we take a typical mid level manager. They have beliefs, like
“Meetings are where I shine.” “I need to see the whites of the team’s eyes to understand how they are operating” “Meetings are a forcing function” “My job is meetings” “It’s easier to meet than to create a document”
Shifting those beliefs = shift in behaviour. Shifting behaviour = shifting results
The first shift has to be “Meetings are not the only way.”
The second shift “Documents are great for xxx, Meetings are great for xxx, Short audio / video messages are great for xxx. Maybe we don’t need as many meetings?”
The changes in belief can only come from individual. You can guide them on that journey and that’s what setting a the right culture can do. But you need to define what beliefs to encourage and why those beliefs are better. Everyone skips that second one. I will revisit the inner game in a the future. Please do let me know if you want me to prioritise it.
Leave a comment