What I’ve learned from psychologists
Over the last four years I have worked with some brilliant psychologists. Applied psychology proved so valuable that I decided to do a master’s in psychology. Learning the theory has been brilliant. But seeing it applied in practice has changed how I work.
Here are the top three things I’ve learned about psychology in practice:
1. People will give you real-sounding reasons why they aren’t doing something you’ve asked them to do. It’s rarely the whole story.
Top of the pops for ‘real-sounding but not real’ is “I don’t have the time to…”.
Managers will often say they don’t have time to talk to their team. But the real reasons are likely to be many and varied. The COM-B model (Michie, et al., 2011) is a useful way to think about why a behaviour isn’t happening, and it defines three essentials for a behaviour to happen: Capability, opportunity and motivation.
Capability: Can someone do what you’re asking? Are they confident to have the conversation and be able to deal with what may crop up? Do they have access to the right tools, or systems? Can they use those tools?
Opportunity: What else could be stopping the behaviour happening? Is there somewhere to have a conversation, in private? Do shift patterns mean that managers don’t see their team very often?
Motivation: What thought processes may encourage or hamstring a behaviour? Are managers measured on the frequency and quality of their team interactions? Does the business care if the conversations happen?
Asking questions about why a behaviour isn’t happening can change the direction of a brief. And usually lead to better outcomes.
2. Clarity matters
Of course it does. But from psychologists I have learnt to focus on the behaviour you want to change, not just the message you want to get out there. Behaviour change is a messy, complicated business. You’re in with a far better chance of success if you are clear about the behaviour you want to focus on. Don’t try and kill a couple of birds with one stone. Aim for one well-defined prize. What are you asking people to do, who are you asking (it is very rarely everyone in the business), why, and can they do it?
Often an employee communication brief starts from a perspective of ‘what do we want to say?’. Switch focus to ‘what do you want people to do differently?’. This can shed light on the challenge and potential solutions. Particularly when you then explore if what you’re asking is doable.
3. Conversation is where the magic happens
Conversation is how we make sense of our world. Make sure that your communication plans include loads of opportunity for conversations, between peers, managers, teams and senior management. It is during those conversations that people make sense of what you’re asking, can ask questions about why, and often will talk about what that may stop them doing what you’re asking. It’s also a great opportunity to apply some positive psychology; we’re not talking about how we can change what you do, and how you do it. We can talk about where you’re already doing great things or already demonstrating brilliant outcomes with customers.
This is not exhaustive.
These are the top three that I use a lot in my work to have better conversations about what we’re really trying to achieve with creative communications, and how we can do that.
At Blackbridge, I lead the employee engagement practice, where we use creativity, our content and channels expertise and applied psychology to create effective employee communications that move people to do things differently.
If you’ve got a knotty behaviour change challenge let’s chat.