Culture, as a collective set of beliefs and behaviors, forms the foundation of all organizations. Our beliefs cause us to behave in particular ways and, consequently, also determine the collective results achieved (or not) by organizations. Our attitudes are how we choose to display our values and our values generally don’t change without a very significant event occurring. We cannot see values, we only learn of other’s values by seeing them displayed through their behaviors. We have the choice to change our behaviors.
Intellectually this makes sense, but on a practical basis, how do you change behavior? After all, leaders spend a lot of time managing the situations resulting from behaviors so let’s get practical about this topic. This simple Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence (ABC) tool is a quick way to analyze behaviors.
Behavior: Employee is continually tardy
Consequence: You speak with them about their tardiness (negative consequence in your mind)
Antecedent: Employee craves the attention they are getting so they see this as positive reinforcement and continue to be tardy
Here is another example:
Behavior: Your star employee leads a difficult project really well
Consequence: They receive your praise and a spot bonus
Antecedent: If (and this is a big If) the employee feels positively reinforced by your praise, they look forward to another project. However, if they are the person you always turn to because they
always deliver results, this praise may be received negatively as they realize it simply means more work for them in the future.
It is critical that the consequence be a positive reinforcement from the recipient’s point of view. While it sounds trivial and simple, it isn’t. We all do what we do because of what happens to us when we do it. And since we cause change by managing behaviors, this simple A-B-C analysis tool can be very handy for determining ‘why does someone do what they do’.
In healthy organizations, negative behaviors are eliminated by managing the consequences and positive behaviors are accelerated by providing significantly more positive reinforcement to employees than there are negative reinforcements (at least a 4:1 ratio and hopefully much higher).
I often encounter adults in positions of leadership and supervision who don’t want to try this. They think it is great for their kids, but not for their employees. They are right – it is great for their kids. We manage our children’s behaviors using this A-B-C approach almost subconsciously. And when we provide a lot more positive than negative reinforcement, our kids respond in marvelous ways. So I ask you, if it is good for your family and your children, and it works, why wouldn’t you want to use it at work?
While this sounds almost too elementary, managing behaviors through consequences is the root of all behavior modification. As was stated above, culture is the collective set of beliefs and behaviors of our employees so it behooves us as leaders to understand and manage behavior effectively.
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