Our niece Sarah was 21 recently. With typical flair, her Mum suggested we all gave her one piece of advice on being an adult. Adding to the pressure these were to be written on post-it notes and stuck on the family fridge for all to see.
There was an advertising campaign a couple of years back which used this line. It makes the point, of course, that when I am stuck in a traffic jam and looking at all the car drivers around me, they are doing the same to me. We have all helped to create the problem. But there is a wider point about human behaviour.
We were sitting in the local park recently watching the bird life. Not an obvious theatre for learning about human behaviour you may think, but stay with me for a moment. Our attention was caught by a coot who was acting aggressively towards every other bird on the lake.
“When it comes to influencing others, I only have one strategy. I make my point, and if they don’t get it, I make my point again. And if that fails I have no Plan B”. I came across this, pretty much verbatim, in a conversation with a Senior Manager recently. Truth to tell, I come across it all the time.
"80% of the time if you have a behavioural problem in your organisation it's because you have either poor structure or poor processes". Or so it says on page 56 of "This Stuff Really Works". Surely it can't be that simple? It's all about personalities, right? Or cultural differences. Or gender. Or folks just being plain difficult.
A recent report into 14 Hospital Trusts in the UK with very poor performance came to the conclusion that nobody was paying any attention to the elephant in the room. The Trusts were "not really listening to contradictory evidence". There was no attempt to seek the views of patients, and staff felt uncomfortable about raising their own concerns with management.
Using principles taken from "Courage to Change" a new manager has recently been able to transform the key relationships with her staff. Something had to change - and it needed to start with Kate!