Next Level Up
Tips to Help You Change Behavior
By Jack S. Duggal, MBA, PMP
 Behavioral change is hard, even if it is a matter of life and death.
Only one in seven heart patients can change their behavior, even when doctors tell them that they will die if they don't, according to a study referenced by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey In their book, Immunity to Change [Harvard Business School Press, 2009].
As project managers, you too will find that change is hard for almost everyone.
You may interview stakeholders, conduct pilots and receive feedback for a project that updates an in-house operational interface, for example, and there is likely to be a lot of resistance.
How can you ensure project success when it is contingent on other people’s behavior?
Here are some tips to help you motivate people to change their behavior and adopt new processes?
Walk in Your Users’ Shoes
Just interviewing and talking to your users is not sufficient to cause behavioral change. This was the case when a hospital hired project management consultants to improve the patient experience.
In this scenario, the consultants didn’t interview or survey the patients. Instead, the consultants registered as patients and slept in patient beds for 24 hours before proposing changes to existing procedures.
You have to do the same in any kind of project. Live in your user’s shoes. Feel their pain. See things from their perspective. Understand what is really important to them.
Then, they may be more prone to accept and adopt the change.
Attract Stakeholders’ Attention
People often are too busy to pay attention to new processes and procedural changes.
An e-commerce company, for example, sought to update its operational interface. This involved creating new workflows and processes.
The proposed change was important and the project managers knew they had to communicate it to the employees in a relevant way. They needed to grab the users’ attention and reach them on an emotional level in order to stimulate behavioral change.
Users were invited to a bonfire to burn all the old process manuals. That successfully caught their attention in a visual and emotional way and motivated their change.
Focus on the Four Es
When planning a process or procedural change, ensure the change is fair and just. In order to help users adopt that change, focus on the four Es:
- Engage stakeholders in the development of the process;
- Explain the context and background;
- Clarify the Expectations of user compliance and the consequences of noncompliance; and
- Empathize with the user and the changes they will have to endure.
Learn more about justifying change in Project Resistance? Provide Justice, an article published in Community Post last summer.
Measure What Matters
Measurements drive behavior. When you chose relevant measurements and show their effects, you can experience a sustaining impact on behavioral change.
For example, an organization found its employees were spending too much time in too many ineffective meetings. The employees also were in the habit of taking work home at night because they didn’t have enough time during the day to complete it.
The project managers were tasked with a project to change that behavior.
First, they measured the time and cost of each employee who attended regular meetings. Then the project managers visually displayed this data and showed how it impacted productivity.
When the project results were presented, the project managers felt confident that people would change their behavior to conduct lesser, shorter and more effective meetings based on data and measurements.
If you have suggestions on how you motivate your users to change, go to PMI’s Facebook page and post your comments. You can also start a discussion on your PMI community of practice site.
Mr. Duggal is the managing principal of Projectize Group LLC,
which specializes in next generation training, consulting and tools. He is a
keynote speaker and PMI SeminarsWorld® leader for Building a Next Generation PMO and Portfolio Management seminar. He works with leading companies worldwide. For questions, comments or your feedback, please contact Mr. Duggal.
Check out the new Next Level Up seminar in PMI’s SeminarsWorld program, based on this column.
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