behaviour

Cognitive dissonance theory states that people strive for internal consistence and psychological comfort. It says that people who are "psychologically uncomfortable" are able to actively change what they believe… if they are uncomfortable with two conflicting beliefs. Consider an example:

You look in the mirror, thinking to yourself “I really must lose some weight”. A matter of only a few hours later, you find yourself tucking into a doughnut that someone’s passed round the office. In a moment of panic, you realise that you’ve committed to yourself that you’ll be good – and now you’re a bad person for eating the doughnut. 

You’re psychologically uncomfortable, so what do you do? Your options are as follows:

1. Justify your behaviour: (“It’s Sally’s birthday, it would be rude not to”)
2. Ignore or deny the data: (“It’s probably a low fat doughnut”)
3. Add an extra clause to your contract with yourself: (“I was really good yesterday and I walked to work, so it’s okay once in a while”)
4. Change your behaviour (“Right, I’m throwing this doughnut in the bin”)

Unfortunately, the last one is by far and away the most effective, but also the most difficult.  It’s much easier to do any one of the first three and just change what you believe!  Rationalising and justifying incongruent behaviours are more common than you might think – from “I know I should give to charity, but I’ve been really busy recently”, to “Donald Trump is an alpha male, so it’s OK for him to make those comments”. And as human behaviour and organisational behaviour are identical, intrinsically linked and inseparable, the same things tend to happen in the world of business – to the detriment of us all!

Recently, Amazon drivers have admitted to driving dangerously and even urinating into bottles because of the pressure to maintain an unreasonable delivery schedule. The organisational cognitive dissonance could well be that “it’s OK to treat our drivers like that, because we believe that our customers should come first.”

Sports Direct has engaged in some shocking behaviour by fining staff 15 minutes’ pay for being one minute late, even though they’re made to stand in long security queues. The organisation’s cognitive dissonance there is likely to be “If they didn’t steal from us, we wouldn’t need to be so strict”

Bank bosses justified the dysfunctional behaviour that prompted the banking crisis by explaining that the regulations were too loose, and anyway, “you shouldn’t have let us get away with it”.

There are also hundreds of smaller, micro-dissonances that justify a range of behaviours at work. Consider “Steve’s a bit of a bully, but he really makes us an amazing profit!”. Or “it’s OK that we make people work really long hours, because they wouldn’t make an effort otherwise”.  Or “we know we should have more senior women in leadership roles, but there’s no good women around”.   Justifying or rationalising ‘uncomfortable’ behaviours (rather than challenging them), can lead to a culture of sexism, bullying and low integrity; among many other dysfunctional outcomes.

So, do you want to rationalise, justify and explain away the reasons you reach for the doughnut… Or do you want to take the tough choice and opt to change your behaviour instead?

Having read my two previous posts, you'll now know that the workplace industry is very focused on productivity at the moment. Well, I say "productivity", but that's a trap... So substitute that word with creative, or collaborate, or innovative, or awesomely smiley (delete as applicable).  We also know that a sense of purpose is the biggest factor to make them productive/collaborative/innovative/smiley. But how do we get there?   How can the Workplace industry go about creating exceptional workplaces?

Well, I'll give you a clue - the biggest effects are not in the design. Creating an amazing place to work equally does not come about because you've got ergonomic seating, a concierge service, good air and noise quality, an Italian marble reception, a fantastic coffee machine, efficient chillers, or an above-the-recommended-minimum square foot of office space per person. These certainly contribute, but I think that these are hugely over-inflated causes of workplace productivity.

For me, there's a bit missing in the middle. The pink, squidgy bit in the middle. That's right, the thinking, feeling human being... I believe that the physical workplace should be far more focused on driving the thing that's right in front of its nose - and that's human behaviour. A recent Forbes article has done some research into "The Top 15 traits in business" - the likes of autonomy, passion, hard work, cultural fit, presentation and collaboration. So - the big question - can the workplace industry help to engender the those behaviours in the people who work there - making them more collaborative, autonomous, passionate and hard-working?

According to the CIPD, "Nearly 50% of employees describe the culture of their organisation as a ‘formalised and structured place to work, where procedures govern what people do and hold people together’. 55% specified that they would prefer to work in ‘an organisation with a family feel, held together by loyalty and tradition’"  

Additionally, ClearCompany say that "39% of surveyed employees believe that people in their own organisation don’t collaborate enough", and an Ipsos Mori poll concludes that only "a fifth of people are proud of their employer's behaviour". So what part does the workplace play in making people more passionate, collaborative and engaged? I've recently seen a few excellent examples of organisations that have understood this sociological link.

• Sky's campus in Livingston have an area where you walk into the call centre that's decorated to look like a customer's front door - so they are literally 'walking into the customer's world' before they speak to them. Rackspace have gone one step further, theming their entire office like a customer's home
• Sea Containers House residents Ogilvy & Mather have deliberately removed power sockets from secluded areas, to discourage lone working and force people to work in shared spaces and collaborate more
• Red Bull Racing and Mitie have introduced technology which drives hundreds of tiny, incremental improvements that mirrors the needs of the drivers on the track
• Receptionists at Coutts do guest profiling for the VIPs, to make sure the welcome is personalised, making sure the visitors feel more important and prestige
• Lego have introduced 'activity based working' to their London HQ, which has flexible working spaces and no offices. This 'reflects the diversity of the company', and encourages people to learn from each other

There are also many, many other good examples of workplaces that not only understand and adapt to the humans that use them - but also that are able to actively drive the behaviours that the organisation is looking for. There's still plenty of work to be done in the interconnected worlds of FM, HR, Communications and Leadership - but I for one would welcome more cultural alignment between all parts of the organisation, with all parties trying to engender the behaviours that will make them succeed.

This has resulted in most of the Kubler-Ross stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression – everything bar acceptance. Their reasoning, according to the behavioural science department of the London School of Economics, was that escalators of over 18.5m tend to have fewer people walking up on the left, as it’s too much effort. The result is a vacant left side and a crowded right.

But it seems that the number-crunchers have forgotten a few key facts.

One rule for everyone doesn’t work

Just because fewer people will want to walk up long escalators, it doesn’t mean that no-one will. There will arguably now be even more angry, suited businesspeople who are blocked by left-standers.

This creates mixed messages

Only four London stations are above this 18.5m height ‘threshold’; namely Angel, Holborn, Green Park and Tottenham Court Road. If we have to stand on both sides at one of these, why not all of the stations? How will we know which ones to walk at, and where to stand?

They’ve underestimated our London-ness.

And by this, I mean our engrained mind-set. Us Londoners are happy not having to talk to anyone while travelling, wrapped up in our ‘social norm’ of civility and autopilot commuting. The shock of having this comfort zone unpicked in in such a blatant way is disturbing to the status quo. This is London, not Paris. 

Instruction doesn’t work

It’s one thing to be told with a range of methods (by a person, a robot-lady, over the tannoy and with some yellow stickers) what to do. It’s another to be told why. If people don’t know why, they are very likely to return to their original behavioural patterns as soon as they can. 

Above all, there are lessons for the world of business. Large-scale behavioural change does not come about overnight, nor does it react well to being told what to do. People need a range of factors to come into play, in order for the underlying culture and mind-set to shift. This often includes (but is certainly not limited to) communication methods, leadership and peer role-modelling, reward & recognition and purpose.

For me, it illustrates an interesting point. No matter what the numbers may say or how "good for us" it may appear to be, there’s just one group of people that might derail the whole programme… The very people whose behaviour you’re looking to change.