When looking to improve yourself in your work, or the way your team works together, you are facing one of the most difficult tasks we know. You, and your team members, need to change behavior. It is easy to agree on changing certain behavior, but it is more difficult to stick to it. Remember the last time you set your New Year’s resolutions? How long did they last?
Sticking to a desire to change is difficult, because in most cases there is no constant reminder and then it is easy to fall back into old habits. In our mind we tell ourselves that we want to change, but our environment doesn’t know it. The people around us stay the same and as long as we don’t tell them about our intentions to change they are unable to support us.
This is one of the reasons that in the Stakeholder Centered Coaching we involve, as the name already suggests, your stakeholders. They will become an active part of your change and you will involve them regularly for feedback and suggestions.
In TEAM Stakeholder Centered Coaching a whole team will work on changing behavior. The team will work on one common behavior to change and each individual will work on one personal behavior. TEAM Stakeholder Centered Coaching is a very dynamic and active process, while at the same time it is a very time sensitive process. This is also in part because the team will actively act in the role as each other’s stakeholders, providing feedback and suggestions for improvement.
When you are not involved in a coaching process and want to work on your own improvement by changing behaviors, involving your stakeholders can be very helpful. Just tell your colleagues and your family what habit you are trying to change or what goal you are striving to achieve. Ask them to provide you with feedback and suggestions to support you in your goal.
Another helpful reminder is to create triggers for yourself that remind you of the desired change. In my younger days my facial expression could sometimes be misunderstood by others as being grumpy. To change that behavior, I put a small round sticker with a smiley on it on the inside of my paper notepad. It reminded me in conversations of the need to put up a friendly face. My counterpart in the conversation would probably not even notice the smiley. It was on my notepad for years, simply because it worked for me.
What triggers could work for you to help you change your behavior for the better?
PS: Read more about the use of triggers for behavioral change in Marshall Goldsmith’s book Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts — Becoming the Person You Want to Be*
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