In this episode of Your Practice Ain’t Perfect, we’re talking about 3 Keys to Changing Employee Behavior.

Joe Mull, M.Ed, is a practice manager leadership trainer and keynote speaker who works with healthcare organizations that want their practice leaders to engage, inspire, and succeed. As an expert in employee engagement and healthcare leadership development, Joe gives physicians and managers the skills and tools they need to engineer teams that work hard, get along, and wow patients. After more than a decade in healthcare, Joe knows that when leaders develop skills related to leadership, communication, and teambuilding, they can stop putting fires out every day and prevent them from sparking in the first place. Bring Joe in to keynote your conference, design and facilitate a retreat, or beef up your practice leader training. For more info or to book Joe now visit www.joemull.com.

Whether you like it or not, as a frontline manager you are expected to be a change agent. And one of the toughest jobs a leader has is getting people to change. In fact, we probably fail at this more often than we succeed, because getting people to change, to adopt new behaviors, is complicated stuff. That’s why, in this episode of Your Practice Ain’t Perfect, I’m giving you 3 keys to changing employee behavior. Don’t go anywhere…

Often, getting people to change means getting them to engage in new behaviors that seem less appealing or more challenging than simply staying the same. There’s actually a lot of psychology behind this and when I do skill builder training retreats and workshops with large groups of healthcare managers, I like to spend just a little bit of time helping them understand this psychology because it’s critical to successfully igniting change in people.

What research tells us is that for people to adopt new behaviors, they must hold 3 beliefs simultaneously, before any change will occur.

First, they have to believe that there is a consequence to not changing. This consequence has to be legitimately painful to them. Something they will want to avoid at all costs. If you’re constantly warning people and asking for change without ever escalating to a more significant consequence, you’re not giving them this fundamental component that triggers change.

Second, they have to believe that there is a benefit to changing. These benefits have to be legitimately appealing to them. Something so desirable that they are willing to be uncomfortable for a time in order to gain it.

Finally, they have to believe they are capable of making the change. New behaviors that seem daunting or overwhelming are rarely embraced. When we believe, however, that the change is manageable, or that I have the capacity to make the change, I’m more likely to try. In research parlance, this is what is known as selfefficacy.

Now, the consequences, benefits, and selfefficacy have to be about them. Remember, everyone listens to the same radio station: WIIFM: What’s in it for ME. You have to tune in to that channel. Lots of leaders focus on benefits and consequences to patients or the practice or to the leader themselves, without zeroing in on the things that are truly painful or beneficial to the employee.

If your employee is chronically late, stop telling her that her tardiness is making things tough on her coworkers, who have to pick up the slack. That’s not a direct consequence to that employee. Tell her instead that her teammates have stopped giving her the benefit of the doubt and aren’t going to switch shifts with her anymore. Or tell her she’s the least likely person in the office to get a raise at review time. Or better yet, ask her, “What do you think this chronic lateness is costing you in the eyes of your teammates, who are pretty sick and tired of covering for you?” Or ask, “How do you think this is going to impact your next merit review?”

To highlight benefits, ask the employee to describe what life would be like when using the new, preferred behaviors you’re discussing. For our chronically late employee, ask “What would your day be like if you didn’t have to come rushing in at the last minute? What would it feel like to be ahead instead of constantly behind?” Listen closely to her answers, and tune in to what she truly sees as a benefit so that you can reinforce that in future conversations.

And finally, to zero in on that selfefficacy piece, find a way to make the change easy or simple for them and be in their corner along the way. Tell them you believe they can do it, and ask, “What’s one thing you can start doing right now, or one thing you can change, to fix this? Will you commit to that for one week?”

Remember, people only change when the pain of staying the same finally outweighs the pain of the change. And if you don’t know, now you know…

Joe Mull Speaker, Author, Trainer
www.joemull.com
Twitter:@joemull77