Human Behavior: Why People Do What They Do

Kerry Patterson shares tips for influencing change from his New York Times bestseller, "Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change."

Helping people change can be a difficult task. Especially when the behavior you're trying to influence is a long-standing habit. In some organizations, dysfunctional behavior has been around for decades and becomes the "way we do things here".

The first step in helping others behave differently is to figure out how you've unknowingly arranged things to make bad behavior impossible to change. There are six sources of influence that will help you see why the current behavior is inevitable. Once you see these clearly, you'll be empowered to begin dismantling the ineffective world as it currently exists. When your vision improves, so does your influence.

One reason we fail in trying to influence others is because we completely misunderstand why people are resisting change. We tell ourselves others won't change because of some character flaw. They're lazy, selfish, evil, stupid, and so on. When we believe this is true, we do one of two things: we either give up or we attempt to motivate them with bribes and threats.

For example, I once worked at a manufacturing facility where a fellow had cut his hand. When I asked the executives what had occurred, they explained that he had removed a safety device. I asked myself, why would a person act against their own self-interest in this way?

Later that week, I found myself seated cross the table from a fellow who had a bandage on his hand. When I asked what had happened, sure enough he was the guy who moved the device.

"Why would you remove a safety device?" I asked him.

And he explained, "Well, if I removed the device I could finish earlier." The device slowed him down.

"Why did you want to finish earlier?"

"Well, if I finish earlier, than I can go play cards with my friends."

"Ah, so you like playing cards?"

"No, but my friends want me to fill out the foursome, and if I don't play with them and I don't finish early, well, they give me a bad time."

So there it was, he didn't remove the device because he was acting against his self-interest. There was a policy that allowed him to do so, that was so that he could go play cars and he had peer pressure that forced him to do that.

An important thing to keep in mind is that people's behavior is influenced by six sources: values, skills, teamwork, support, incentives, and environment. If you try to pile on incentives when people lack skills you'll fail. And if you try to tap into values when their environment is pulling against them, you'll find them discouraged and even cynical.

If you put them through training when they just don't care, you'll waste your time. You need to examine all six sources of influence.

Remember this when dealing with someone whose behavior you're trying to change. Before you try to boost his or her performance with lectures and company mugs and medals find out where the real source of the problem lies and go from there.

[kade]

Not going to lie I was conflicted on why people do what they do, and why they are so mean and selfish, this opened my eyes I thank you!

[pardonmyfrench]

People do what they do because those specific behaviors have made a favorable change in the environment under certain conditions. So in the future, under similar conditions, the individual is more likely to engage in the previous behavior because in the past, it was met with a favorable change. The environment dictates what we do, free will is a lie...

...which is open for debate. hahaaa