“Organizations that identify and address pervasive mindsets at the outset are four times more likely to succeed in organizational-change efforts than are companies that overlook this stage” RiskForesights Integrated Risk Management Guide
Changing people’s behaviour is most effective through changing the mindset. Changing the mindsets of people to ensure their thinking results in new desired behaviours. This is sustainable but takes time and effort to influence a change in mindset. But if the necessary time and effort is invested, a person’s mindset can lead them to take actions necessary to create momentum and a critical mass of commitment throughout the organization, Dinate Roode (2017)
An important step in getting the change required is defining where the Organisation wants to be. Creating a compelling Risk Informed Vision. The Vision may seem unrealistic but the more you factor anticipated Risks, the more excited and inspired you’ll become. Even more important, you will be more open to new ideas and opportunities and that is a great motivator for many people. If your vision is Risk Informed and futuristic you will do whatever it takes to make it happen.
CHANGING YOUR BEHAVIOR TAKES MORE THAN CHANGING YOUR MIND
Developmental psychologist Robert Kegan and education expert Lisa Laskow Lahey have done some of the most insightful work on why this is the case. They argue that, as well as our enormous capacity to develop and change, each of us holds within ourselves a powerful set of assumptions about the world that keep us locked up in certain behaviours; these behaviours are meant to keep us safe from shame and embarrassment. It is easy to see how an attempt to change those behaviours – thereby putting our big assumptions at risk – meets with unconscious resistance, fear, and anxiety. And so it is that we continue to prefer a known hell over an unknown heaven. Until we reflect on our behavioural patterns and until we develop the willingness to reach deep into our self-image and identity, change remains difficult – even change that is deeply desired. Natasha Bonnevalle
Imagination is a beautiful thing, but it’s not a substitute for practice. For anyone who has ever tried to master a sport or learned to play an instrument, you know that it takes time, dedication, and hard work. No amount of thinking and no measure of emotional effort will get the work done.
Even when things don’t work out as we expected (and they will), and even when we occasionally fall back to our old behaviours (and we will), we will gradually start making the new behaviours our own. It’s in practicing that what is waiting to be born will be born. Natasha Bonnevalle
Effectively Managing Results supported by Right Behaviours will Transform an Organisation into a High Performance Organisation, Improve Service Delivery by Governments and Improve Resilience.
