1 minute read
Use role models and incentives
Moti vate and build momentum
According to Thomas Hills, professor of psychology at the University of Warwick, there are five factors which positively impact behavioural change, which he refers to as: social, economic, identity, nudge and associative. All of these can help businesses seeking to successfully deliver change.
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Social role models
Thomas says people will naturally look to their role models and friends to see how they respond. “If you can get early uptake amongst people who have the highest social profiles in an organisation, that is a powerful way to achieve what you are looking for,” says Thomas. “They are probably people who are well liked, or people who are productive.”
Louise from Brother UK agrees. She says leading by example is key, making sure that leaders adopt things, and are seen to be adopting things. “When you use a new system, and lead by example, you will get people who will automatically follow and do the same.”
Economic incentives
You can also pay people to do something, says Thomas. “If you can incentivise things, the economists will tell you, you can basically achieve anything. That is not necessarily true, but it’s highly effective. You can do that in a positive or negative way, giving or taking away.”
This is what happened at Brother UK when the leadership team implemented a new app for learning and development. “All the books said: ‘don’t link learning and development to financial reward’, but we did,” says Louise.
“Everybody had targets to hit, they are measured against them every year and that determines their annual bonus. The people who wanted to do learning and development did it anyway, but for the people who were more reluctant, this encouraged them to do it and use the technology to get there.
But she also suggests other incentives can work for those not motivated by money: “We also included community engagement in the target. For people with more experience, who weren’t ambitious for promotion, we got them mentoring apprentices, going into schools and helping others. And that engaged them with using the app.”
