Business Network Sussex

Author bio: David is a professional personal and organisational development consultant with many years' corporate experience, having worked in a wide range of industries including IT, Retail, Engineering, FMCG, Government and SME's. www.quadrant1.com

There is a general belief that getting people to change their behaviour is difficult and takes a long time. I can understand this belief when there are so many examples of change taking a long time. Yet I am aware that we like to defend our beliefs and look for evidence to support them. We know that whatever we believe we will seek to make true. TV debating programmes are based upon this principle and it’s what causes so many arguments between people and groups.

So what stops people from changing quickly and easily? Is it their deep in-grained habits, or is it their beliefs? Or is it a mix of the two?

"What you become directly influences what you get."
Jim Rohn

It is clear that habits are very easy to repeat because the programme responsible for them is located in the unconscious part of the mind over which we seem to have little control. Yet over the years I have experienced rapid change in many individuals, and in myself. I recall how I would get frustrated sometimes when my children were at their most demanding, and how a simple and quick technique helped me to reframe and change my response. I learned to stay relaxed whilst also dealing with the onslaught of ‘Dad, I need you to ….’ There are also many examples of people who have changed in positive and quite dramatic ways as a result of attending our workshops.

Change can also be swift when faced with a significant life event like a serious illness, the death of someone close, a redundancy, or a newborn child coming into the family. In these cases we respond to changing demands upon us, or as a result of inner reflection about our sense of self, our behaviour towards others, and how we feel about ourselves. Sometimes we may witness an extraordinary feat by a disadvantaged individual that causes us to enter a state of reflection about the significance of our own lives.

Evidence of rapid change So what about change in large organisations? The public sector in the UK is a classic example of change taking a long time, as is the UK’s recently privatised transport system and congestion on the British roads is famous around the world. Sometimes we seem to be putting up with things, as inadequate as they are, for almost a lifetime without any change. But in contrast to these examples consider the change former president Lee Kuan Yew has brought about in Singapore, from a third-world British staging post in 1959 to a first-world economy within 30 years, and by 2000 having the world’s fourth highest per capita income.

Dr Henry Kissinger said of Lee Kuan Yew “Every great achievement is a dream before it becomes reality, and his vision was a state that would not simply survive but prevail by excelling”. When you look at China today you see another example of change happening visibly at the speed of light particularly in the modern metropolis of Shanghai. There are over 1.3 billion people in China desperately seeking change and we have only just begun to see the effect of Chinese entrepreneurial activity on world economies.

Adjust your focus So there is plenty of evidence of rapid change. But what do we tend to focus on when we know that change would be a good thing? I am certain that when we are feeling stuck or stagnant in an aspect of our work or life, or when we seek to change others, what we focus on will determine the speed at which a change will take place. One of the key reasons why some African countries have been unable to deal with poverty in the long term is that unlike Lee Kuan Yew the governments have chosen to focus on their own wealth and power.

So many people focus on the negative aspects of their mundane workaday lives, or the few benefits that they are privileged with, and hence they are unable to break out of their monotony. To change it helps if you have a belief that ‘you can and will’ and to have a vision of what’s possible. So it’s useful to be able to adjust your focus if what you are focusing on is limiting your vision of the possible.

When you listen to people who have a successful track record of creating positive change you find some common qualities. Rudy Giuliani emphasises the importance of being an optimist, having courage and getting your ideas into the hearts and minds of others, “If you want to be a leader you’ve got to be an optimist, so that when you are going through a difficult time you can visualise success and see the things you have to do to get there”. Bill Sweetenham, the British Olympic swimming coach talks about having to “sell your vision” and the need for “meticulous planning, sweat, belief and ambition”.

Whatever the change we want to bring about, either in ourselves, or in others, it certainly helps to have a positive, optimistic picture of what it is we want to see happen. So focus, vision, courage and ultimately belief lie at the beginning of change. When you encounter beliefs that are limiting the capability to change the first thing to do is deal with the belief.

When you believe something is possible then you will begin the search for a way to make it happen. If you also have a vision then you have an outcome and all you then require is a method. So you might say that the tipping point for change is flipping a limiting belief to an empowering belief, and the rest is like a collapsing house of cards, or a chain reaction creating the change.

The change can be instant when you choose a different focus, for example the following statement suggests an underlying belief that will lead to certain behaviour:

“People can't be trusted”

You can imagine the person with this belief having few true friends and creating a climate of mistrust wherever they go. Behaviour reflects belief.

“You have to work to earn money”

If there were a way of earning money without working, such as winning the lottery or making smart investments, this person is surely not going to be doing it. They will be too busy working for a living.

“Wonder who’s going to frustrate me today”

So this person is going to spend the day looking for someone to frustrate them. Imagine what could happen if this same person were to drop that belief and instead hold beliefs suggested by the following statement:

“Wonder how much I can learn about people today”

And think about all the activity at work that often creates limiting beliefs, like the following examples:

“Oh well, another meeting with X – what a waste of time this is going to be yet again”

“My job is getting to be a real pain these days”

The statements we utter about the situations we are in, and the experiences we have had, or are about to have, all reflect our beliefs. It’s no good arguing or debating with each other when we are holding beliefs of this nature – it’s really a waste of time. But where are we taught about the impact our beliefs have? Certainly not at school, university, or conventional corporate training programmes. But learning how beliefs are formed, how they affect us, and how to change them is crucial to the personal and organisational change process. Take the following statement as an example of how beliefs limit personal performance:

“Why am I so uncertain and anxious about X?”

Underneath the anxiety and uncertainty we will surely find a limiting self-belief. If this were not the case this person would simply ask for help in some form or another, perhaps training or coaching. But what often happens is that the limiting self-beliefs about our capability prevent us from being open about our needs, and we fool ourselves into thinking that we ‘should really know’ how to perform well. We may even cover up our inadequacies. There is a common saying that most people spend their time at work ‘hoping they never get found out as impostors’. Our egos can have too much control over our thinking and our behaviour.

Belief change techniques When you change a belief you open up the possibility for all kinds of new behaviour to emerge, behaviour that always had potential but had been locked away by the belief. It’s like the frog in the bottom of the well that looks up and sees but a small circle of sky and believes that to be the entire universe. So change can happen quickly, if you believe that it can – and that’s the real challenge with change, and there is a growing array of belief change techniques available today.

One of the simplest, yet very powerful techniques we use in our workshops is THIS-not-THAT helping you to adjust your focus and reframe the way you have been thinking. Once you have learned this technique you will have it to use on all the beliefs you had not realised are limiting your potential.