I differentiate necessarily between the words change and transform.

I differentiate necessarily between the words change and transform.

Change I see as a new action perhaps with or without the intent of transformation behind it. You might be a person who wants to get fitter for example. So you change your behaviour by going for a run.

You might even sign up for a half Marathon and run every week for months before the event. You have changed your behaviour.

Transformation as I have it is when the brain rewires and so places exercise higher up the hierarchical order of behaviour so that it becomes habitual (An automatic response to the environment).

I’ve worked with many organisations that wish to transform the behaviour of their leaders.

I also speak with many who haven’t succeeded and ultimately had to let good people go.

These organisations are mistaking information and even implementation for transformation.

A good illustration of what’s happening here can be seen when chefs go corporate - or at least I’ve seen it enough times to use it to illustrate my point.

I’ve worked in a few restaurants in my time. Summer jobs while at uni, part time while at college.

I worked in a Michelin star restaurant once which was an amazing experience.

Dish washing, peeling potatoes, I even graduated to making starters from time to time.

The atmosphere was savage.

Cutting banter was there from day one. Could you take it, could you give it? Did you get defensive or offended and sulky?

I’m not saying it was right or that there wasn’t a better way but they were certainly some of the most fun places I’ve worked with a strong sense of belonging and camaraderie if you passed the constant tests.

What was common in these environments was direct and instructional leadership with strong evidence of effectiveness bathed in a soup of fun and connection.

That is the perfect recipe for habit formation. (Assuming you can thrive in such an environment).

Now we take this individual and place them in a business setting.

They are hard working, high energy, easy to get along with and don’t take themselves or anything anyone says to them too seriously.

Naturally they find themselves put forward for a leadership position over time.

All of a sudden they undergo a personality shift.

They are instructing constantly, harshly criticising and often in front of others.

Their brain has opened the “leadership” file (not a literal file) in their brain based on associations seen in the environment. It’s now running patterns learned in the old environment.

They are taken to one side and given feedback on their undesirable behaviours.

They are instructed on new ways of behaving and the why behind it.

They seem to understand.

Small shifts happen for a while but soon they are back to old tricks.

They are sent on a leadership course, given leadership books. Nothing seems to move the needle.

Instruction it turns out is the least effective method for learning. (By learning here I mean method for creating transformation.)

Our non-exerciser had the knowledge that exercise was good for him. He didn’t have the behaviour.

Despite the desire to change. Despite experiencing negative consequences and being aware of likely future consequences.

Having the information of best practice seems only to inform what might be best practice. It provides a target. Then for some reason when in the environment where the desired behaviour is needed it somehow disappears from front of mind.

Something else becomes the target.

Why is that?

Well the brain is first and foremost a survival machine. When something in the environment indicates that survival might be at stake we rapidly default to habits.

Put another way, patterns of behaviour that allowed us to survive a similar environment in the past.

In the case of leadership survival risks might include, the team delivering at a lower standard than under previous leadership or individuals undermining or not respecting the new leader. (Real or perceived).

These patterns are in fact located in different regions of the brain (survival circuitry). Whereas the new information is stored in a part of the brain that is less accessible at this time.

So how to create transformation?

Well if instruction is the least effective way of learning, what is the most effective?

Teaching. Supporting them to teach you allows them to reach into their own memories and meaning and connect dots between this new environment and behaviours that have served them in the past.

Tell me about the worst and best leader you’ve ever had?

Why were they the worst leader, what behaviours did they have?

What did that bring out in you?

Why were they the best leader, what behaviours did they have?

What did that bring out in you?

How could you implement that?

What would be the most simple way of practising that?

What would success look like?

What would failure look like?

As they teach you they build a higher resolution map (new neural connections) of what more effective leadership looks like that creates a better prediction inside the new and threatening (uncertain) environment.

Because it is based on their own evidence.

Teaching requires us to think through how we will behave and defend it in advance.

And we are far more likely to act out behaviour that we believe is defensible.

Then in the acting out it becomes habit.