b.cognosco

Knowledge Jolt author Jack Vinson captures three keys to driving change in personal behaviors:

One motivation to rule them all

Is there a core problem that explains all of these behaviors? What motivates me to do anything? Conviction that it is important to me. At the same time, I need to see a path to change, and have some confidence that the path is going to lead me the right way while not creating any additional problems (or that I can overcome obstacles). But without that critical conviction, I am not going to be interested in making the effort to change.

Vinson’s observation comes while considering Dave Pollard’s Nine reasons we don't do what we should do, an excellent summary of tendencies, traits, and trends explaining why we never seem to accomplish as much as we think we should.

I like Vinson’s three keys. They apply to all personal change, whether directed at ourselves or others. One challenge many of us face, as working professionals in knowledge-based industries, is getting our companies, colleagues, and customers to embrace the many new collaborative tools – blogs, wikis, IM, presence, etc. – that we have found so beneficial. We struggle to explain this new paradigm and toolset, but we don’t often succeed because we don’t successfully turn all three keys.

We can generate some initial motivation, because we have a critical conviction that the tools are good, right, and will help them. But we fail on the other two. Conviction is contagious, but fragile. When we don’t show a clear, simple path or don’t have a believable plan to remove or overcome obstacles our most impassioned arguments lie fallow and die.

Clearly then, the work must be done to better understand the customer or colleague’s perspective, and too supply keys that have been carved to fit their circumstances.