For all three disciplines, behavior is an interesting topic. "Influencing people's behavior to achieve organizational goals is, after all, what control is all about," opened partner Sander van Oosten. Then again, this theme has received a boost because of the updated Corporate Governance Code, which prominently mentions Behavior, Attitude and Culture.
For years, research has shown that organizational change only succeeds in about 30% of cases. In more than half of the cases, employee behavior turns out to be the "culprit," according to Joost Kerkhofs. Many managers therefore sigh: "Why don't they do what we agreed?" or "Why don't they go the extra mile?".
Joost then explained from behavioral science how this comes about. He took the attendees through the three main pitfalls in influencing behavior. Because of these three pitfalls, only 0.8% of the time and effort put into influencing behavior is effective. This has a huge impact on the efficiency of organizational changes, projects, cultural changes, system and process implementations, mergers, etc. So, room for improvement. Not only the pitfalls were highlighted. Joost also presented a proven step-by-step plan to arrive at the right interventions within organizations through behavioral analysis.
Following are some of Joost's high-profile statements:
"I will prove to you that it is possible to make a motionless parakeet fly through the cage within a short time in a way that becomes almost dangerous."
"We unfortunately still think far too much about rewards in a material sense," he said.
"I hope managers will start investing their time in catching employees in the act of desired behavior."
"As far as I'm concerned, it's not just about getting the result, but a performance where the result is achieved with the right behavior."
"Organizations that get started with this won't want anything else."
After the content session, there was extensive discussion. In doing so, it became clear: the story made the participants think and inspired them to learn more or apply it immediately. And of course, we at ARC People love to hear that. On to the next interesting event.
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