The usual approach to changing behaviour is to focus on the individuals one wishes to see act differently, change their beliefs by broadcasting what's expected, and "encourage" compliance. But there are three problems with that approach.
The first is resistance. There are many forms of resistance, one of which is silence. And so communications designed to change beliefs can appear to have been accepted, becuase there was no apparent push back, but in reality those communications can just be ignored. Secondly, beliefs are influenced by background factors such as personality, and so can be very difficult to change. And third, behaviour is heavily influenced by context or the situation we find ourselves in. Expecting behaviour to change without changing context is unrealistic.
Context influences behaviour by transmitting behavioural cues, and those cues come from structures such as remuneration and reward systems. Changing context changes behaviour.
We re-design structures so that new behavioural cues are transmitted, and new behaviour encouraged. No need to preach, hector or drive for compliance. The challenge then becomes, which structures to change and why.
Our methodlogy identifies which structures are sending cues that are driving the wrong behaviours, and so which strucutures need to be changed, and how, so that new cues can be generated to influence behaviour change.
Promises of integrity and acting in your best interest are empty unless backed up by structures that prevent them. Traditional consulting firms are incentivised to find and sell work, and this can lead to unethical behaviour. The "land and expand" model is one consequence of this incentive, as the more juniour staff who can be added to the project the more profit the consulting firm makes.
We prevent that behaviour in three ways. First, we lead with advice, and having done so we don't do implementation. If we're asked to do implementation work, we won't do so if we've been advisors. There's an inherent conflict in providing advice and then doing implementation as it's not obvious that the advice was driven by the desire for profitable implementation work. By keeping the two seperate you can trust what we say is in your best interest alone. Second, our partners are hands-on in delivering the work, so our most experiened people are close to the detail. We don't hand-off the heavy lifing to juniour staff. And third, we are a small firm by design. Without a large bench to feed, or commercial relationships to honour with vendors, we can focus on what's best for you alone, not for us.
No coaching
While we transfer knowledge by working closely with you, we only stay long enough to ensure that our advice is being actioned. While coaching can help with the sense-making around change and can accelerate adoption, we don't do general executive coaching, or hector our clients. There is absolutely no shortage of leadership gurus or coaches to choose from if that's your thing.
Respectful and straightforward, what you’ll get from us is our unvarnished opinion. We're a boutique firm, we're not incentivised to extend our stay, and so we're free to be open and honest.
Our approach to decision-making is that today's good solution is better than tomorrow's "best". In general we're looking to get the minimum viable solution in the shortest possible time. So we'll look for proof of concept, develop a prototype, iterate and improve, delivering benefit as we go and not as a "big-bang" somewhere after the engagement has ended.