Behavior Change IRL: Align the External Environment So It's Right...for You

This is the fourth installment in my series on Behavior Change in Real Life.

Here are the other links:

Part 1: Behavior Change IRL: Introduction .

Part 2: Behavior Change IRL: Start Before You Start

Part 3: Behavior Change IRL: Focus on Both the Journey and the Destination

This series is exploring all the approaches to behavior change I have leveraged in 50 years of studying the topic at both the individual and organizational levels.

Here is the taxonomy I am using to organize the approaches:

?I. Start Before You Start

?II. Focus on Both the Destination and the Journey

III. Align the External Environment So It’s Right…for You

IV. Reduce Any Drag from your Inner Environment?

?V. Access the Deeper Pools of Motivation

VI. Change the Game

III. Align the External Environment So It's Right...for You

I am not going to try to cover the myriad approaches for fine-tuning the environment to drive behavior change.?

It is not that they are not important; it’s that they’re endless:

• You can set up your rewards in advance for hitting milestones as an incentive, like a vacation or a shopping trip.?
• You can make it easy to do the behavior that moves you towards your goal, like blocking your calendar or joining the gym right next to your office.?
• You can set your phone to remind you of how you want to show up as a leader.?
• You can get a buddy to do the activities with you or be an accountability partner.?

And on and on.? If you are interested in this kind of list approach, I found Following Through:?A Revolutionary Approach to have some creative suggestions.

Not only is the list of tweaks endless, but more problematic, is that each approach works for some...at certain times during their change process, but not for everyone and not all the time.??

Rather than a laundry list, I am going to take a first principles approach and share how I believe five key environmental design dimensions can be aligned to accelerate behavior change progress.? This will enable you to make sure you have at least considered all the types of environmental influences as you work to make the environment ‘work for you.’?

I also want to describe a few approaches that I think are highly effective and yet routinely overlooked.

In this section:

• Environmental Design Principals to Support Behavior Change
• Tailoring the Environment to Personality
• Get Your Reps In
• Groups: Environmental Alignment on Steroids

Environmental Design Principles to Support Behavior Change???

“Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. We tend to believe our habits are a product of our motivation, talent, and effort. Certainly, these qualities matter. But the surprising thing is, especially over a long time period, your personal characteristics tend to get overpowered by your environment.”? James Clear, Atomic Habits

Here are the five key environmental design dimensions along which the environment operates to help you build new behaviors:

1. Bring Desired Behavior into Focus…there is no substitute for seeing what is possible, seeing how it is done, and getting a vision in your mind for what you are trying to do Examples: Having role models, teachers, coaches, peers, or access to video that can demonstrate the behavior and share how-tos and best practices.
2. Increase the Frequency of Focus on the Desired Behavior…the environment can more frequently remind you what you are trying to do and get you thinking more often about what it is you want to do. Examples: posting a picture at your desk of someone who looks, moves, does/has the things you want; Mind Jogger or an alarm on your phone to remind you to do the targeted behavior.
3. Manage Friction…the environmental can be manipulated to make 1) doing what you want to do easier and 2) any counterproductive behaviors harder. Make the Desired Behavior Easier...Examples: workout clothes set aside in the morning; a stand-up desk (if you are trying to sit less); creating blocks of time on the calendar for the desired behavior; preset triggers…what you will do and when, such as a defined morning routine. Make the Wrong Behavior Harder...Examples: Everyone knows about hacks like moving alarm clock across the room and removing distractions, but this one is even more powerful: put yourself in a position where you have to be a role model to others of the behaviors you want to exhibit. Examples here are teaching something you want to learn or becoming a sponsor in a 12-Step Program. If you have to walk the talk about something for children, for your team, for your own kids, it will make it much harder to do the wrong thing because you won't want to be a hypocrite (goes with #4 here on Social Rewards.)
4. Leverage Rewards to Maintain Motivation…this is where all of BF Skinner’s brilliant work on types of reinforcements (positive, negative, punishment), frequency (fixed vs variable, interval vs. ratio), etc comes in.? But one thing Skinner never had to worry about with his rats and pigeons was the reinforcement & punishment that comes from social feedback, cues, interactions, and real/perceived threats of ostracization. Non-Social "Rewards"...Examples: Preset rewards at milestones like the well-known “cheat days”; or punishments like agreeing to write a check to a loathed political organization for missed milestones Social "Rewards"...Given how rewarding increases in social status…or even just group inclusion…are, and how punishing the loss of social status (and the feeling of not being ‘in’ the group) is, this dimension would include all the buddy/peers/groups/mentors levers. Examples: public commitments to friends/family, noontime walk partner, group meetings where progress/performance is reviewed and discussed.? An especially important example here is where groups set a standard for excellence, practice, and commitment to the craft.? The space in which the individual experiences the effect of the group is culture.? Many have thought they were good or worked hard or were committed to excellence only to land with a new team or organization and be blown away by the level of commitment demonstrated and expected about all elements of finished performance, from minute building block skills to full-blown performance requiring repeated rehearsal.
5. Make Your Performance/Progress Visible...GPS works by continuously letting you know where you are vs. your destination. Skinner provided this information for his rats by administering the reinforcement as the behavior got closer to the target. Establishing an environment that continuously let's you know where you are vs. your target is invaluable. Course correction feedback.? One of the most powerful ways the environment can be leveraged is through anything that can help you “see/hear” how you are performing. Examples: 360 feedback from peers telling you what you are doing or how you are showing up; an executive coach providing feedback on the what s/he is experiencing interacting with you; a video of you running a meeting, playing the game, or giving the presentation shows you all the gaps between the way you want to be performing and how you are. Trend Data...can increase your motivation and keep you from BS’ing yourself about how you are doing so you don’t get satisfied and stop pushing or reward yourself at the wrong time. Examples: Graphing workout performance, tracking streaks (Jerry Seinfeld used to purchase giant wall calendars and put a Red X through every day he wrote comedy to help him string together more successive days of writing.)

On the one hand, the five dimensions are a lot to consider.

On the other, hand that is a lot of support vectors to help you accomplish the changes you are after.

The whole emphasis of this installment is to get the environment right for you. One size does not fit all and individual differences matter.? So, in your own experience, which lever(s) do you generally find most powerful?

And timing matters…what will help you out of the gate, during the long plateau, and near the finish line is likely to be different.?

For the changes you are trying to make and for where you are in your change process, are you incorporating the best environmental levers for you right now??

The space in which the individual experiences the effect of the group is culture.?

Tailoring the Environment to Personality

It is possible that trying to align your environment to your personality might help accelerate progress.?

For example, if you are an achievement-oriented person you might want to “gamify,” the environment to increase motivation.? Similarly, if you are more socially-inclined or relationship-focused, a support group, an accountability buddy, or a mentor/role model might work better for you.??

This certainly has face validity.? However, I am not aware of any systematic research that randomly assigns people with different personality profiles to randomized environmental “treatment” conditions to see if aligning the environment to personality types produces better results.

I’ll admit, the complete lack of scientific backing for type-based assessments does run directly counter to how accurately people feel the type-based assessments describe them.? But don’t take the bait.?

However, that lack of research support should not necessarily dissuade you.? As I mentioned in Part 1, research support is lacking for most coaching interventions.

It should also not dissuade you from trying because, as I keep emphasizing, given the difficulty of achieving and sustaining behavior change, you need to leverage any edge you can get your hands on.?

If you want to try to align the environment to your personality, please get a robust, reliable, and valid assessment of personality. A trait-based assessment, built on the OCEAN model (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) of personality has boundless scientific support.?

Moreover, it is these valid, trait-based assessments that are used every single time making the right decision has big consequences…military job placement, executive promotions, screening candidates for mission critical assignments, sorting people to treatment groups or measuring outcome variables in important research experiments. The Hogan Personality Inventory is one such trait-based assessment that has become the go-to in corporations.

The corollary to the recommendation to use trait-based approaches is to avoid type-based measurements. Myers-Briggs, DISC, Enneagram, Colors, etc are examples of type-based assessments. These approaches have little test-retest reliability, zero predictive ability, and are never used when there is a lot on the line.?

I’ll admit, the complete lack of scientific backing for type-based assessments does run directly counter to how accurately people feel the type-based assessments describe them.? But don’t take the bait.?

That ‘a-ha’ experience may be more a function of a cognitive bias, than an indication of the validity of the assessment.? The Barnum-Forer Effect shows you can hand people vague descriptions of themselves and, if they are told it is based on their responses, people believe the descriptions accurately describe them.??

As a public service, if you need more convincing about the misguided nature of type-based assessments you will find more research-based information in my article The Enneagram is Dead. Long Live the Enneagram , and in Change Myths: The Professional’s Guide to Separating Sense from Nonsense by Paul Gibbons and my colleague Tricia Kennedy. You can find a simple intro to this type- vs trait-based discussion here .

You can get your environment set up perfectly, but, sorry, you still need to practice.? What did you think that “10,000 hour rule” was about?

Get Your Reps In

One of the most important and yet frequently overlooked levers supporting change, is the power “getting reps in.”??

You can get your environment set up perfectly, but, sorry, you still need to practice.? What did you think that “10,000 hour rule” was about?

For example, in trying to be a better negotiator, It helps, of course, to see a video of one of your presentations (Environment Dimensions #5: Make Performance Visible) or to take your family out for a steak dinner after a big negotiation win (Environment Dimension #4: Leverage Rewards to Maintain Motivation.)?

But if you want to negotiate better, you have to put yourself in situations to negotiate.? If you are serious about accomplishing your objective, you have to have a plan for how and when you will practice the new behavior.

Getting your reps in is a must, but there are a few important subtopics to getting your reps in: 1) “practicing scales,” 2) conducting experiments, 3) reps & resilience.

1) Practicing Scales.? If you play an instrument and want to learn to solo, it is very helpful to practice various scales which are the building blocks for great soloing.??

Thinking about the equivalent of “practicing scales” for the behavior you want to change can be useful.?

For example, if you are trying to get better at negotiating, you might want to practice active listening or practice leaving longer periods of silence in your conversations, both of which are useful building blocks for successful negotiation, on a regular basis.

2) Conducting Experiments.? Sometimes practice involves trial and error, aka, experiments.

A story about Adam Robinson, the co-founder of the Princeton Review perfectly illustrates why getting your reps in is not enough and why conducting experiments is essential.

He was watching teenage volunteers raising money on the street for a charitable cause.? They approached every person the exact same way, with “Excuse me, Miss/Sir.? Would you like to donate to…?” Most people the teens approached just kept walking.

After watching for a while, Adam approached the group and asked them what their approach was and how it was working…two questions he clearly already knew the answer to.??

He said I am going to give you $500 if you are willing to try something. He had them brainstorm experiments to try…who should they approach, what different things might they say.? Each volunteer was now running experiments and identifying and ultimately sharing best practices with each other, and their results dramatically improved.

For our purposes here, it is not only just getting your reps in, but conscious practice that can lead to insights and learning.? Hence Coach Vince Lombardi’s quote, “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”? Running experiments is a way of consciously practicing so you are learning from the reps you are putting in.

“There is a concept in Psychology called Normative Failure: ‘When failure is the norm, resilience becomes second nature’.”

3) Reps & Resilience.? But perfect practice and getting your reps in doesn’t always mean getting successful reps in.? Many of those reps are absolute fails.?

Tiger Woods would camp out over three-foot putts for hours, and practice until he left indentations of his feet on the green and ball would wear out a path in the grass to the hole.? Many of those were missed shots.

But the thing about getting reps in and failing at many of them is that those failure reps can build resilience.? Why? Because you have to learn what you are doing wrong, reset, and have the courage to keep pushing.?

If you are shooting shots in tennis or golf or basketball, failures might be missed shots.? You still have to figure out what you are doing wrong, reset and keep doing it.? If you are doing reps in skating or gymnastics, missed jumps, releases, and dismounts actually hurt.? Can you keep going?

Dr. Gio Valiante, a famous sports psychologist worked extensively with golfers on the PGA Tour, Olympians, and leading figures in NCAA football and the NFL, said on a recent podcast : “There is a concept in Psychology called Normative Failure: ‘When failure is the norm, resilience becomes second nature’.”

That resilience is a key ingredient in goal attainment and behavior change and that resilience can be built, in part, from getting your reps in.

Groups: Environmental Alignment on Steroids

Peer support was mentioned a number of times in the section on how environmental manipulations support change.? A role model, a training partner, accountability buddies, and someone who can watch you in action and give you feedback are all great options for change support.

Groups can put peer support on steroids.

But one thing Skinner never had to worry about with his rats and pigeons was the reinforcement & punishment that comes from social feedback, cues, interactions, and real/perceived threats of ostracization.There are groups that come together primarily to help you do some area of focus more or better...like writing groups, fitness groups, business development groups (see the original Mastermind groups, history here and example here ).

And there are groups that come together primarily to help you not do things...like Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-Step based programs aimed at the nearly existential threats posed by substances and/or addictive behaviors.

All the groups are designed differently...some are tougher vs others that are more social; some are laser-focused vs others that take a broader approach to supporting individuals.

There can even be a lot of variation between groups under the same umbrella organization, since the people in the group can make a huge difference.

And it follows that with all this variation some are more effective than others.

For those that are effective, I am sure there is something synergistic, "whole is more than the sum of the parts," operating.

But there is no denying that part of the power of these groups is how they align so many of the environmental levers in support of change.??

1. Regular group meetings (#2 Increase Frequency of Focus on the Desired behavior.)
2. You may see others doing things you are not yet able to do and therefore develop a new sense of what is possible (#1 Bring the Desired Behavior into Focus)
3. The group might have a higher standard of excellence than you have and thus get you to press harder, for longer than you thought possible. (#4 Leverage Rewards to Maintain Motivation: Social)?
4. Some members of the group might be able to teach you the skills you are trying to build or you might learn good “hacks” and best practices from members of the group. (#1 Bring the Desired Behavior into Focus)?
5. You publicly commit, and the desire to not let the group down or garden variety social/peer pressure creates accountability and motivation. (#4 Leverage Rewards to Maintain Motivation: Social)?
6. You have other sets of eyes on you that can give you feedback on how you are performing (#5 Make Your Performance/Progress Visible: Course Correction)
7. The group keep you from BS’ing yourself, so you don’t get satisfied and instead keep pushing, and so you don’t reward yourself at the wrong time and so that you sustain your gains (#4 Leverage Rewards to Maintain Motivation, and #5 Make Your Performance/Progress Visible)
8. Being around others doing what you are trying to do makes it easy to do the right thing (#3 Manage Friction: Make the right behavior easier)
9. Groups with high standards will call out counterproductive behaviors (#3 Manage Friction: Make the wrong behavior harder)
10. Taking on a leadership role in the group will force you to role model the right things and avoid the wrong things (#3 Manage Friction: Make the right behavior easier and the wrong behavior harder; Leverage Rewards to Maintain Motivation: Social)

Great. You might be thinking “how am I going to find time to find and join a group with everything else I am trying to do?” The good news here is you might not have to.?

You can get the benefit of a group by having the right people in your social circle. “You’re the average of the five people spend the most time with,” is so pervasive on the internet these days, it probably qualifies as a meme.??

Social network research backs that up, at least with negative behaviors:? if a friend becomes obese , you are 45% more likely to gain significant weight.? Having a close friend who gets divorced increases your chances of divorce by 75%, a phenomenon so prevalent it earned its own moniker: ‘divorce contagion.’ Similar group influence effects are observed with smoking .?

Groups can bring all the dimensions of the environment into play...full-force.? If the change you are trying to drive is important to you, getting the right group around you is going to dramatically increase your chances of success.

But there is no denying that part of the power of these groups is how they align so many of the environmental levers in support of change.?

Conclusion: Align the External Environment So It’s Right…for You?

There is no question that the environment is the invisible hand that shapes our behavior.? What matters is understanding how it affects change so you can design an environment that gives you the best chance of succeeding.

What I tried to do here was provide that first principles design approach to make the workings of that invisible hand more visible.?

And I also tried to highlight the power of a couple of environmental approaches…get your reps in (including ‘practicing scales’ and experimentation) and the power of group support…that you will want to try to incorporate if you are serious about your objective or if it is your own life on the line.

Here is the next article in this series: Behavior Change IRL: Reduce Any Drag from your Inner Environment.

Dennis Adsit, Ph.D. is the President of Adsum Insights and designer of The First 100 Days and Beyond , a consulting service for leaders in transition who need to get off to the best possible start in their new job.