Finding Happiness and Success: Build This and It Will Come

Unfortunately, when happiness and success are hard to be found in one’s life or profession, the typical fix is for somebody, somewhere (sometimes it’s self-talk!) to say, “you need to get your $h!t together.” If this worked, many of the society’s ailments would be erased as the phrase, or one with similar intent, regularly bounces off household and organizational walls across the continent.  In leadership and everyday life, happiness and success occur as the result of behavior. Not talent, not personality, behavior.   That is, folks must do something more, less, or differently if happiness or success are to be achieved. Once you understand your values, the achievement of goals will only occur through sustainable and productive behavior. 

This includes your personal behavior, and in the case of leadership, the behavior of followers as you seek to help yourself and others develop the ability to do the right thing in the right way across varied situations.  When these behaviors occur consistently and automatically, they are often referred to by Behavior Analysts as “habit strength” behavior. Or in short, habits.  Creating productive habits requires shaping, or the reinforcement of successive approximations towards a desired performance goals. When done correctly, fluency occurs as evidenced by performance that is precise, durable, and occurs automatically. Like the boxer who slips a punch, this type of performance occurs without thinking.

Self-Monitor

As such, you must learn to be a good observer of your own behavior, the behavior of others, the impact of your behavior on your environment, and the impact of the environment on your behavior. Remember, people are part of your environment, and you are part of theirs. Like a stream of data being fed to a CPU, this “reciprocal feedback” acts as a kind of loop that either maintains behavior, increases it, or decreases it based on the consequences that occur as a result. 

Most people tend to be poor observers of their own behavior and the impact of it. This includes their internal behavior, or private thoughts, feelings, and sensations. They also tend to be very poor observers of the purpose or “function” of their behavior. The science of human behavior has taught us this: people tend to behave in ways that result in an immediate consequence. Whether something is added or subtracted as a result of their behavior, if this consequence is “reinforcing,” the behavior will occur again, and again, and again. Eventually habits are formed, and often times folks can’t even remember why they began engaging in the behavior in the first place. It’s just the “way I do things.” In an organization, common behavior consistently applied across employees becomes what is known as culture, or “the way we do things around here.”   If this is productive, valued behavior and leads to meaningful outcomes, it’s probably a good thing. If it’s not, it can be bad…very bad. 

Great Opportunity

Consequently, in life or leadership, it is your responsibility to create opportunities for yourself or the people you lead to practice critical behaviors correctly, deliver or seek out regular feedback, and get yourself and others in contact with positive reinforcement, especially naturally occurring positive reinforcement. When people behave in ways that lead them towards who and what they value, the behaviors that lead them in that direction are naturally reinforced. This is why it’s important to know who and what you value before you set goals. As a leader, understanding who and what your followers value and involving them involving them in goals setting is often critical to creating sustainable performance aligned with organizational objectives. 

Small Steps to Achieve Big Change

The old saying goes “if everything is important, nothing is important.” Therefore, it’s important to point out that, you don’t need to focus on changing every behavior at once. This is a big mistake people make personally, or professionally. Most think that focusing on only a few behaviors is unreasonable as it delays the achievement of important goals. However, the science of human behavior as determined this: Whether your own behavior, or the behavior of others, focusing on only a few critical behaviors aligned with desired results actually accelerates performance and obtainment goals. So if you want to achieve big things, focus on building just a couple of critical habits at a time.

Be SMARTer

Many people only focus on “bad” habits, or things they should stop doing. When it comes to achievement of goals, stopping a habit does not ensure you or others will engage in the behaviors required to achieve a goal. This requires Pinpointing behaviors. That is, determining precisely what must be done to achieve a desired outcome. Once these behaviors are identified and precisely developed into SMART (Specific, Motivational, Attainable, Relevant, and Trackable) Pinpoints, they need to be deliberately practiced until performance meets the criteria needed to achieve certain results. Remember, practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent, so it is critical these behaviors are practiced perfectly. A nice behavior hack for developing a complex skill is to break it down into its behavioral components, write these components down into “steps,” practice each step until performance is automatic and errorless, repeat this with the next step, and then chain the components together to complete the skill.  This can occur in organizations during formal training, or simply occur in your personal life as you seek to improve in an area.

Learning and engaging in a behavior is not enough to create a habit. The behavior must come into contact with reinforcement.   If you are trying to develop your own habits, self-monitoring of both your behaviors and movement towards goals is an important piece of the puzzle.  In an organization, it’s helpful to have some form of measurement and coaching to ensure transference of skills into the natural environment, a process I refer to as Deliberate Coaching (Gavoni & Weatherly, 2019). 

Establishing SMART Goals

Scientifically speaking, goals are stimuli that precede behavior and have discriminative control over the response which increases the likelihood behavior will occur again in the future (Fellner and Sulzer-Azaroff, 1984). Moreover, when goal attainment is paired with positive consequences or the removal of negative ones, goals may function as conditioned positive or negative reinforcing stimuli. So essentially, SMART Goals can be extremely powerful for engaging people, including yourself, in movement towards and the eventual attainment of desired outcomes. According to Macey et al. (2009), “the feeling of engagement cannot occur without a specific purpose or objective” (p.20). When it comes to leadership, if engagement is to occur, Macey et al (2009) recognizes the need for alignment between individual goals and organizational goals, hence the “M” for Motivational in the SMART acronym. This makes good sense as if there is a disconnect between in organizational and employee values, employees are far less likely to independently engage in tasks required to achieve goals. 

Build It and They Will Come

The SMARTer your goals, the more likely you or others will be to engage in the behaviors required to achieve them. And the SMARTer your pinpoints and more deliberate your coaching or self-monitoring is, the more you help yourself or the people you support to develop habits.  Like Kevin Costner’s famous quote from Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come,” building behavior will bring results. Remember, no result is achieved without behavior, so it’s critical that behavior is the central focus of your efforts, not results. If you get the behavior right, the results will come. Here are a couple of critical behaviors to move you in the right direction for developing habits:

Identify a couple of simple measures and a few SMART Pinpoints aligned with desired result. For example, if the desired result were losing weight:

• SMART Pinpoint: Eat less carbs, more protein, exercise more. 
• Measure: Scale, self-monitoring carb/protein intake and hours at gym

If you are leader, SMART Pinpoints should include the behavior of your leadership team, managers, coaches, mentors, etc. that align with your values, mission, and support performance improvement of others towards desired results. If the desired result were increasing employee retention through improved management:

• SMART Pinpoint: Increase the frequency of positive feedback
• Measure: Surveys, direct observations, self-monitoring, Deliberate Questioning (Gavoni & Weatherly, 2019) linking management behavior to results (e.g. “What did you do?” “What is different as a result?”)
• Rather than having just one longer term goal (e.g. losing 15 pounds), break that goal down into a number of sub-goals and celebrate as those are achieved.
• Focus on “Quick Wins!” (Gavoni & Rodriguez, 2016). This focus on developing a couple of habits that, in the initial stages require little effort and but will quickly result in a highly visible and meaningful change, is a good way to get gain momentum towards habit development.
• Use the Premack Principle. Engaging in the behaviors and tasks liked most after engaging the behaviors and tasks liked least increases the likelihood non-preferred tasks will be accomplished.  Also known as “Grandma’s Law,” the Premack Principle can be observed being effectively used in households when a child is told “eat your vegetables first, then you can have dessert.” 

Success in life and leadership can be simplified into the arrangement of behavior and reinforcement that produce effective habits.  I hope that understanding some of the behavioral principles and techniques behind habit development will help you to find the happiness and success you desire!

Check out this very cool video by Alex Carter that shows some hacks for getting things done!

References

Alimo-Metcalfe, B. (1998). 360 degree feedback and leadership development. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 6(1), 35-44.

Fellner, D. J., & Sulzer-Azaroff, B. (1984). A behavioral analysis of goal setting. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 6(1), 33–51. doi:10.1300/J075v06n01_03

Gavoni, P., and Rodriguez, M., (2016). Quick wins! Accelerating schools transformation through science, engagement, and leadership. Melbourne, FL: ABA Technologies.

Gavoni, P., and Weatherly, N. (2019). Deliberate coaching: A toolbox for accelerating teacher performance. West Palm Beach, FL: Learning Sciences International.

Kipp, M. F., and Kipp, M. A. (2000). Of teams and teambuilding. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 7/8(6), 138-139.

Luthans, Fred and Peterson, Suzanne J., "360-degree feedback with systematic coaching: Empirical analysis suggests a winning combination" (2003). Management Department Faculty Publications. 147. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/managementfacpub/147

Macey, W. H., Schneider, B., Barbera, K. M., & Young, S. A. (2009). Employee engagement: Tools for analysis, practice, and competitive advantage. Malden, WA: Wiley Blackwell.

BIO

An expert in coaching, and organizational leadership, Dr. Paul "Paulie" Gavoni has worked in education and human services for 20 years where he served in a variety of positions including COO, Director of School Improvement, Leadership Director, Professor, Assistant Principal, School Turnaround Manager, Clinical Coordinator, Therapist, and Behavior Analyst. Beyond his direct work with students in poverty and those suffering from behavioral and mental health issues, Dr. Gavoni specializes in providing administrative teams, teachers, and staff with training, coaching, and consultation in analyzing and developing behavior and performance management systems to positively impact key performance indicators. As a behavior scientist, Dr. Gavoni is passionate about applying organizational behavior management (OBM) strategies to establish positive environments that engage and bring out the best in professionals, so they can bring out the best in the children and adults they serve. 

Dr. Gavoni is co-author of Quick Wins! Accelerating School Transformation through Science, Engagement, and Leadership  and the best seller Deliberate Coaching: A Toolbox for Accelerating Teacher Performance. In addition, he is published in academic journals on topics related to school improvement and sports, and has published three online courses dedicated to school leadership preparation, an area he remains deeply passionate about. Click here to listen to hear more about Dr. Gavoni’s work in schools.

Beyond his work in education and human services, Dr. Gavoni is also a highly sought out and respected coach in combat sports. In 1992, he began boxing in South Florida and went on to win a Florida Golden Gloves Heavyweight Title in 1998. Since then, Coach “Paulie Gloves,” as he is known in the Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) community, has trained many champions and UFC vets using technologies rooted in the behavioral sciences. Coach Paulie has been a featured coach in the books Beast: Blood, Struggle, and Dreams a the Heart of Mixed Martial Arts, A Fighter’s Way, and the article Ring to Cage: How four former boxers help mold MMA’s finest. 

He is also an author who has written for a variety of online magazines such as Scifighting, Last Word on Sports, and Bloody Elbow where his Fight Science series continues to bring behavior science to MMA. Co-founder of MMA Science, his current project involves the development of the first International MMA Belt Ranking System, a ground breaking process bringing tradition, organization, and behavior science to mixed martial arts.