How do you change behaviour in a team?

Everyone tells me changing someone’s behaviour is difficult. I’d say it’s almost impossible. But you can change your own.

One of the questions leaders ask me most is: how do I get people to do what I need them to do?

This question implies that you have all the answers and if you can get everyone to do what you want, then you’ll have brilliant teamwork and achieve what you set out to achieve. I encourage you to explore a different question: 

Who do I need to be to work effectively in a team? 

And: who do we as a team need to be to do great work?

Leadership, teamwork and communication are often called “soft skills”. Certainly, they are less tangible and much more difficult to measure than technical skills. But there is nothing soft about the hard work that is required to develop yourself, align a team, work through your differences, be inclusive, ensure everyone plays their part, respond to changing priorities and iron out miscommunication issues.

Change your own behaviour first

Instead of trying to get others to change, consider how you can change your own behaviour. Notice your impact. If you are not getting what you want, what can you do differently to get a different result?

Changing behaviour means exploring what is working and what is not. It requires conversation, vulnerability, the willingness to consider a better way of doing things. A desire to do what is right in service of the whole team, rather than self-serving. Yes, it’s hard. 

As you develop and change your behaviour, those around you change theirs too, so the team is always in a state of flux, requiring adaptability and awareness. The non-verbal behaviour in a team is continually influencing everyone’s behaviour. Seek to understand what is not being said and have an honest dialogue to bring the unsaid into the known. 

Embrace the vulnerability of honesty without judgment

It’s uncomfortable being vulnerable in a team. It’s uncomfortable to accept that there might be a better way of doing things and that sometimes you might be the spanner in the works without realising it. Not because you intended to be, but because you might be the one who is out of alignment. Or you may be the one who holds a different perspective that is needed in the team to prevent group think.  Or you might have knowledge, experience or information that others in your team don’t have. 

Diverse opinions are healthy as long as everyone in the team develops the skills to understand each other.

It may appear easier to do what you’ve always done. It’s often more comfortable to carry on as before. And you know how that ends. Unresolved (often unspoken) differences of opinion. Frustration. Tension in the team. Higher levels of stress. Nobody needs this right now.

When one person changes their behaviour, everyone responds differently and so the team is changed. Focus on how you can change your behaviour first and let go of blame, judgment and criticism of others. Everyone is doing their best.

Learn together as a team

A 2019 McKinsey report on high-performance innovation teams highlighted that whilst most leadership development is focused on the individuals in an organisation, “reframing the discussion from individuals to teams helps tremendously to unlock performance.” Therefore, it is beneficial for teams to explore their development together, so you adapt together in a more conscious and supportive way. 

Changing behaviour is challenging because it requires you to accept that there is a different way of doing things, to let go of the old behaviour and practice the new. Change creates more uncertainty so teams often avoid it and adopt for the status quo, even though it derails them. 

Embrace the uncertainty of change

Every time one person in a team changes their behaviour, it has a knock-on effect on everyone else. Therefore teams are continually shifting, responding to each other, building a stronger relationship or damaging a broken one further.

Create a culture where it is safe to be honest, to say what you think and feel without judging others’ behaviour.  

Above all, if you want someone else’s behaviour to change, change your own. It will create a different response and it’s much easier to change your own behaviour than to change someone else’s.

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About Jude

Jude Jennison is Founder of Leaders by Nature, a company developing leaders and teams through disruptive change. Jude is the author of three leadership books including Leading through uncertainty. Her third book OPUS: The Hidden Dynamics of Team Performance will be published in June 2021. 

Jude specialises in non-verbal behavioural change in leaders and teams. She works experientially with a herd of horses to transform leadership and team behaviour and is launching an online leadership academy in February 2021.

For more information on leadership and teamwork, including Jude's books and podcasts, check out her website: www.judejennison.com