The Power (And Danger) Of Habits

You might be familiar with the term pattern interrupt. But what you might not know is that it's the most essential skill for any recruitment consultant who wants to have real influence with clients and candidates. Let me explain why.?

Have you ever walked up to a door and you push it and it doesn't open, so you push it harder and it doesn't open, so you push it and rattle it and push it and rattle it? And then, and only then, do you spot the sign at eye level that says, "PULL",?

The reason that happens is both very simple and very important. People are unconscious most of the time about what they're doing. They run on autopilot, they run on rails most of the time. And the reason that they do that is because, honestly, thinking takes a lot of brain capacity. So most of us don't do a lot of it. That's not an insult, it's just the way people are.?

The Rule Of Seven

The Rule of seven says that you can only focus on between five and nine things at the same time. So one of them might be listening, another might be scribbling down a note, and a third is watching a video. And most people are starting to run out of cognitive space at that point.?

Personally, I've always found that seven to nine is a bit generous. I tend to work on it as being about five things. The Rule of seven is important because of all the other things that are going on around you at any given time.?

You might be reading this while drinking a cup of coffee, with the radio on in the background and a pet making noises as they drink from their bowl. And all the while your chair is squeaking, there is traffic outside, there is a draft from a window, you have to visit the loo and the kids are due home from school…

So, with all the stuff that’s going on, we try to make things simple for ourselves. Anything that we do repetitively, repeatedly, we tend to develop a habit for them. And it goes as far as decision-making. Psychologists call it judgmental heuristics. Think of it as a little mental shortcut.?

How habits form

The general rule is that for anything that we do more than three times in the same way, we'll just develop a little shortcut for it. The reason is - basically - our brain wants to make our life as easy as possible so that we can get on with the complicated job of thinking.?

So if you've walked up to that door and pushed it and completely ignored the sign that says pull, it's probably because the last 3, 4, 7, 10 doors you've walked up to you pushed them and they opened. So instinctively you push and you mentally delete the sign that has been there all the time.?

You're running on a shortcut without actually thinking. You're not thinking about how to open a door because if you had to think about everything you wouldn't be able to do anything.?

So running those mental shortcuts is actually a really effective tool for people.?

The problem with other people's habits

But - and it's a big but - if we're going to be able to get somebody to do something different like look at a new job opportunity, or work with others instead of their existing supplier, that means that they're going to have to think about things differently and do things differently. And that's difficult for most people.?

So that process is where the relevance of all this comes in for recruitment consultants. Let me explain how to use this and how to not get abused by it.?I also talk about it in this video on YouTube .

Breaking through habits

Remember I said that anything you do in the same way more than three or four times you'll tend to develop a habit for it? Well, how many times have clients or candidates been asked the same question? How many times have they heard the same kind of pitch, in the same way, in the same situation? So is it possible that they've developed a shortcut for handling it and answering it? Of course it is.

This explains why you're having a conversation with somebody but you're just watching them and you just know that the eyes are open but Mr. Brain has long since departed. You are not actually having a conversation with them, you're having a conversation with their automated responses, based on what every other person in this situation has said to them or asked them.?

That's why you get these answers that don't make any sense, or why you get these blank expressions on people's faces that shows you that you either have or haven't interrupted their pattern.

Create change

Because the important thing is that before you can actually influence somebody, you have to interrupt that pattern. You've got to make them stop for a second. There's more about how to do this in another of my articles Are You Talking To Their Autopilot?

But the important thing to remember is that if you want to have a different response and outcome than the other recruitment consultants, you must act differently to other recruitment consultants.

Ask different questions, be more thoughtful, do things in a different sequence, and don't do the usual things in the usual ways. If you want to get different, you have to do different.