Walk the Week - Changing the Duvet

One of the domestic chores I have always found challenging over many years is changing a duvet cover especially on a king size bed. You are forever trying to stuff the duvet into its cover, aligning the corners and avoiding large lumps in the middle. Then I recently discovered I was not alone in this frustration and heard there is an easier way which involves laying the cover out on the bed inside out and then rolling it around the duvet. See this YouTube video for a fuller explanation. It really works, is quicker and avoids the usual frustration. This made me think about how easy it is to get into a habit in our professional working life and not even consider whether there is a better way. This is related to trying something new – see my blog from June last year Walk the Week - The Sigmoid Curve - Do Something New– but is different. This is about taking a way we have done something before repeatedly – a habit – and rethinking it to see if there is a better more effective or efficient way of carrying out the same task.

To some extent this is a road that technology drives us down, email replacing letters and AI changing the way we interface with knowledge and use this in our practices. But that is change that is in a sense ultimately forced upon us as a necessity to maintain our practice in an effective and competitive manner. Sure, it may be the vehicle we can use for change, but being willing to look for continuous improvement in how we work – to change and improve practices we have carried out for years in an ingrained manner (like the mundane task of changing bed linen) - requires I suggest a willingness in the first place to relook at how we do things.

See this Harvard Business Review article Two Techniques for Helping Employees Change Ingrained Habits which suggests that “Far too little time and focus is devoted to how to change existing habits and behaviors, which are often the greatest barriers to personal growth.” It proposes that there are two critical steps to achieving this:

“1 The first step is considering your ideal future state and the obstacles you expect to face on the way to achieving that state

2 The second step builds on mental contrasting and involves framing your goal as an “if-then” statement. The “if” is a goal-relevant situational cue, and the “then” is your goal behavior.”

It concludes “Think through what will get in your way, and make a plan for overcoming it.”

That really resonates with me. I attended Harvard Business School for a short course on managing professional firms some time ago. I and a colleague came back to the UK with an almost evangelical mission to change and improve our law firm. However actually doing this in practice turned out to be extremely difficult, not least because despite the enthusiasm and zeal we returned with, our less enlightened partners simply did not see the need to change their existing ways.

So, this is by no means as easy as it sounds. As the Roman poet Ovid observed “Nothing is stronger than habit.” This blog ?These are the habits to avoid if you want to make a behaviour change proposes “It’s difficult to change an ingrained behavior. Even for the most productive and disciplined among us, undoing something that has become an automatic part of who we are takes more than an overnight effort”. It quotes a psychology professor who says “Your brain wants to find routines that have succeeded in the past and allow you to repeat those actions again in the future without having to think about them explicitly.” It broadly recommends that we don’t try to eliminate a habit but try adopting a new routine instead.

There is what looks like an interesting book on this topic I have just downloaded, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change which “examines why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight.” and “uncovers how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr.”

I also like the recommendations in this Forbes article Nine Effective Ways To Replace Bad Work Habits With More Useful Ones which commences “Professionals are sometimes acutely aware of how their bad habits impact their work” ?and goes on to offer some good tips on replacing bad work habits with productive ones including:

·?????? Check Your Motivation And Set Attainable Goals - What do you want to achieve? What’s the purpose? What’s in it for you? What is a relatively easy action that you can take to move toward the desired behavior?

·?????? Use A Four-Step Modeling Process –to start conduct better meetings, find a person who already conducts awesome meetings. Watch them conduct meetings Shadow them and co-host meetings with them. Finally, get them to watch you conduct meetings and give you feedback.

·?????? Take Time To Become Self-Aware - Changing a habit is intentional work that strengthens one’s ability to be courageous, humble and focused. Begin by taking time to become self-aware.

James Clear who wrote the book Atomic Habits (about transforming your life with tiny changes) discusses some interesting ideas in a blog How to Use Military Strategy to Build Better Habits citing Sun Tzu the legendary military strategist in China who was “a master of “soft power” and the father of “agile warfare.”” He suggests that “We fight our battles directly and attack the enemy — in this case, our bad habits — at the point where they are strongest.” Instead “we should make easy improvements to our habits first, build our strength, and establish a better position from which to attack the most difficult changes.”

Here are some interesting quotes on this topic from very different sources and ages.

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” Samuel Johnson.

“When you change the habits of men, pretty soon the attitudes and the hearts will be changed.” Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

“The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.” Socrates.

“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” Winfrey Oprah.

“You cannot change your future, but you can change your habits, and surely your habits will change your future.”Abdul Kalam the former president of India.