7 Ways to Change Other People with Zero Resistance

By Reut Schwartz-Hebron







Tom is trying to figure out why his employees don¶t think for themselves. It
seems like his staff would rather ask someone else for answers instead of
putting in even the slightest effort to find the answer themselves.

This has been troubling Tom especially because it seems like trying to look
for answers before asking is such a small effort and yet despite his best
attempts to get the people on his team to change nothing has improved.

Is it that some people just can¶t th ink for themselves?

To Tom life has always been about questioning and expecting the most of
himself. When everyone else were memorizing and getting good grades for
rehearsing giving the answer that the teacher wanted to hear, Tom was busy
examining the claims and the assumptions of the models. Hes never
accepted the fact that someone else knows the value of his efforts better
than him and he was always in the habit of checking in with himself to see
what he thinks is right rather than accept the voice of authority.

As a manager people who did not have the need to do better were a complete
enigma to him and he had no idea how to get them to change.

He saw what needed changing² that was easy because after all he had
practiced questioning and analyzing situations his whole life. So he hoped tohelp others by highlighting the areas they could improve on. That proved of
very little benefit. Despite the fact that his team heard him and expressed
genuine willingness to change no behavioral improvement was made.

Is it that people can¶t change when it comes t o their ability to think?

The answer to both of the above queAsltl peioonpsle c ials l thNinOk. for
themselves and people can improve their thinking abilities.

Managers can present employees with a platform for change that leads to
great improvements. Tom was simply going about it the wrong way.

Changing other people, unlike changing a code or a system is tricky because
the only way people are going to change is if they want to change.

To be even more specific the heart of the challenge is that getting people to
want to change requires two opposite things:

· On the one hand it requires a kind approach, supportive, encouraging
and empathetic.

· On the other hand it requires challenging, presenting employees with
their weaknesses, highlighting challenges and expecting excellence.

When you provide kind support people tend to get too comfortable and have
no incentive to change. When you are presenting people with constructive
criticism kindness just gets in the way.

What can we do to overcome this challenge?

Here are seven ways to by pass this a nden gett anothger pelemoenple tt´o
want to change without resistance:· Make sure itsh yo wort ur time and
effort-- getting people to change is a time
and effort consuming process. If turnover
is very high due to the type of business
you are in or if the change you are hoping
for won¶t make a significant difference in
your bottom line I strongly suggest you
don¶t bother. Make peace with the fact that
this is the best of all poor options and let it
go.

· Choose who you intend to invest in²
not all employees are ³behavioral change material. Some are not the
right fit to perform the position in the first place, others don¶t care to
invest of themselves. In my days as an HR director my team knew that
I would work with anyone but people in those two categories. If
someone could not perform at the required level I took the
responsibility for a bad hire and we parted as friends. In the cases
employees were not making an effort to improve they found I had no
tolerance for that whatsoever.

· Follow just one rule² people are more responsive and more likely to
notice and address things they feel competent in. Your goal is to make
those you chose to invest in feel competent about what they are doing
or about to do. People dont just need to feel competent, they need to
be able to perform at a high level which requires skills, but the best
skills in the world without the confidence that one is capable to
perform the task successfully will not yield desired results.

· Overcome initial failures with faith² there will be an in between
period, before employees meet your standards, that will constantly
disappoint you. How you respond to those initial tests is of crucial
importance. I tell managers I train that they should consider this a test
of leadership as their employees are putting their trustworthiness on
the line wondering if their manager truly believes in them or if this is
just a cheep manipulation to get them to cooperate. Your employees
are just waiting for you to discourage them. They can¶t wait to tell
you: see, I told you so. It is up to you to prove them wrong by
providing support and complete faith in their ability to succeed when
they didn¶t perform at the leve l you expected.So far theres a lot of support and kindness but very little results
orientation and uncompromised excellence. The following three
techniques are designed to address the growth side of the equation but
you should know that if the first steps are not done with authenticity and
genuine care for the individual employee the last three steps will lead to
frustration at best.





· Meet with your employees periodically and provide skills² if
you are meeting with them once a week keep those meetings
regardless of whether you have feedback for that week or not. How
frequently you meet is less important and it will depend on the
intensity of the projects etc. but since these are training sessions
rather than feedback or review sessions they should be continuous
providing value for the employees growth on an ongoing basis.

· Provide the indirect skills-- the core skills that are relevant to the
challenges at hand. The skills are seemingly unrelated to the
challenge; they are core skills that will lead to the desired result as
a secondary ripple effect. If you are frustrated with the fact thatemployees are not responsive enough for example, don¶t give
instruction (David, next timoe beme tofo askre y me a ou c
question try to see if you can find the answer to the question
yourself first). The best way to go about it is to ask yourself
what your employee is missing in terms of skills and supply him or
her with those skills. In this case I would choose generalizing a
skill from one area to another to be the topic of the periodical
training session. I would discuss the origins of innovation and how
the brain is like a muscle that needs training. If an employee is
unaware of how they communicate on the phone, to take a
different example, I would talk to them about the psychological
process of customer service for a client and about the principles of
losing an existing satisfied customer. Do note that this isn¶t
manipulation in disguise; it is a genuine effort to expose the
employee to strategic principles and thinking skills.

· Give it time and reward small successes² people don¶t c hange
quickly which means that you need to give them time to ³digest´
change even after they fully understood what is expected, the
rational and how to go about it. Don¶t be surprised by the fact that
you¶ll need to address the same challenge from two or three
directions before it sinks in. The only way to speed this process up
is by conditioning the employee to notice small positive
improvements. Tom may try to notice when an employee is
making an effort to find and answer before coming over to ask him
and drop a flower or a bar or chocolate on that employeeto s desk
highlight the achievement.


Preserving the wantro tove is liikme pmaintaining a fire when you are lost
somewhere and you used your last match. You don¶t want to let that fire die.
But life must go on, productivity needs to stay high and you need to see
results. People can be taught to use better thinking models and highlighting
dysfunctions can be combined with a kind approach.Reut Schwartz-Hebron is the president of the KindExcellence Institute, an
international consulting company based on a revolutionary business model
that combines kindness with excellence. The KindExcellence Institute works
with corporations and certifies consultants to increase productivity and
decrease voluntary turnover worldwide.
Reut started her career as a lieutenant ranking commander in the military
(was the first woman to be offered a field position with a combating unit)
and has worked since with all types of organizations including mega
corporations like Intel, Avaya, Marconi and GSK all the way to small non
profits. Reut is a published author, a radio and TV guest expert and an
international speaker. She can be reached at reut@KindExcellence.com
Copyright 2008, Reut Schwartz-Hebron. May be reproduced without charge,
with proper attribution and brief bio. Send notice of where and when article
is to appear to reut@KindExcellence.com

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