A new year brings excitement and commitment to bettering our personal and professional lives. Unfortunately, the excitement soon fades, and according to research from VitalSmarts, only 10 to 20 percent of employees reach their career resolutions by the time the ball drops the following year. So what stands in the way of career success?
The study from VitalSmarts shows 97 percent of employees have at least one career-limiting habit —an ingrained behavior that keeps them from achieving their potential at work. For some, the habit is the barrier between good and great in their work. For others, it can put them at risk of career stagnation—preventing them from receiving the raises and promotions they otherwise would have received. The survey of 972 people found that the most common career-limiting habits are:
- Unreliability
- “It’s not my job” attitude
- Procrastination
- Resistance to change
- Negativity and cynicism
Now, the problem is not that we have careerlimiting habits. The problem is that year after year, we beat ourselves up over them but make little progress at overcoming them.
Take Sridhar, for example. Sridhar’s careerlimiting habit was a hot temper. A project manager at a large electronics company, Sridhar was an effective individual contributor and got his work done on time and to spec, but when the pressure was on and others failed to meet their commitments, he exploded.
“I literally would fire arrows out of my mouth. And my e-mails were berating,” he explained. “I tried to tone down my emotions, but it never worked.” After a frank discussion with his boss, Sridhar reported, “I knew that if I didn’t change, the only place I was going in the organization was out the door.”
And yet, Sridhar didn’t change.
Our research on personal change shows the problem is rarely that we don’t want to change. The problem is that we have a naïve view of what shapes our behavior. This naivety leads us to rely too much on our willpower while doing too little to surround ourselves with the other sources of influence required to help us change.
THE WILLPOWER TRAP
We often mistakenly believe the ability to break free from a career-limiting habit depends on our capacity to muster the necessary willpower to succeed. In our book, “Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success,” my colleagues and I refer to this as the willpower trap—the mistaken belief that willpower is the prime mover of human behavior. This view of behavior leads to simplistic strategies to bring about change. It’s a “trap” because when these strategies fail, they simply serve to increase the conviction that we didn’t want to change badly enough—which prevents us from exploring other possible strategies for change.
THE SIX SOURCES OF INFLUENCE
Our research identifies six unique sources of influence that shape human behavior—for better or worse. These sources act on everyone all the time whether we recognize them or not. Those who succeed at change are those who recognize and recruit all of these sources to support new and more effective habits.
The example of project manager Sridhar shows how each source of influence plays a role in either perpetuating the career-limiting habit or turning the behavior in a new direction to make remarkable change.
SOURCE 1: PERSONAL MOTIVATION
Personal Motivation pertains to the impulses that shape our choices. Most people know their bad habits often are sustained by powerful impulses. However, few understand that the best way to change habits is not to resist impulses, but to change them.
That’s what Sridhar ultimately did. Sridhar struggled because, in the moment, it felt good to tear into someone who was causing him inconvenience or worry. To change these impulses, he dissected the self-justifying thoughts that excused lashing out and developed a strategy for changing these thoughts when he was about to explode. In these crucial moments, he challenged his villainous view of others and humanized them in a way that made him feel differently toward them. If we want to change tough habits, we need to change how we feel during crucial moments.
SOURCE 2: PERSONAL ABILITY
New habits almost always require new skills. Sometimes, the skills are surprising and seem unconnected with the immediate problem. Sridhar concluded that his anger stemmed in part from his inability to hold people accountable long before things became a crisis. So, Sridhar enrolled in a course where he learned to clearly articulate his needs rather than waiting until resentment caused him to attack.
SOURCE 3: SOCIAL MOTIVATION
Good and bad habits are almost always a team sport. An effective change plan takes into account the way others encourage our behavior. Sridhar made a concentrated effort to spend more time with those he considered to be effective communicators. It was against the norm in their circles to lash out, and Sridhar could use all the positive peer pressure he could get.
SOURCE 4: SOCIAL ABILITY
Others don’t simply encourage bad habits—they enable them, as well. For example, Sridhar’s boss enabled his behavior for years by making excuses for his prickly demeanor and trying to smooth over problems with those he offended. As part of Sridhar’s change plan, he asked his manager to meet with him weekly to track his progress. He requested that his manager hold him accountable for any behavior not in line with the goals they collectively set. Additionally, the manager lined Sridhar up with a mentor to provide advice and support.
SOURCE 5: STRUCTURAL MOTIVATION
We often marvel that in spite of the obvious costs of our bad habits, we don’t change. Our failures become more understandable when we realize that the costs of bad habits often are far off in the future, while the costs of implementing new habits are felt in the short term. We respond far more to immediate incentives than long-term ones—a proclivity known as timesensitive demand. Successful changers use this principle in their favor by setting short-term achievable goals and tying modest rewards or sanctions to them.
In Sridhar’s case, he celebrated his successes by stepping up to tough accountability conversations with a delicious warm beverage.
SOURCE 6: STRUCTURAL ABILITY
Finally, we often are blind to the role our physical environment plays in enabling habits. Tools, cues, and distance strongly affect the way we behave.
Sridhar tweaked a few factors in his physical environment to help him with his temper. Since he tended to attack his coworkers by e-mail, he made a hard-and-fast rule to only discuss difficult topics in person. He also hung reminders in his office to keep himself focused on the changes he was making.
VitalSmarts’ “How to Have Influence” study, published in MIT’s Sloan Management Review, shows that those who use all Six Sources of Influence as part of a performance improvement plan are not just moderately but exponentially more likely to change. Those who create a robust change strategy in this way are 10 times more likely to succeed at changing even longstanding, seemingly intractable problems in their professional or personal lives.
Sridhar is a testament to this process. He didn’t change overnight, but he changed. Make 2014 the year you turn a career-limiting habit into a strength by intentionally developing a plan to engage all Six Sources of Influence to support you in creating change for good.
Joseph Grenny is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, keynote speaker, and social scientist for business performance. He is also the cofounder of VitalSmarts, an innovator in corporate training and leadership development. His work has been translated into 28 languages, is available in 36 countries, and has generated results for 300 of the Fortune 500. For more information, visit http://www.vitalsmarts.com.
