As a business leader, what is one behaviour you want to improve at work or in life, and what simple system would you try for the next two weeks to support it?
Lasting behaviour change doesn’t come from motivation. It comes from what happens after the behaviour.
Most leaders try to change behaviour by inspiring or motivating people. But the late behavioural psychologist Dr. Chris Anderson at the University of Notre Dame – with his colleagues – proved that’s not how lasting change happens.
“You don’t change behaviour by motivating people,” he said. “You change it by changing the consequences of their behaviour.”
I was first introduced to Dr. Anderson years ago through TEC, an international leadership-development program, where he was a featured speaker. I was so struck by his message that I invited him to visit the transportation company I then ran and present to our entire team.
Decades later, his work feels more relevant than ever. Why? Because motivation fades – but systems don’t.
Anderson’s research showed that lasting performance comes from creating structure, feedback, and reinforcement. When leaders build systems around behaviour, not slogans, the results are remarkable.
Here are two of my favourite examples from Anderson’s work:
A struggling brokerage was stuck at 6.2% market share. Anderson identified two precision behaviours that mattered most:
- Face-to-face cold contacts
- Face-to-face follow-ups
No new compensation plans. No motivational contests. Just weekly action, tracking and feedback.
In 20 weeks, the team increased activity by 300%, more than doubled market share to 14.1%, and sales rose 122%. Those are remarkable results for any short-term sales initiative. But when that organization stopped using the system, performance collapsed.
In the early 1980s, a Division 1 university hockey team was underperforming. Anderson introduced a simple and unexpected performance metric: charting legal bodychecks by player. Crucially, he created a system for setting goals, tracking results, and giving private praise and other social reinforcement.
Within weeks, the players’ bodychecking performance nearly quadrupled, without any corresponding increase in penalties. And the team didn’t lose a game for two straight seasons.
The lessons from both experiments: Behaviour change is engineered, not inspired.
For anyone leading people, or leading themselves, these three questions are at the heart of this system:
- What do you want?
- Who must do what (what precision behaviours are required)?
- How will you track and reinforce those behaviours?
That’s how lasting change happens: Not by hope, but by design.
Where could you apply this kind of behavioural system, personally or as a leader, to create meaningful change in your business or life?
Cole Dolny supports CEOs, Presidents and business owners who want to build healthier, more profitable companies, faster, while leading more fulfilled lives.