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Do you want your employees to change their work habits? Or, may be, you made a new year’s resolution to change a habit? Research on habit formation reveals that you are more likely to succeed if you focus on replacing the unwanted behaviour with a more acceptable one, rather than trying to eliminate it completely.
Understanding Habits
According to Charles Duhigg, author and expert on habit formation, strong habits have three characteristics: a trigger, followed by the specific behaviour, and an ensuing reward. For example, Duhigg would say that the sight of your jogging shoes by the side of your bed when you wake up is the trigger for your jog (the behaviour), leading to a feel-good boost in endorphins after the jog (the reward). Of course, the relevant reward can vary from person to person; the jog may provide a sense of disciplined accomplishment for one, and the likelihood of losing weight, for another. Regardless, it is the reward that compels the behaviour to be repeated, thus creating a habit.
Duhigg reveals that the habit becomes even stronger when the individual begins to sense the reward at the trigger stage, even before the behaviour is initiated. This implies that when a reward is not experienced soon after the behaviour, a strong habit may not be formed. Thus, the person who jogs for the reward of a post-exercise “high” is more likely to form a strong habit of jogging, than one who jogs for the reward of the possibility of weight loss over time.
Changing Habits
One approach to managing habits is to focus on the “trigger”. If you want to inculcate a positive habit, an exposure to the right trigger can help. For example, a gym membership that is paid monthly could provide a trigger every month (when the payment is made), and this may be more effective in ensuring habitual behaviour (gym attendance) than membership that is paid annually.
For habits that need to be eliminated, one possibility is to ensure that the trigger is removed, thus preventing the cue that prompts the behaviour. If your daily routine contains a trigger for unwanted behaviour, breaking the habit may be easier when you are away from your daily routine, such as when your are on vacation or when starting a new job in a different town. However, this approach may not always work, as it does not address the reward –which may still exist as a craving that needs to be satisfied. In fact, Duhigg suggests that strong bad habits may be very difficult to eradicate, but they can be replaced. In other words, keep the trigger and the reward, and attempt to find another behaviour that is more acceptable. Examples of this principle include nicotine patches and nicotine chewing gum that are used for changing smoking behaviour—where the trigger and reward does not change, instead one type of behaviour (smoking) is replaced by another (a nicotine patch or nicotine chewing gum)
Finding a behaviour that is an acceptable replacement requires a thorough understanding of the reward that compels the original behaviour to be repeated. For example, if employees are taking too many breaks during the workday, is it because the work is intensely exhausting, or is it because the work environment lacks social interaction? In the former case the reward sought is a refreshed mind, and in the latter case the reward sought is social activity. Once the reward sought has been identified, an alternative behaviour can be attempted that would still use the same trigger and reward, but which is more acceptable. In this case, the replacement behaviour must be able to produce a “refreshed mind” for those who need it, and an opportunity for social interaction, for others. Thus, in general, instead of trying to eradicate a habit, it may be easier to first understand its trigger and reward, and work on replacing it with one that is more acceptable.
Arun Pereira is on the faculty at the Indian School of Business, and is the Executive Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Case Development at ISB.