Our clients often tell us about the behaviours they want to see in their people – whether these relate to the way they serve customers, the way they manage or they way they approach work in general. While it’s relatively straight forward to describe behaviours, encouraging the right one’s is another matter – a fact I was reminded of the other day by my nine year old and his friends!
I’d decided that making cookies would be a great way to pass the time on an afternoon off school and only 5 minutes into the process I was having second thoughts. With a whole bag of sugar on the floor and butter stuck to the window their level of shrieking seemed to be rising in exact proportions to my frustration. I was just about to utter the words ‘If you can’t do this sensibly then we won’t do it at all!’ but I stopped myself just in time. All that would have meant was that the mayhem would transfer to another room.
Instead, and I’m not quite sure where this came from, I took a deep breath and asked ‘Who’d like to chop up chocolate with really sharp knives?’ Three shouts of ‘Me, me, me!’ followed so I found three chopping boards, three knives and let them get on with it. Now I did still watch from a distance and gave very clear instructions about knives and fingers before they started, but the mood in the room changed instantly. High jinx was replaced with calm concentration which held up long enough to finish the cookies and put them in the very hot oven.
And the point about behaviour? If we want to influence others to behave how we would like them to then it’s own own actions we have to consider first. When we put our trust in others and give them meaningful and challenging work we may just get the performance we are after. So, whether at work or at home see what relinquishing control and handing over the reins can do for the performance of your people.
Oh, and the cookies tasted pretty good too 
Gill
