Here is an excerpt from an article co-authored by Jon Katzenbach, Laird Post, Jonathan Gruber, and Aurelie Viriot, featured by The Katzenbach Center at Booz & Company. They explain how and why achieving strategic goals and accelerating performance results often require that employees at multiple levels of the organization change certain critical behaviors. Many companies do not succeed at helping those employees change despite investing heavily in formal initiatives such as financial incentives or training programs.

The problem is that they neglect an essential aspect of what motivates employees — the emotional commitments that they must bring to the organization and their jobs in order to do well and to exceed expectations. By mobilizing those emotional commitments, companies can accelerate the behavior changes required to elevate business performance. “Pride Builders” can play a substantial role in mobilizing the kind of emotional commitment that makes behavior change happen.

The co-authors go on to point out that Pride Builders are often overlooked and underutilized, though their potential is enormous. Organizations should follow a rigorous approach to determine who the Pride Builders are and then build on their insights and capabilities to influence behaviors. Pride Builders can be helpful allies in spreading both motivational behaviors and performance behaviors. In practice, an eight-step tactic we call a performance pilot is often valuable in gaining insights and demonstrating impact. Ultimately, companies can grow a robust community of Pride Builders and develop the institutional capability to observe, capture, and spread critical behavior changes throughout the organization.

To read the complete article and check out other resources, please click here.

*     *     *

Focus on the Critical Few Behaviors

The ever-increasing pace and magnitude of change in highly competitive business environments has created an unprecedented need for organizational agility. Driving behavior change rapidly throughout the organization is more important than ever. By behaviors, we mean the usual, repeated way in which employees spend their time, make decisions, conduct relation- ships, handle conflicts and truths,
and perform their job. But behavior change is hard to achieve. To illustrate that point: Think back to when you first met your spouse. How many real behavior changes have you been able to make (or motivate your spouse to make) since then? One? Two?

Organizations are no different. That’s why leaders have to pick their battles carefully and identify those few critical behaviors essential to achieving explicitly stated business objectives. Typically, addressing a set of three to five key behaviors is doable. Behavior change is not equally important for all employees. Consequently, it is imperative to identify the employee groups whose behavior change will have the most impact. In our experience, those groups are often leaders or frontline employees who either interact with customers or shape the company’s product and service offerings.

But what exactly are the appropriate critical behaviors to target? Deciding which of the potential behavior changes you should focus on is often tough.

There are a number of dimensions to consider in selecting the critical few:

• Business impact: Will the new behavior make a difference in achieving the key priorities and objectives of the organization?

• Senior leadership support: Does management fully support this behavior change?

• Momentum: Does the behavior change create motivation and momentum for follow-up efforts?

• Measurability: Can we measure and track the targeted behavior change?

• Ease of implementation: Can the targeted behavior change be implemented with reasonable resources and appropriate support from the organization?

• Timing: Will the targeted behavior change happen within the required time frame?

In many cases, the critical behaviors that must change flow directly from a reassessment of strategic and operating priorities or a new strategy itself. For example, a telecommunications company adopted a new customer- centric strategy, then identified the few critical behavior changes required in its call centers for that new strategy to come to life.

It’s one thing to determine the critical few behaviors, but quite another to get your employees to adopt them. In most cases this cannot be done by decree, however desirable that might be. If behavior change is to become permanent and viable, it needs to be motivated, not just mandated. It must be anchored in the organizational culture, in the patterns of how people think, feel, and believe.

To motivate employees in this way, appealing to both their rational and emotional sides is necessary. Just look at the employees of such extra- ordinary organizations as Southwest Airlines, Apple, or the U.S. Marine Corps. Emotional commitment—not logical compliance—is what deter- mines employees’ exceptional service, innovation, and dedication to the organization. Unprompted, these workers go the extra mile for the good of their units and their organizations. For instance, at Southwest Airlines, it is not uncommon for pilots to help baggage handlers, and for flight attendants to interact with passengers before they get on the plane. At Apple, employees extensively network and communicate directly with customers and other Apple devotees who care as much about the company and its products as they do. And there are countless examples of battlegrounds where Marines have brought out more members—alive, wounded, and dead—than any other military unit operating in the same theater, as well as more trivial evidence of emotional commitment, such as the letters sent by readers to the Marine Corps Gazette magazine in which they show in words their devotion to the values of the Marine Corps.

*     *     *

To read the complete article and check out other resources, please click here.

Jon Katzenbach is a senior partner with Booz & Company based in New York. He leads the Katzenbach Center, which develops practical new approaches to leadership, culture, and organizational performance. With more than 45 years of consulting experience, he is a recognized expert in organizational performance, collaboration, corporate governance, culture change, and employee motivation. Prior to joining Booz & Company, he was a founder of Katzenbach Partners LLC. He is the author of several books on team performance, including the best-selling The Wisdom of Teams, Teams at the Top, and The Discipline of Teams. His latest book is Thinking Outside the Lines.

Laird Post is a principal with Booz & Company based in San Francisco. He advises organizations in the U.S. and globally on people, leadership, and change effectiveness.

Jonathan Gruber is a senior associate with Booz & Company based in New York. He is part of the firm’s organization, change, and leadership practice and a member of the Katzenbach Center. He works with companies in the U.S. and globally on organizational transformation, culture change, and strategy.

Aurelie Viriot is a senior associate with Booz & Company based in San Francisco. She is part of the firm’s organization, change, and leadership practice and a member of the Katzenbach Center. She works with leading companies on strategy and organizational performance challenges.