If you think about it – when was the last time you actually modified your behaviour? When did you change the way you thought or acted about a thing? Anything!
Everywhere you look businesses are desperate to get their folk more engaged. They talk about wanting them transformed, inspired – behaving for the benefit of the whole firm!
Well mostly it ain't gonna happen!
We individuals (being individuals) tend to be able to resist most attempts to modify our attitude and behaviour. But in 'groups' we typically have to. It's just decency right? When we respect the collective spirit of the group then we soon learn that if we want to progress then we had better step up. But the key words here are respect.
The greatest success we observe in change programs is when the majority of the people respect each other. We then observe those involved are themselves a kind of movement - then these rules soon become the standards. These guys are formidable.
"The most powerful modifier of an individual's behaviour is the immovable power of the peer group!"
People, in my experience, are very often quite distant and dismissive of their employer and their corporate missions. And especially dismissive because many employers just don't get what actually works. They seem to have no idea how to change their peoples minds about anything let alone the success of the business.
And frankly most employees couldn't give a damn whether their employer achieves the targets it lays out and announces in the company propaganda. The employee often doesn't see appropriate behaviour in their leaders so why should they play ball anyway.
Sadly many senior leaders are not equipped for this level of change. Nor are they deeply determined or charismatic enough to really make the changes required. Overall engagement leading to transformation is probably the hardest kind of change to make. It involves individuals so that makes it almost impossible. Especially without real innovation in the way to think about it.
Oh dear!
There are countless 'snake-oil' tools and techniques claiming to be the magic bullet. They all have some merit but the really powerful answer is actually obvious - if you think about it. The business has to recreate the peer group.
The business has to make a significant and sincere attempt to create a peer culture. A group of respected people that (as a group) add up to what is feasible, meaningful and downright right. This needs to be accepted by the majority of the people. How this peer group thinks and works may not be as lofty as the dream required by the enterprise strategists but it will be authentic and practical. And that is what will actually work.
In actual fact several peer groups need to exist in the business. The peer groups will need to engender the right kind of spirit and then, by degree the terrorists and naysayers will have to change or ultimately be ousted by the power of their peer group.
How to create the 'Peer Group'.
Imagine a selected group of people discussing and developing everything that they need to agree on and share in order to collaborate and succeed as a team. Imagine that this dialogue became a blueprint for everything they said, everything they stood for and everything they needed in order to manage and work as a real team every day. Imagine that this framework was publishable and could become the ultimate tool for change. A Peer Performance Framework!
The 'framework for performance' and positive progress right across the business.
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