Measuring learning and behavior change

This post is an excerpt from Changing Results by Changing Behavior, a leadership field guide by Julie Poland:

You might think that measurement of results would be a foregone conclusion ─ everyone does it, right?  That’s not been our experience.  Sure, leaders take a look at certain numbers like gross revenue, gross profit, cash balances and the like, but far fewer have a grip on measurement beyond that.

When there are hard dollar reasons to pursue behavior change it’s natural that hard dollar measurements should result.  If you engage someone to work with your sales staff you would expect to see movement in sales per rep, perhaps an increase in the number of presentations, or in their closing percentages.  Where you set concrete financial benchmarks at the beginning of your process you’ve set the stage for measuring the downstream effectiveness of your change efforts.

When you define the most appropriate measurements, you can more readily define the interim goals or behaviors that should lead to them.  Continuing with the sales example, what behavior changes would your reps need to make to close more sales?  Do they need to redefine their “ideal prospects?”  Do they need to learn more effective communication techniques to use during the sales process?  When you define expectations in specific terms, you help whatever outside resource you’re using (we’ll call it your improvement partner) to tailor a process that directly addresses your situation. The resulting process is more likely to help your people produce the desired results.

Communicating Success Measures when You Start

It’s important, when measuring progress, to tell the participants what the targets are before they start.  You (or the highest-ranking executive you can access) should personally participate in the project kickoff, setting the scene by laying out some performance goals. When you choose to do this:

• Participants realize that this isn’t in addition to their job, or tangential to their job ─ it is their job.
• You create an umbrella under which participants can set their individual goals as the process progresses.
• Participants will be able to help you achieve the results you want by addressing the piece that they can impact from their corner of your organization.

Levels of Measurement

You might be interested in finding out your employees’ reactions to whatever development or project-focused process you have involved them in, but that really only gives you a superficial view.  Reactions relate more to whether they liked the facilitator, the room and the snacks than whether the process was effective.  Yes, it does help to have an engaging facilitator, an accommodating space, etc.  But it takes more to evaluate the value of your investment.

You might also want to know about the amount of learning they acquired during training efforts. You can incorporate pre- and post-training exams if you want to increase the accountability for each person to participate fully in gaining the information they need to know.  One potentially undesirable side effect of content exams is that they can create the misperception that the primary goal is to obtain knowledge.  That’s not it ─ the change you seek may require a knowledge-download component, but ultimately application of knowledge is what creates the behavior change.

Your two most important categories of measurement will come from the behavior changes people make and the new results they achieve.  You and your improvement partner will be double-teaming during the change process, with your facilitator providing the tools and processes and you providing the support, context, alignment and accountability for your employees.  (You can see why it is advantageous to start with your senior leaders, so you can spread the responsibility around as you go through your company!) 

It is possible to see positive ratings and good exam scores without seeing changed behavior and results.  When that happens it can be because application isn’t built into the provider’s process, but more often it’s because there is little or no direct involvement from company leadership to help participants apply what they are learning to “the real world.”   It happens when company leadership has an expectation that the facilitator is driving the change.  While they can be an influence on your behalf, the facilitator does not control all of the other resources like organizational structure and rewards that will make or break the results you want to achieve.  You do.

Measuring Behavior Change

The simplest method my colleagues and I use to measure behavior change is the implementation of behavior-related goals.  In an earlier chapter I cited the example of the supervisor in saying “Good morning” every morning.  Behavioral goals can be tricky in that people will try to commit themselves to a major “go forth and sin no more” expectation ─ an ad infinitum standard that is difficult to sustain.  It’s preferable to keep the behavior narrow and specific and the early time frames short to create the opportunity for success.  For example:

• Each day this week I will plan the next day’s tasks before I leave the office.
•  For today I will ask questions so I better understand the other person’s point rather than dig in and argue my point of view.
• I will distribute a written agenda no later than 48 hours prior to the Friday staff meeting.

There are few goals too small to start the process of behavior change, as long as they meet the SMART criteria (specific, measurable, achievable yet realistically high, and time-deadline stated).  Each has just a small impact, but together they create a critical mass of positive momentum.  In general terms, more difficult behavioral change goals should carry shorter time frames to keep them realistic.  You can evaluate your success on each goal and renew it if you want to refine your approach or commit to an additional segment of time.

Five reasons why the phone weighs fifty pounds

1949 Telephone, a photo by SmashBucketGallery on Flickr.

For readers who can't remember a time prior to smart phones, this is what phones looked like when your parents - or grandparents - were chatting with their high school friends.  You don't know what real dialing is, or how long it takes for the 9 to return to its position so you can dial the next number.  You could probably send ten texts in the time frame needed to dial one number the old fashioned way.

The old phone was certainly too heavy to carry in a pants pocket, even if you had a pocket the size of Bozo the clown's.  But the heaviness we're talking about today is the weight of your reluctance to pick up your smart phone and dial a prospective client to set up a get-acquainted meeting.

The phone isn't your only tool for prospecting, and some would say that they will never, ever cold call.  They will admit that it's too torturous for them with too few positive results.  But networking (one of the preferred marketing modes right now) is relatively slow when done right.  The object in networking is the relationship first, sometimes long before a prospective business relationship is on the agenda.  The phone, on the other hand, is your direct line to the in-person meeting, and most sales don't happen without that critical mid-process step.

So why is the phone so heavy?  Here are five reasons shared with us - see whether any of them resonate with you:

1. I don't know who to call
2. I don't know what I'm going to say
3. I'm only going to get their voice mail anyway
4. They don't want me interrupting their day
5. The last guy I called was downright rude to me

Who do you call?

It's best if you disconnect the generation of your call list from your calling process.  It's a great activity for non-peak hours.  Make a list, include the phone numbers, and leave room for taking notes once the calling begins.  The length of your list should be determined by the number of appointments you want to make.  Use your prior success rate to work backwards; if you want your result to be eight scheduled appointments and about 50% of the people you talk to say yes you'll need 16 names on your list.  If only a third of the people that you try to talk to are actually reachable you'll need to have three times that many - 48 - ready to go if you want to be uninterrupted in your calling process once you start.

What are you going to say?

You need to have an agenda for the call so you don't fall subject to a brain cramp.  You can create a script, or a more outline-formed call guide with the key points in a few bullets.  It's important to keep you on track, to enable you to stay focused on the other person rather than on your own thought formulation.  When creating a script it's important to remember that while nothing works 100% of the time, the more consistency you use in your approach the better you are able to evaluate and improve your methods.  Test and measure. This, of course, means that if you want to improve you need to track your phone activities (#attempts, #contacts #appointments, etc.) and analyze your results.

Voice mail hell

You need to incorporate a plan for voice mail into your calling. Do you want them to call you back?  Think carefully about this, because if you are calling 150 people today and a Mr. Smith comes through on your line out of context later today it might take you a few minutes to figure out that it's the same Mr. Smith that you tried to reach this morning.  And if you're not going to be in the office later anyway their return call will only be an exercise in frustration.  Some people leave only their name - so it becomes familiar - on voice mail.  Others leave a short commercial.  Just beware of giving so much information that the prospect makes a buy or no-buy decision based upon your message.  You aren't even close to that point in a valid sales process.  If you're presenting over voice mail you're jumping the gun - by a long shot.

I'm an interruption and an annoyance

It's easier when you are not calling completely cold.  This IS where it's beneficial to gather names of prospective clients through in-person contacts, provided that you're not irritating in person!  When you have met someone recently and you follow up promptly you already have a shared experience through which you can develop rapport on the phone.  Whether you already know this person or not, though, you want to ask whether you're calling at an OK time, you want to be brief and to the point, and you want to remember that you have only one goal for this call - to establish an appointment.  If they don't want to meet, politely thank them and say "Next!" inside your head.  On-the-phone arm-twisting or pleading places you at a strategic disadvantage, and it doesn't create the foundation for a client-centered meeting.  When you pressure you're making it all about you and your need to have a meeting, and that's not the proper focus if you want to create the foundation for a long, mutually beneficial relationship with them. 

The last guy I talked to was downright rude

When you call you ARE an interruption in the sense that you are an unplanned part of their day.  Some people deal well with that and some people don't, so you are likely to run across somebody that's a bit testy.  You can help yourself here through a few simple strategies:

• Ask whether it's an OK time to talk
• Keep it brief and to the point - your goal is to set an appointment, not to educate, sell, persuade, etc.
• Be prepared with a list of potential objections and responses

An objection is not necessarily a stop sign - it is often a request for more information.  When you are prepared to handle certain objections you improve your confidence for the call, meaning that the person on the other end is less likely to shake you.  An objection might be a sincere misunderstanding about your company, what you do, and the purpose of your request for a meeting.  Once you answer the objection(s) you may wind up with the desired appointment.  But if they come in an unending stream, cut bait and say "Next!" inside your head.  There's somebody else out there who is open to you, and your job is to find him or her.

The phone need not weigh fifty pounds.  Preparation is huge in winning this internal battle.  But so is building time for it into your daily or weekly routine.  When you are trying to improve, higher frequency is better than lower frequency.  When you call a lot you can more readily remember the mistakes you made the last time and avoid them.  You can more easily repeat the strategies that worked on the last call until you make them second nature.  And you won't allow enough time for the inner voices to psych you out.

Track your numbers.  This helps you measure your success, identify your best practices, and improve.  It also takes the process from an emotionally-charged one to a data-collection project.  Once you know your numbers you can manage tomorrow's activities based upon results-based information.  And that makes the phone a whole lot lighter.

Should your company have a blog?

The first time I heard of the term blog (short for weblog,) was when a website designer recommended it about nine years ago as a way to keep the website for my coaching company fresh.  She explained that when website content changes, search engine spiders find the site more easily.  Even though most new clients find my business through personal contact and not through a web search, I was game to try it to see whether it would improve my visibility in a Google search.  I finally wrote and posted my first blog entry in September of 2005, and by now blogging has become an integral part of my marketing mix.

Why a blog may be good for your business

Beyond boosting your search engine ranking, you can achieve a number of additional goals by writing a blog:

• Expand your visibility in various social media.
• Establish your expertise in your industry, differentiating yourself from your competition.
• Share information about new developments in products and services, to attract new and repeat customers.
• Provide a platform through which you can find out what customers are thinking about your business.  The engagement with customers is perhaps the ultimate goal, but not for the fainthearted.  Be sure that you really want to know what they are saying before you ask the questions!

Getting started with blogging

The simplest method to get a blog going is to use one of the online platforms.  Blogger (a Google product) and Wordpress are two of the most commonly used blog platforms.  You establish an account, name your blog and select a template for the appearance of your blog.  Your blog will have its own URL (for example, thefriendlyplumber.blogspot.com) that you can link to your main company website so that every blog update you do will automatically show up there.

Content and blog frequency

Your selection of content will be one of the chief determiners of the frequency at which you post to your blog.  If you are a news blogger, for instance, a once daily post will leave you in the dust behind bloggers who are online the moment after a story develops.  Most likely, however, your posts will either be informational and educational or commentary and opinion.  If there is not time sensitivity in your content you will determine your own posting frequency:  daily, biweekly, weekly, etc.  The goal is enough frequency to attract regular readers and search engines, but only enough that it is sustainable for you to do.

Knowing your audience

When you know the audience to whom you are targeting your posts it is much easier to select content, and to determine the tone of your writing.  For instance, if you are addressing teenaged skateboarders   in your blog you’ll choose different language than if you are blogging to middle-aged businesspersons.   What does your target audience want to know, and what is it that you’d like to know from them?

Attracting readers

If you’re going to the effort of producing blog posts you want it to be read by more than you, your spouse and your mother.  So how do you spread the reach of your blog?

1. Your content – When you write about valuable information people will share it and comment on it. 
2. Make your blog available in multiple venues.  One post can appear in several places – as a matter of fact you can even print a few and make them available in your business location, send them with invoices, or in other communication with customers.  Always, always include the URL so people can look you up later if they want to see more posts.
3.  Check out group blogging sites, where different pools of people can find you.  Your local newspaper may have an online community blogging section where you can automatically submit your blog posts.  There are sites organized by genre (like MomBloggers) where you can share your posts.  And Alltop is a site where dozens of blogs can be found by category (you have to apply and be selected to be accepted there.)
4. Announce your blog updates by including a link to your newest post in your status updates on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.
5. Help readers become regulars.  Feedburner can help your regular readers to receive your updates in their email.  People can also read your posts on GoogleReader, one spot where they can obtain feeds from all of their favorite blog sites.  Google Reader is going away as of July 1, 2013, but you and your readers can migrate smoothly to the “heir” to Google Reader – Feedly.com.1.       
6. Interact with other bloggers in your industry.  Bloggers form a community – they can guest post for one another, comment on posts, provide ideas for content and technical improvements, etc.  This isn't a journey you have to take by yourself.

The Knowledge Paradox

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." - Confucius

It's funny how the person in the room who is compelled to share the most unsolicited expertise is often the person with the least information....

One of the most challenging positions to be in is one where you don't even know the questions, much less the answers.  This illustration shows that as your body of knowledge increases, the circumference of its border increases along with it.  The border represents the information of which you are aware you are ignorant.

Real knowledge, therefore, is typically. accompanied by humility.  You can study certain subjects for all of your life and never master more than a sliver of the content that you're studying.  From the vantage point of every new mountain peak you reach you can see a vista of heretofore unconquered other peaks in front of you.

When you realize that you indeed don't know it all you become more open to adding to your body of knowledge - or you become willing to collaborate with individuals and resources that can help you to fill the gaps.  One person can't know everything about everything.

In your desire to feel in control of your work and your life, sometimes it's easier to sit on top of your current knowledge and stay there.  It can feel uncomfortable to admit that you don't know, because such an admission can feel like a loss of face.  Could you be perceived as an imposter in your leadership role if you don't know everything about your area?

Your biggest risks are in the area beyond the green border - those things that you don't know you don't know.  In this position, not only do you not know the answers, but you aren't aware that there are questions that need to be answered!

The remedies to the knowledge paradox can be found in

• humility
• confidence enough to ask questions
• willingness to collaborate
• ability to identify reliable knowledge resources

Unless you are in an academic setting where knowledge for the sake of knowledge is the goal, no matter your knowledge inventory, it's moot unless you apply it.  You can build success by teaming up with external sources of knowledge to accomplish your goals.  You can implement just-in-time learning so application follows close on the heels of the acquisition of the information.

But it's in your attitude about your knowledge - and your ignorance - that you will find peace, teamwork, and mastery.  Confucius say.

The best salesperson not on your payroll

WOMMA, a photo by Pronto Communication on Flickr.

Let's start with the ugly part of the story - if you disappoint or upset a customer, the potential impact goes far beyond the conventional wisdom that they will tell ten people.  The pull of Facebook and other social media as a consumer platform is so strong that your dissatisfied customer can reach hundreds of their online friends, and their friends, and their friends until that one experience can engender thousands of repetitions in fallout to your reputation.

But what if you're doing well for your customers?  Social media can be your friend as well as your adversary.  Whereas pre-Facebook a satisfied customer would be likely to tell up to three other people about their experience with your company, today a customer might coo about your business to the same audience that they would rant in less positive circumstances.  Given that the public's preconditioned attitudes are predominantly negative, the kudos probably won't have legs as sturdy as the criticisms would have, but the good word can spread.

So how do you boost your company's positive word of mouth?

• Get the blocking and tackling right - There are certain expectations of you no matter your industry.  You'd better be reasonably convenient and easy to buy from, with current and adequate quantities of inventory.  If you are delivering, it had better be in sync with the customer's preferred timing.  Quality had better be in alignment with your price (perceived value), and the service experience had better meet expectations.
• Up the ante - Your product may provide you with a built in gee-whiz factor that customers love and want to talk about to others.  But if it isn't much different from anyone else's product, you need to select an aspect of the total offering and make it comment-worthy.  Perhaps basic chocolate candies can rise to the level of comment if they are packaged in elegant or creative ways that make them excellent gifts.  Or perhaps your premium hotel floor is hosted by a concierge who has connections for excellent show tickets, some coupons for freebies at local businesses, and even some trinkets for kids staying over with their parents.  It's only comment-worthy if it's above and beyond expectations.
• Engage with customers - Ask them.  Find out what they like about your service (and what they don't) so you can focus your continuous improvement efforts on those aspects that are going to create repeat purchases and positive word of mouth.  Do you currently ask for customer testimonials?  If you don't, you are missing the opportunity to let the best salesperson not on your payroll tell your company's story.  (Remember to obtained signed permission from them if you want to use their quote in your marketing materials.) You can ask them via periodic surveys, or by bringing a group of them together into a focus group.  You can ask them questions on your company website, or on your corporate Facebook page.  
• Respond to them - Thank customers for their positive comments.  Let them know that you appreciate their actions on your behalf, including keeping them posted on your progress if you know they have referred a particular prospective client to you.  You might even reward them in some way, with a gift card or some other benefit. Beyond the most important step of asking for customers' opinions, the next most important is to use the information they communicate to you or others to improve your products and services.

The goal is to have promoters out there, customers who are actively telling other people that their own experience was so outstanding that everyone should deal with you.  It might seem that promoters are rare birds, but you have the opportunity to activate them - if you make a point to do so.

Want to be better at thinking on your feet?

Are you impressed by the guy (or gal) who can think

Google Images - ridingtherollercoaster.com

on his feet? No matter the situation, the challenging question, the unanticipated problem they have an answer, a solution, a way around - on the spot.  They can do a McGyver, transforming a humble assortment of unrelated materials into a zip line, a storm shelter, or a makeshift boat.

It helps to be born with a quick processor, but for many people, though, ability is not the obstacle - fear of making a mistake, and habits are.  Greater skill in on-your-feet thinking can be developed.  First, here are some of the foundation elements:

1. Foundation information - if you are to improvise later, you will be more successful if you build a mental inventory of successful combinations, and the basic characteristics of potential ingredients.  For instance, duct tape is very sticky, so it has oodles of uses where you need stickiness or to attach things.  An egg has versatile properties, so it can be used to create foamy toppings, to hold ingredients together in a structure, to add protein, to make pastries shiny on top - even to decorate a house for Easter.  The bigger your inventory of information, the more potential solutions you have at hand.
2. Filtering criteria - Are you looking for cheap, quick, simple - or are you looking for safe, proven, and popular?  If you have a huge inventory of solutions, it helps to know that some are to be eaten and some not.  So in the moment you can begin by ruling out or pulling in some of your options.  Caution:  over-filtering can interfere with thinking on your feet by prematurely dismissing perfectly usable ideas.  They might be unconventional, but good.
3. Practice - Play games that call for imagination or information in a timed competition.  Think on your feet in low-stakes situations so you can develop a mental shorthand, a process for arriving at answers quickly.  Speed comes with conditioning, and if you have been in a habit of slowing down it can be especially important to build new pathways, shortcuts, etc.
4. Listen carefully - One of the characteristics of effective listeners is that they provide verbal feedback.  When another person is asking a question, rephrasing the question and feeding it back helps the other person realize that you are listening, it makes sure that you are going to answer the question that was asked (rather than go on an unnecessary tangent), and it gives you a moment to gather your thoughts.
5. Know the overall goal - This is probably the pre-eminent filtering criterion - to know what you are trying to accomplish.  Your idea might not have to be pretty if it protects an injury well enough and long enough to transport a victim to an ER.  It might not have to be cheap if the goal is to make a dramatic and memorable statement quickly. 
6. Rein in your emotions - A certain amount of stress can help you to focus your thinking, but too much can create paralysis.  The attention here is on developing a solution, a response, an action step.  If you are freaking out too much your focus is not on the situation at hand, but on yourself.  It's not about you!  If you know that you are wired to react emotionally, lay a foundation of positive self-talk (affirmations) to build the confidence you need to stay focused on the issue at hand.

The skill of thinking on your feet, taken too far, can create problems.  There are certain situations in which taking time is important, gaining feedback from others is crucial to buy-in, etc.  Thinking on your feet is not an effective default position - its appropriateness depends upon whether you need an absolutely correct answer, ANY reasonable answer, or an answer RIGHT NOW.  Do your homework.  Prepare.  Time is not always so critical that you need an answer right now.  As a matter of fact, there are situations in which you or a group are best served by slowing down.  Slowing yourself and/or the group down might take at least as much courage as it does to stand and deliver on the spot.

Building the bridge to competence

On the foot bridge, a photo by momentaryawe.com on Flickr.

Your parents have moved from your childhood home to a condo.  You rearranged the furniture in the living room.  Your company is converting to a new software system.  You have been asked to add a new set of responsibilities to your job.

In all of these situations change of some sort has occurred.  Only one of the four illustrations is a change that you have chosen yourself, versus one chosen by someone else for you to adapt to, but that doesn't matter to the topic at hand today.

Change disrupts your groove, your series of habits that create the comfortable structure for your day.  There is discomfort, even a bit of a mourning process, that accompanies that disruption.  The intensity and duration of the discomfort are a function of:

• How long you've worked with the prior conditions, expectations, etc.
• How different the new is from the old
• How attached you were to the prior habits
• How competent you feel about doing it in a different way
• Your history with changes and integrating them
• Your confidence in yourself and your ability to learn
• Whether you're doing it alone or in concert with a larger group
• And a slew of other variables

On the day after you move the ottoman in the living room you have to notice that it is in a different location so you don't trip over it.  You have to see it first, then adapt your actions to accommodate the new conditions.  If you aren't mindful when you walk through the rearranged living room you are likely to bump into something.  After you have walked through a few times, perhaps sat in the room to watch television or to entertain guests, you become familiar with the new arrangement and you build new habits for navigating through the space.

When your parents move and you're talking or listening to the radio you might find yourself in their old driveway.  Because you haven't paid attention to the route - driving on autopilot - you wound up in the place where they don't live any more.

At work, you're used to allocating your time in a certain way considering certain going expectations.  Unless you make a point to make room for your expanded responsibilities or new behaviors you'll find yourself saying in a meeting, "I didn't have time..."

When you set goals and create plans for implementing them you are engaging in a process of increasing your mindfulness, your moment-to-moment awareness.  You build in action steps to integrate the smaller pieces of the larger thing into your calendar.  You set progress evaluation dates that help to keep the desired behaviors in the front of your mind.

Behavioral goals are different from project goals in that you might be tempted to word them in "From here forward..." terms.  A single moment of decision rarely results in completely consistent conformance, especially right after the decision is made.  So when you set a "Go forth and sin no more" evergreen goal for yourself you are likely to be setting yourself up for disappointment.  If you are trying to achieve greater mindfulness toward a particular change:

1. Get specific about what behavior you are going to do.  "Swim for one hour at the club 3 times per week during the month of May 2013" is a goal that leaves no question about what you are expecting of yourself.
2. Put it in view.  If you have committed to go to the gym, take your bag of exercise gear to work and place it in full sight in your office.  The visual reminder will help you remember that you committed to go.  Sticky notes, posters, index cards in the pocket where you keep your car keys - all of these can serve to keep information in the front of your awareness.
3. Do it several times right now, right in a row to establish a brain/body connection.  When you are learning something for the first time, you are likely to forget a significant part of the information unless you engage in repetition.  Repetition helps to build habits, so doing the new behavior several times helps to send you forward.
4. Talk about it.  Visual cues work for some people, and so do auditory cues for others.  In addition, when you talk about it with others you build an accountability and/or support structure for the implementation of the new habit.
5. Align your affirmations with it.  The way in which you talk to yourself about the change can have a huge impact on your willingness to implement and sustain new behavior.  Talk about it in the present tense as though your are doing it already:  "I am the sort of person who exercises faithfully at least 3 times per week."
6. Give yourself the opportunity to learn.  Certain changes require a process of being incompetent until you become accustomed to the new process, the new keystrokes, the new language, the new routines.  Hold yourself accountable to make efforts in the direction you want to go, but be kind to yourself if you fail a few times along the way.  If you persist, and make a point of learning from your mistakes, you WILL prevail.