FOLLOW THROUGH BEHAVIOURS: THE AKRASIA EFFECT

A brief story:

In the summer of 1830, Victor Hugo was facing an impossible deadline. Twelve months earlier, the French author had promised his publisher a new book. But instead of writing, he spent that year pursuing other projects, entertaining guests, and delaying his work. Frustrated, Hugo’s publisher responded by setting a deadline less than six months away. The book had to be finished by February 1831.

Hugo concocted a strange plan to beat his procrastination. He collected all his clothes and asked an assistant to lock them away in a large chest. He was left with nothing to wear except a large shawl. Lacking any suitable clothing to go outdoors, he remained in his study and wrote furiously during the fall and winter of 1830. The Hunchback of Notre Dame was published two weeks early on January 14, 1831.

Procrastination is usually a “yes” or “no” question”

For more conventional instances, consider addictive behaviour patterns or compulsive traits like over-shopping and blowing the budget, or manic media use; maybe even something like starting an argument one “knows” one will regret and that will lead to trouble or grief.

Having an explanation seems good because it suggests some kind of intervention based on that knowledge, but in some cases, it just doesn’t work. Yet we still feel the hypnotic pull toward explanations, even if the terms being explained are just accepted in a very uncritical way.

When we make a decision to do something or not, our brain usually has a “gut instinct” answer of yes or no, before the words even come out of the mouth. We consider what benefit it has first, and then what benefit it may have for another person. Then we consider other criteria like time, strength, and effort it will take before we actually decide what it is we are going to do. This all happens in a split second before we commit, and the answer comes out of the mouth.

Often, procrastination occurs when you have decided to complete a task, but you keep postponing until later without consciously choosing to do it then. Not all procrastination is bad procrastination. There are two types of procrastinators- active and passive.

Though you may be convinced by this that you are an active procrastinator the truth is most of us are actually passive procrastinators. We delay our work just because we can and with no justifiable reason.

Maybe it is better to try to “own” the behavior rather than blaming externals. So, it is not necessarily a useless idea. The concept of Akrasia is a sort of promise the executive self makes to itself about self-control and autonomy. And it is also the basis for promises one makes to other people about accountability, or rather, explanations for the occasional breakdown and exception.

The Ancient Problem of Akrasia
Human beings have been procrastinating for centuries. Even prolific artists like Victor Hugo are not immune to the distractions of daily life. The problem is so timeless, in fact, that ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle developed a word to describe this type of behavior: Akrasia.

Human behaviour is complex, and we interpret through a network of concepts which themselves are cultural and philosophical constructs. If the typical definition of “akrasia” is “weakness of will”, then what is will? If will is some vaguely defined power of “mind”, then what is mind? If mind is an active presence within “self”, then what is self? … and so on.

Akrasia is the state of acting against your better judgment. It is when you do one thing even though you know you should do something else. Loosely translated, you could say that akrasia is procrastination or a lack of self-control. Akrasia is what prevents you from following through on what you set out to do. Why would Victor Hugo commit to writing a book and then put it off for over a year? Why do we make plans, set deadlines, and commit to goals, but then fail to follow through on them?

Also, akrasia is loss of self-control, in the sense of action contrary to reason. In akrasia, there is an ingrained habit in an individual, of the non-rational elements of the soul subverting the rational capacities. Action is usually guided in a range of ways by reason. So akrasia is interesting because it involves a departure from a norm.

Why We Make Plans, But Don’t Take Action
One explanation for why akrasia rules our lives and procrastination pulls us in has to do with a behavioural economics term called “time inconsistency.” Time inconsistency refers to the tendency of the human brain to value immediate rewards more highly than future rewards.

When we make plans for ourself — like setting a goal to lose weight or write a book or learn a language — we are actually making plans for our future self. We are envisioning what we want our life to be like in the future and when we think about the future it is easy for our brain to see the value in taking actions with long-term benefits.

When the time comes to make a decision, however, we are no longer making a choice for our future self. Now we are in the moment and our brain is thinking about the present self. And researchers have discovered that the present self really likes instant gratification, not long-term payoff. This is one reason why we might go to bed feeling motivated to make a change in our life, but when we wake up, we find ourselves falling into old patterns. Our brain values long-term benefits when they are in the future, but it values immediate gratification when it comes to the present moment. This is one reason why the ability to delay gratification is such a great predictor of success in life. Understanding how to resist the pull of instant gratification—at least occasionally, if not consistently—can help you bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

A Framework to Beat Procrastination

Strategy 1: Design your future actions.

When Victor Hugo locked his clothes away so he could focus on writing, he was creating what psychologists refer to as a “commitment device.” A commitment device is a choice we make in the present that controls our actions in the future. It is a way to lock in future behavior, bind us to good habits, and restrict us from bad ones.

There are many ways to create a commitment device. We can:

The circumstances differ, but the message is the same: commitment devices can help us design our future actions. The goal is to find ways to automate our behaviour beforehand rather than relying on willpower in the moment.

Strategy 2: Reduce the friction of starting.

The guilt and frustration of procrastinating is usually worse than the pain of doing the work. In the words of Eliezer Yudkowsky, “On a moment-to-moment basis, being in the middle of doing the work is usually less painful than being in the middle of procrastinating.”

So why do we still procrastinate? Because it is not being in the work that is hard, it’s starting the work. The friction that prevents us from acting is usually centred around starting the behaviour. Once we begin, it is often less painful to do the work. This is why it is often more important to build the habit of getting started when we are beginning a new behaviour than it is to worry about whether or not we are successful at the new habit.

We have to constantly reduce the size of our habits. We need to put all of the effort and energy into building a ritual and make it as easy as possible to get started. We need not worry about the results until the art of showing up is mastered.

Strategy 3: Utilize implementation intentions.

An implementation intention is when we state our intention to implement a particular behavior at a specific time in the future. For example, “I will exercise for at least 30 minutes on [DATE] in [PLACE] at [TIME].” There are hundreds of successful studies showing how implementation intentions positively impact everything from exercise habits to flu shots. It seems simple to say that scheduling things ahead of time can make a difference, but implementation intentions can make us 2x to 3x more likely to perform an action in the future.

Fighting Akrasia
Our brains prefer instant rewards to long-term payoffs. It is simply a consequence of how our minds work. Given this tendency, we often must resort to crazy strategies to get things done—like Victor Hugo locking up all of his clothes so he could write a book. But it is sometimes worth to spend time building these commitment devices if our goals are important to us.

Aristotle coined the term Enkrateia as the antonym of Akrasia. While akrasia refers to our tendency to fall victim to procrastination, Enkrateia means to be “in power over oneself.” Designing your future actions, reducing the friction of starting good behaviors, and using implementation intentions are simple steps that you can take to make it easier to live a life of Enkrateia rather than one of Akrasia.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

WHY DO WE DO WHAT WE DO?

How do we differentiate between needs and motives or motivations.? How not to be ruled by feelings, habits, impulses, and thoughts.?

Varieties of Motivation

One of the fundamental premises of the practice of Nonviolent Communication is that everything we do is an attempt to meet core human needs. Much can be said about what exactly counts as a need, and the difference between needs and the many strategies we employ in our attempts to meet them. There is no claim within this practice that we are all the same; only that we share the same core needs, and they serve as the only reason for us to do anything.

If everything is motivated by one or more human needs, then why are we even talking about varieties of motivations? It’s because what varies is the degree of awareness we bring to the relationship between our needs and our actions. Our various cultures don’t generally cultivate in us the practice of knowing what we want.

On the contrary, much of socialization is focused on questioning what we want and telling us any number of reasons for acting other than because we want something. This is a tragedy of enormous proportions, because what then happens is that what we want goes underground. We continue to act based on our needs without knowing what they are, and therefore with far less choice than we might otherwise do.

When we are not aware of needs, we act based on our feelings, thoughts, habits, or impulse. In essence, each of these types of motivation can serve as a way to deny our responsibility for our choices. Although each of these is connected with our needs, unless we specifically engage with the underlying needs, we are likely to continue to act with less choice than we can cultivate and achieve through becoming need-literate.

Feelings and Thoughts

Unless we develop some kind of practice of conscious engagement with our feelings, most of us experience them and respond to them as internal demands for action or avoidance of action whether or not it’s what we want. Fear, shame, or guilt may lead us to avoidance, while anger or excitement leads us to move toward an action.

When we instantly translate feelings into actions, we sidestep any understanding of what we truly want. Because of the strength with which our feelings “command” action, we don’t have the opportunity to use feelings as what they are designed for, which is to be sources of information. Feelings serve a signal function. They arise from the constant stream of data about what is happening, and our ceaseless evaluation, under the radar of our awareness, as to whether or not our needs are met.

Listening to our feelings carefully allow us to trace them to the underlying needs that give rise to them. Choice lies in the capacity to understand, access, and embrace the underlying needs.

Thoughts mask our choice in a different way from how our feelings do. When we act based on what we should do, must do, or have to do, what we can’t do, what others will say, what is “rational and reasonable” or “appropriate,” we are linking our actions to something that is fundamentally external to us.

Feelings compel us from within, while thoughts compel us from without. The reason this is of such vital importance is that freedom is about choosing rather than being compelled. Choice is always internal: we may, and often will, take into consideration the effect of our actions and choices on others. Still, there is a world of difference between believing we have to do something and choosing it based on what’s important to us underneath the “have to.”

Indeed, our thoughts contain information about what is important to us, and in that way, they too are expressions of our needs. They usually lack the vibrancy of feelings, the sense of being alive, whether happily or not, in the experience of the feeling. They appear to be more “in control” and therefore give us a sense of being more at choice than when we act based on feelings.

The essence about connecting with ourselves at the level of needs rather than feelings or thoughts is that we then feel both the vibrancy of life that comes from being internally connected and the sense of clear choice that comes from knowing what’s important.

Habits

While feelings and thoughts give us the illusion of choice, habits are recognized by most of us as lacking choice. As a result, when people begin the practice of learning to connect with their needs, they easily fall into judging their habits (Self judgement).

Part of the difficulty with transforming habits into choice is that we often are not even aware of taking an action based on a habit. It’s only at other times, away from the action, that we may become aware that we acted based on a habit. Those are also the times we are most likely to judge ourselves for habitual behaviour. What makes it even more challenging is that finding the needs that give rise to the habit requires deep sleuthing/ reflections because the habits were formed in the past, when specific actions may have been powerful strategies to meet certain needs, and those very same strategies may no longer attend to those needs.

Habits, by their nature, are designed to relieve us from having to choose freshly each time, so it’s not likely to be easy to regain choice. This is where compassion for self is essential. It’s only when we have sufficient tenderness toward how hard changing habits can be that we can create a different motivation for the process of change itself: instead of being motivated by “should” thinking, we can find the needs that lead us to want to engage with the habit.

Freedom and authenticity are often powerful motivators. Embracing all our needs in relation to our habits may shift the emotional quality of trying to make a change, for example, from urgency to calm resolve. This grounding can help us mourn any unmet needs that the habits lead to, envision other strategies to meet as many needs as we can, and develop clear requests of ourselves to support the desired change.

It is critical to reach full connection with the needs that lead us to choose the habitual behaviour. This connection is essential for making change that is grounded in self-compassion. Without this quality, we cannot have sufficient internal cooperation, and the attempt to change is likely to be a self-demand that will recreate internal resistance to the change.

Impulse and Intuition

The final contender for being a primary motivator is impulse. Like habits, impulses are recognized as lacking choice and are therefore judged. Contrary to habits, though, impulses appear as “natural” and full of life. Sometimes, especially when we have been enslaved by habits and painful thought patterns, responding to our impulses and acting on them can seem like a welcome relief. They can give us the illusion of coming back to ourselves.

Clearly, impulses are completely spontaneous, and yet they may not necessarily be related to what we truly want. Our impulses can arise for so many reasons, and by themselves, we have no clear way to assess their capacity to realise needs.

Intuition seems to come from a different internal place, and doesn’t have the force of an impulse. An impulse, like a feeling, has a quality of propelling us to action. Intuition’s voice is soft and requires careful attention to discern what is being said. Some of us honor and cherish our intuition, recognizing it as a source of wisdom, directing access to what we want without the painstaking effort of discerning what our needs are.

**Source Credits: a) The book- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman . . . . . . . . . . b) The book- Nudge by -Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein . . . . . . . . . . . .c) The book- Predictably Irrational-by Dan Ariely . . . . . . . . . d) The book- Atomic Habitsby James Clear

Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION TODAY: BEHAVIOURS THAT HELP IDENTIFY

“I need to figure out how to motivate my employees.” When was the last time we thought that to ourselves? It could have been the other week when we noticed one of the direct reports dragging his/her feet on a project that’s critical to the company. Or, perhaps it was the other month when we felt frustrated that the team was not being proactive about addressing customer issues. We hear this sentiment of “how to motivate employees” frequently from managers we work with. We, as leaders, are not the only ones thinking this. Employees themselves admit that they do not feel as motivated at work as they would like.According to research, only 2 in 10 employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.

However, this question of, “How to motivate my employees as a manager?” is a misguided one. It implies that motivation is something we give another person. That is patently false. Motivation is not a thing we give to people — motivation is a thing people already have.

Employees inherently have energy, ideas, gifts, and talents that are worth being shared with the world. We, as leaders, simply need to get out of their way and create a space for that energy, ideas, gifts, and talents to thrive. The question we should ask ourselves is not, “How can I motivate my team?” but rather, “How can I create an environment for my team members to motivate themselves?”

Here are some things we can do as leaders to create the conditions for employees to motivate themselves and doesn’t undermine intrinsic employee motivation that they already have.

1. Immerse yourself in discovery.

We cannot enable another person’s motivation to flourish if we don’t know what motivates them, to begin with. As a result, a key part of effectively creating the conditions for strong employee motivation in our team is to figure out what motivates them?

Hopefully, we have got a sense of this when we were hiring them — as the interview process is very much about understanding what drives a person. However, if it still remains fuzzy, here are some questions we will want to ask during our next one-on-one meeting to figure out, at their core, what the team member is motivated by:

It is also a good idea to share these questions ahead of time, thus giving them time to think about the questions. We can say something like, “I’d love to discuss broader, deeper life questions during our next one-on-one,” and can also share an agenda ahead of time. We may continue to ask these questions as we work with this person over time. Discovery of motivation is not a one-time, one-off occurrence — it is an ongoing, consistent practice.

• Personalize everything where feasible.

Motivation is personal. What motivates one person might not motivate someone else. As a result, it is important to have nuance in the conditions we create for motivation to grow — we need to individualize those conditions. This means specifically aligning projects, goals, and incentives with what the other person is motivated by, and no one else.

This seems intuitive, yet we often unintentionally (or completely unknowingly) project our own preferences and proclivities onto another person. For example, because we find detail-oriented work very easy, we might assume the other person does as well, and we proceed to hand off a very data-focused, detail-oriented project to them.

Then, we notice that they are not motivated on the project and seem to be struggling, we wonder, “Hmm why aren’t they really stepping into it?” When we consider the individual nature of motivation, the answer becomes obvious: It was a mismatch of aligning the project to what motivates that person the most. However, sometimes, there are projects that must get done and goals that have to get met — and we cannot customize or individualize them.

• Create flexibility/ choice.

While we cannot always individualize and perfectly match someone’s project and goals with what they are most motivated by, we can create positive conditions for motivation by enabling choice in what people can do. In Edward Deci’s seminal book on human motivation theory, Why We Do What We Do, he describes how “meaningful choice engenders willingness” and results in a higher quality of decisions, and greater motivation and commitment to the task.

For example, while someone may not be able to choose their project, we can give them a choice in how they want to approach the project. Or in another situation, instead of assigning someone a set of goals, we can invite them to participate in the formation of those goals and enable them to choose it. Studies have shown that when people can actively choose their own goals, they are more likely to follow through on them.

• Discontinue surveillance.

What damages the conditions for motivation the most? Surveillance has been revealed in studies to negatively impact intrinsic motivation. Anytime we are peeking over someone’s shoulder, making a mental note of what time they log on or log off, or when they enter the office — it is not helping. Additionally, consider how deadlines and imposed goals undermine intrinsic motivation and negatively affect performance. Are we arbitrarily setting targets to create an artificial sense of “urgency” or “accountability”? Or are we trying to create a supportive environment that is truly helpful for a person getting to where they need to be?

• Acknowledge constraints and feelings.

Sometimes we cannot create a good environment for motivation. The company is tight on resources, or there is a toxic person who is dragging the team down, but we don’t have the authority to let that person go. When you know that prime conditions for strong motivation are not there, recognize that. Share with the team, “Here’s why I know that sucks” or “I so appreciate you bearing with this” and we demonstrate how much we understand their point of view. This sharing of the rationale behind why things are constraining or not feeling good helps to minimize the pressure that detracts from performance. Acknowledging the bad helps clear room for someone to try to do good.

• Clarify expectations.

On occasion, our team does not seem motivated because their behaviour doesn’t match up with our own conception of what “highly motivated” looks like in our heads. In short, we as leaders have not made clear what the real output of strong motivation looks like in our team. Does it mean that people are moving faster? Does it mean a higher quality of work? Once we have determined what the product of “stronger motivation” looks like, then consider: How well have we communicated this to the team? Do they know and are they aware that is the output and product they should be creating?

As a leader, when we are trying to figure out how to motivate employees, what we are truly trying to do is create a context in which they can act. We are creating an environment for the team to motivate themselves.

**Source Credits:-

The Book- Why We Do What We Do by Edward Deci 

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

SELF MANAGED TEAMS: KEY SKILLS TO FOSTER

The best team members you’ve ever worked with likely had one thing in common:  Strong self-management skills. As a manager, we don’t want to be pulled into double-checking every detail of a project or answering minute questions incessantly. After all, we have our own responsibilities to focus on. The best employees are the ones who manage themselves.

How do we optimize for this?When hiring and training a team, we will need to pay attention to our potential team member’s self-management skills. Here are some self-management skills to look out for and continually hone within the team:

01: Do they know what to work on first?

One of the most important self-management skills a team member can enact is how they manage their time. In particular, this means they internalize priorities well, and know precisely what to work on first. Our team can only make strong progress if everyone is each working on what is most important for the team, in any given moment. An employee with strong self-management skills can discern which activities should happen “now” or “later.” They can decide that one task can be afforded to be done quickly, while another task requires more significant attention. We need to keep in mind, as a manager, it’s our responsibility to share information with the team about company vision and progress so that they have a frame for what to work on first. Otherwise, we leave even the person with the strongest self-management skills out to dry.

02:  Can they give an answer when there is no answer?

Sometimes, an employee is going to have to make the call. Perhaps we, as managers, are out on vacation or out of the office for part of the day. Or perhaps it’s a decision that an employee should be making, as it’s within their domain.  In most situations, that shouldn’t require the direct report to call us on the phone or seek our approval:  They should be able to come up with an answer, even when there is no answer. Effective self-management skills call for confident decision-making. The team should become comfortable with our company’s mission, vision, and values and know how to respond to situations accordingly. 

In the book, The Effective Executive, by Peter Drucker, decision-making is frequently discussed as an important tenet in self-management. And specifically, the ability to include a variety of opinions in making sound decisions. Drucker in fact recommends to not start with fact – start with opinions. Once we lay out opinions, we can then work backwards to figure out what all the potential courses of action could be, before then settling on the best decision.

This ability to think decisions through on their own, from all angles, should be something to seek out in our team members – or teach them 

03:  How do they react under pressure?

An employee can only prioritize tasks and make good decisions if they’re able to manage their own stress, to begin with. Someone who has a propensity for angry outbursts – or perhaps worse, doesn’t speak up when they’re overwhelmed – will only hurt the rest of the team disproportionately. Ideally, we want to hire someone who is self-aware enough to understand how stress affects them. Stress affects all of us – none of us are immune to it. And it all affects us differently, to varying degrees.

In the book, No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy,a concept is espoused to stop feeling bad about feeling bad. Don’t blame ourselves for being stressed out and/or not being happy all the time. They write: “A better version of the familiar adage “Grin and bear it” may be “Sometimes you have to bear it, but you shouldn’t force yourself to grin.”

So yes, people are going to have to deal with stress at work but seeking out team members who understand how to pause, reflect, and calibrate their own reaction in a stressful situation is imperative. Figure out how theteam members should be handling stress – and lend a helping hand.

04:  How proactive and thorough are they about solving problems?

Whether problems are technical in nature or interpersonal, an employee with strong self-management skills takes it upon themselves to solve them. At the end of the day, us as managers should not be the ones solving problems – we should simply be creating an environment for the team to solve problems on their own. As we interview, hire, onboard, and train the team, we will want to make sure our team member is both proactive and thorough in solving problems. Here are some questions to ask ourselves as a manager – or to pose to our employees – around how to ensure they’re able to solve problems well:

In short, problem-solving is important both to individuals and organizations because it enables us to exert control over our environment. We want the team member to have this ability to exert control over their ownenvironment.

Effective time management and prioritization, confident decision-making, graceful stress management, and strong problem solving are the biggest self-management skills we can be looking for when building our team. Let the people know that these skills are valued and part of why we hired them. It makes a world of difference for the individuals we hire to know these skills are valued by us as a leader, and it will drive them to maintain their self-management skills and keep them sharp. 

Suggested Tool- Team Chartering:

It’s the practice of designing and building the team together. And even if its a team who has worked together for a long time, taking the time to go back and work through these steps helps. A team charter is an alignment tool. It’s an opportunity to identify agreements, expectations, and make commitments for how you’re going to work together. It brings clarity and purpose and promotes autonomy. It’s common that teams go to work but forget exactly what they are working towards, so this is a great way for any team to articulate how they are going to serve each other and the organization.

Purpose: Team chartering always starts with Purpose so that our entire team becomes aligned with what we are here to do. The purpose is the end result. Think of it this way: once we have accomplished what we are here to do as a team, how will the world be any different? Our purpose as a team then will nest up into the purpose of the organization at large.

Mission: The mission is different than Purpose. The purpose is the ‘why’, our mission is the ‘how.’ How our team is actually going to achieve that purpose. It’s the shorter-term objectives and the results we want to achieve together.

Values: In addition to the purpose and mission, the team charter will also hold our values. And, again, like your Purpose, these values will nest up into the overarching values of the company. A great way to set team values is to have the entire team write down their personal values and bring those to a collaboration session.

Put them all up on a wall and then the team can filter through those and decide which ones make the most sense or are relevant to the mission and purpose they are looking to accomplish. Try to narrow it down to no more than ten. And when things get hard, bring the team back to these values, the mission, and the purpose.

Communication & Workspace: Another part of designing how the team will work together is specifying communication and workspace preferences. This is how the team will share information and communicate. Adaptive, high-performing teams work out in the open so that information is accessible to their teams at all times. So when we are identifying the communication and workspace pieces of our charter, we will want have the discussion of both behaviours and tools. The team will want to decide which tools are available to the company so that we can work out in the open. But its important to remember that it is less about which tools we are going to use and more about how they allow us to accomplish our mission and purpose.

Meeting/Operating Cadence: With team chartering, we will also want to work out the team’s general operating rhythm. How will e organize the work and move it forward? How are we going to meet and for what purpose? Maybe we will have a live stand-up every day/ once in three days to remove roadblocks that are coming up. Maybe we have 60-minute coordination meetings on Mondays to organize and align the work. Maybe we have Retrospective meetings on Fridays. Meetings are a big one because it’s where we can waste most of our life if the meetings are not purposeful. So we want to be thoughtful about the purpose the meetings serve. There’s a ton of opportunity to increase performance — and morale — simply by being clear about the meetings we need as a team in order to do our work. Use retrospective meetings to continuously work on self-awareness, trust, and vulnerability with each other, discussing what we have learned and what we can do better as individuals and together.

Guardrails and Norms: The final piece to the team charter is setting guardrails and norms where we are identifying anything that may getting in the way of accomplishing our mission and purpose. For example, if the team burns out, they can’t do anything, so maybe we have a norm that we keep an eye on each other’s health, or we decide we will take mental health days once a month. Guardrails may be things like how much we can spend on travel or what the budget looks like in general. Important things to name and talk about as a team. Guardrails and norms are also some of the most dynamic parts of our team charter. When the team works through conflict, identify whether we need to adjust the guardrails and norms so that the team continue to be as autonomous and harmonious as possible.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

THE VALUES AND BELIEFS CHAIN

We are a nation of cricket lovers. The feature that we hit upon straightaway when visiting a cricket stadium for the first time is the grass. Pruned to perfection, it exhibits stripes, diamonds, a checkerboard, or even arches.

Over the years I have gathered many theories about how they’re created: the grass is colored, has different lengths, and so on., but the real reason is a lot naiver. It’s the direction of the blades that tints the grass in various shades. When the sun hits an upright blade, its whole frame reflects the light – rendering it brighter than a blade that points directly towards the sun. Most professionals create the patterns by mowing in different directions. But the astute among them have another trick up their sleeve: they use a simple roller behind their mower to direct the blades with even more force.

And the same way the mowing and rolling directs the grass, our values and beliefs direct our behavior as humans.

What influences our behavior?

On the surface, most of our human behaviors don’t seem rational. But if you follow these impulses down to their roots, everything starts to make sense.

It’s called the Value-Behavior Chain. Our Values influence our beliefs, which determine our attitudes that guide our behavior. That means if a business wants to influence its customers behavior, it must change their attitudes, beliefs or values first.

Values

Values are a measure of worth we attach to something. We can value something very little– meaning basically don’t care. Or we can value someone a lot– going out of our way to do something for that person. Going even further, values are often guide us between what’s good and what’s bad. Universal values are for example happiness, love, freedom, respect, equality and justice. But they can also be as specific as this:

• One of my values is altruism: the fortunate should share their wealth with the less fortunate.

Beliefs

A belief is a feeling that something is true. As a whole, our beliefs represent all the bits of information we collect about people, events and things in life. They don’t necessarily have to be rational or based on facts. They can even be false beliefs and we still cling on to them. They grow stronger the longer we keep them and the more we keep repeating them to ourselves or others. Following our example chain, this could be a belief that’s based on the value above:

• I believe a good company donates some of their profits to charitable causes.

Attitudes

Our attitudes are based on our values (good and bad) and our beliefs (what we know). And they express our relationship towards the world around us. Based on what we value and believe, we like something or dislike it. Or we are ambivalent. An example attitude in our chain might be:

• I like TATA cars because they help people in need. They donated a huge sum of money to The Prime Ministers Relief fund.

Behavior

Our behavior is simply what we do and say–our words and actions. Based on the attitude above, the chain would be concluded through the following behavior:

• Buying TATA Cars.

How are they associated?

Your attitudes are like buoys. They are attached to a chain (your beliefs). And the chain is anchored to the ground (your values). Like the ground, your values will rarely change. Depending on the tide–the circumstances in your life-the buoy will go up and down.

Meaning your attitudes will adapt to what’s happening to you. But they will always depend on your beliefs, as these can be stretched only so far before they break. The only missing piece in the picture is our behavior. Not hard to guess, they are the ships which are guided by the buoys.

As soon as you dive below the surface, people are a lot more rational than they often seem. In fact, their behavior becomes quite clear when you take their motives into account:

• their values: what they find good and not good
• their beliefs: what they know
• Their attitudes: how the relate to their surroundings

And once you know their motives, getting them along becomes as easy as creating a perfectly shaped checkerboard on a cricket field.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa