I have been re-reading the book “Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work,” by David Rock. One of his concepts jumped out at me, and I wanted to share it with you.

Brain science tells us that, when we focus on a behavior we wish to change, we are actually cementing the neural pathway that was created when we began repeating that behavior in the first place.

Once a neural pathway is created in our brain, it will always be there. The challenge is not to remove that pathway – we can’t – but rather create a new neural pathway through our thinking and beliefs.

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you are a newly minted manager, managing two entry-level employees in the marketing department of your company.

You’ve never managed people before, and you haven’t been given any training to do so. You feel as though you have been thrown into the deep end, but you really want to succeed.

One area you are struggling with is one of your employees consistently coming to work 30 minutes late – we’ll call her Jane.

Because all of this is new to you, you sit Jane down and ask her why she is late every morning. She tells you she is a new mom and says she finds it hard to leave her son at daycare every morning.

Because this is unacceptable behavior, you tell Jane she has to come to work on time. End of conversation.

How does Jane receive this feedback? She is likely frustrated, anxious, and begins fixating on how late she is every morning. But the behavior doesn’t change. The only change has been additional stress on Jane because now she’s afraid you’re going to fire her.

Rewind: Let’s have the conversation with Jane again. You ask her why she is late every morning. She tells you she is a new mom and says she finds it hard to leave her son at daycare every morning.

You then ask her why she finds it so hard to leave her son every morning. She says it’s because he starts crying, which makes her cry, and she can’t bear to hand him off to the daycare worker. She admits that she has even started going to the daycare later and later because she knows what is coming.

You let Jane know you can see how hard this would be. You then ask Jane what are three possible solutions to this problem – solutions that would get her to work on time AND help with the daycare handoff.

Jane at first says she doesn’t know what to do, but you gently persist to help Jane solve her problem – and you resist the urge to solve it for her.

Jane finally comes up with three possible solutions: One, her husband could drop the baby off and see if that goes more smoothly; two, she could get up earlier so she could spend more time at the daycare with her baby and still get to work on time; three, she could ask for ideas from her online mom group.

You give Jane some paper so she can write her options out. Then you ask her how she wants to proceed with these three options. Jane says she will ask her husband to drop the baby off for one week, and during that time she will reach out to her online group. After one week, she and her husband will evaluate how him dropping the baby off is working and possibly she will start getting up 30 minutes earlier every morning for the next week.

You and Jane then agree that the goal is for Jane to consistently get to work on time because a) Jane is a valued member of your small team, and b) Jane will be a better employee and mom with less stressful mornings. 

Now Jane feels a measure of relief because she has possible solutions to her problem, and a plan to try those solutions out. She also feels valued to you – like you want to help her and not punish her. She wants to solve this problem for you as much as for her.

How might this look with one of your own behaviors?

Let’s say you tend not to speak up during meetings. You have thoughts and ideas, but in the moment you tell yourself your ideas aren’t good enough to share and people will think you’re dumb if you offer those ideas up.

This has become a habit for you, to the point where the dialogue in your head during meetings is “people don’t want to hear what I have to say.”

You decide to focus on the behavior you do want – very specifically. You decide you will begin contributing one thing during each meeting – and you will do it during the first half of the meeting rather than waiting until everyone is ready to get out of there.

If you know what will be discussed in the meeting, you can think about what contribution you might want to make. If you don’t know what will be discussed, you decide to stay present in the room, listen intently to what others are saying, and look for an opportunity to make your contribution.

After a month of focusing on the behavior of making one contribution each meeting, you next focus on specific ways you can make your contribution more confidently and competently. Perhaps you focus on how to modulate your voice, specific power words you want to use (and not use), or how to make eye contact while you are speaking.

I encourage you to think of a behavior you would like to change in yourself and how, specifically, you can make that change. If you supervise people, use this tool to help employees find their own solutions to behaviors they need to change. This strategy also works when employees want to learn a new behavior, such as improving a specific aspect of their communication skills or learning how to be a better presenter. 

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