|
SFHS Academy Brief
March
2010
|
Use
Stories to Change Employee
Behavior
Have you ever
noticed employees descending deep into a comatose state
or disengaged while you are training them? Below are some
tips to engage employees and help them retain what we
want them to learn.
It’s been 50
years since Arlington, VA – based National
Training Laboratories, a behavioral psychology center,
demonstrated that audiences only retain 5% of content
days after a lecture. Yet too many of
us still persist in believing that we can teach people
by talking at them – despite obvious clues to the
contrary, including yawns and distracted looks from
audience members.
Learning changes
the brain by creating new networks of neurons with a
lower threshold for activation, and the more we use
these new networks, the stronger they grow. But new
information must first get past the part of the mind
that zealously resists change. While the brain
is quick to counter any argument it doesn’t agree with,
having an experience or relating to another’s experience
sneaks right by that initial
barrier.
These
experiences – or stories – are how the brain makes sense
of the world, scientists now believe. Therefore,
stories become effective behavioral change tools for
managers.
Because stories are experiences rather than
arguments, the brain doesn’t summon up rebuttals. When we
encounter a story, we identify with it as if it’s our
own, trying out its points of view and the thoughts it
conveys.
Great leaders
tell stories about what people need to do to achieve
visions of the future; however, their stories are told
as much with their actions as with their words. Modeling the
behavior you want employees to emulate is also a story
for their brains to accept. Our response is
keyed by specialized neurons in the brain that mirror
the leader’s behavior and the thinking behind it. We become like
the leader.
But we will only embrace a leader’s story if we
believe it’s genuine and if it addresses what’s
important to us.
To be an
effective leader and teacher, you must live the story
you tell, and it must engage your aspirations and those
of your employees.
When you then model the behavior and the thought
process you want employees to adopt, their mirror
neurons will mimic the firing pattern of our brains, and
they will learn.
Source:
Charles Jacob, Author, Founder of Amherst Consulting
Group in Boston and managing
partner of One Eighty
Partners
|
| Quote of the day: “The first great gift we
can bestow on others is a good example.”
– Frederic
Morell
|
|
|
 |
St.
Francis Health Services
801
Nevada Ave. Suite 100 • Morris, MN 56267
Phone:
320-589-4903 • Fax: 320-589-1270
www.sfhs.org | Leah
Nelson | | |