BASIC

Understand Behavior

There are two Bs in the BASIC strategy. The first B is to understand behavior. In other words, to understand better what makes people act the way they do.

Understand behavior key concepts:

• Abandon any hope of ongoing control over how others act.

• People make conscious decisions about their behavior.

• The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

• What gets rewarded is what gets done.

• Model the behavior you desire.

• The 80/10/10 rule.

Abandon Any Hope of Ongoing Control over How Others Act

I submit that those of you with children may have already abandoned any such hope, at least in the short run. Yes, you can make people do things your way in the short run while you are around. However, it is much more productive in the long run if you get others to do what you want because they want the same things. Think of the difference between desire and compliance. In other words, want to is much better and longer lasting than have to. We must teach others to make the best decisions on their own. Here is a shocking thought: When your children make the most important decisions of their lives, chances are you will not be there! I cannot think of a more powerful way to emphasize how important it is for setting the right tone so that others want to do the right thing. You cannot rely on being there and to make them do so.

The only person you have much hope of changing in the long run is yourself. So consider how difficult it is to change yourself, and you will have an idea of the difficulty in changing others. As Leo Tolstoy, a Russian writer, philosopher, and social activist, said, "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

Try this exercise on your own. Think of the best and most long-term mature relationship you currently have. Is there at least one thing about that person that you would like to change and most probably have tried to change? Ask yourself if you have been able to change that one thing. Chances are you have not. As stated in the next key point, people make conscious decisions about their behavior, not just because we want them to do so. So don't waste a lot of time trying to change or control another person. It is better to understand them and work within that parameter than to expend lots of energy trying to get them to change solely because you want them to do so. The major exception to this rule is for young, developing children. But beware that you don't continue this exception beyond its expiration date. Remember, people most often do things for their reasons, not yours.

People Make Conscious Decisions about Their Behavior

Putting aside for the moment the tendency to sometimes react without thinking, people who think make conscious decisions about their behavior—unless they are mentally ill! So you may be thinking, "Then some of the people I deal with must be mentally ill!" Actually, most people are wired only to do things that they believe are right or just. Others may find certain behaviors hard to rationalize, but it is very difficult for the mentally well person to behave in a way he or she cannot rationalize as correct. Most people's behavior is reasonable to them. It may not make sense to others, but it makes sense to that person, in that situation, at that particular point in time. The behavior meets some need of theirs. Different people look at different things from their own perspectives. Behaviors like the Los Angeles riots, looting, school shootings, terrorist acts, etc., may seem illogical to most of us, but most of the participants in such events rationalize their behavior as just and right in their own minds. Behavior mostly results from mind-sets within the person. One may be influenced by outside factors, but the driving force usually comes from within a person.

So how do people make decisions about their behavior? A key point here is that values influence behavior and that a value is something for which one is willing to make a sacrifice. If you want to know if someone values something, determine what that individual will sacrifice for it. In my case, I valued getting my bachelor's degree (with a loving and supporting push from my wife, Janis) so much that I was willing to work a full-time day job at General American Life and go to St. Louis University at night to complete my degree. While this choice caused many long days, and I missed many evening events, the bachelor's degree was highly valued. To better understand people, try to understand their values.

I particularly like the work done on values by Dr. Morris Massey. During the 1960s and '70s, Dr. Massey was an associate dean and professor of marketing at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His work at that time focused on values, generations, and what he called significant emotional events (SEEs).

Dr. Massey based a lot of his work on the idea that What You Are Is Where You Were When. In other words, the time you were born and raised affects your values. When I began my professional career at General American Life in 1967, there was an elderly lady (Mary Mildred Merritt) nearing retirement working alongside me in the Accounting Department. She had grown up during the Great Depression era and thus was very frugal. The other group of "young whippersnappers" (as she described us) and I, having grown up in a more prosperous period, were not so frugal. This difference in values was clearly illustrated when one of our new and young associates was being disciplined and, as a penalty, was suspended for two days without pay. To Mary Mildred, two days off without pay was an unthinkable disaster. Whereas the younger associate not only did not consider it a disaster but asked if he could have a Friday and Monday as the days of suspension so he could have a long weekend! A different set of values caused a totally different viewpoint of the discipline.

Dr. Massey identified three major periods during which values are developed. These were the imprint period (age zero to seven), the modeling period (age eight to thirteen), and the socialization period (between thirteen and twenty-one). He also discussed how significant emotional events (SEEs) can cause our values to change as we go through life. Significant emotional events might include the following: getting married or divorced, joining the armed forces, having a child, having a grandchild, etc. For me personally, I remember when I used to scorn people showing pictures of their grandchildren. Now guess who is always showing pictures of his granddaughter? Having a grandchild is definitely a SEE.

Another important work that may help you better understand human behavior comes from the work of the Menninger Clinic. Dr. W. Walter Menninger studied what happens to people when they make a significant role change. Menninger was engaged to study the morale in the Peace Corps. President Kennedy and the leaders of the Peace Corps were concerned about "the level of depression in the Peace Corps." Menninger's study, however, indicated there was no depression in the Peace Corps. Rather, there was a high level of anger. This anger was based on the fact that 97 percent of the volunteers were not doing what they expected, and most were very disillusioned. There were even some reports that one group of Peace Corps volunteers was planning to overthrow the government of their host country, not exactly what the leaders of the Peace Corps had in mind.

The results of this study indicate that people going through significant role changes (or what Massey calls significant emotional events) follow predictable patterns called stations. Many different scholars and consultants have looked at this study and come up with similar conclusions, but sometimes with different names. I favor the following interpretation:

• Arrival—the initial stage of a role change. This is the honeymoon period. It is the beginning, a time of high positive expectations. If not full of positive expectations, why would the change be made?

• Engagement—this is when recognition of reality hits. Things are almost never as expected, and morale plunges often result. The degree of the slide depends largely on how big the gap is between what was expected and what is the actual reality.

• Acceptance—a key time when one makes a decision whether to apply positive energy and accept the responsibility for the role change and all that comes along with it or to abandon the role change. Menninger advises that abandoning the role change can contaminate future changes.

• Reentry—depending on the choices made at the acceptance stage, the individual is either ready or not ready for the next role change.

While this study was primarily based on the Peace Corps, I believe it is relevant to today's business and personal relationships. The key point is to recognize when people in your life are going through these stages and to help them through the difficult but predictable stages of the morale curve.

One other key point: don't predict the curve, as in, "I know you are happy now about this change, but in three months I expect you will be in the dumps." Rather, it is better to help people recognize the curve once they are in it and then help them through it.

If handled well, the role change can launch the individual to a new level of effectiveness. If the role change is handled poorly, as noted above, it may reduce the level of effectiveness and possibly contaminate future role changes.

Using BASIC Skills for Better Behavior Choices

So if we can't have ongoing control over how others act, and people who are responding rather than reacting make conscious decisions about their behavior based on their values and life stages, what can we do? I suggest we need to use our BASIC skills to better understand them and to help them make the best choices. Following are some practical ideas on how to accomplish this.

The Only Way to Get the Best of an Argument Is to Avoid It

In the year 2001, I was asked by a friend and business associate to attend the twelve-week Dale Carnegie Course. My friend John Brown owned the Dale Carnegie franchise in Kansas City and asked me to attend the course to give him feedback from a participant's viewpoint. At the time, my friend and business partner Bob Dinkins and I had just sold our company (Human Dynamics) to an Irish firm and were adjusting to being employees versus owners. Although I really couldn't see a lot of potential benefit in taking the Dale Carnegie Course, I agreed to do it as a favor to John. Boy, was I wrong about the value of this course. It was great, life changing, and something I still often recommend to others. I saw much personal growth in myself and in the others in my class. So much so that I volunteered to be a graduate assistant for the next class.

I found much of what I had discovered in my work with the national seminar company had been originally published by Dale Carnegie in the 1930s and 1940s. Perhaps the most profound single lesson I learned during the Dale Carnegie experience was the quote that leads this section.

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

As I pondered this gem of wisdom, I thought back to all the arguments/disagreements I had with my wife, my children, my work associates and asked myself how many times I had won the argument. You can probably guess the answer—close to zero, if not absolutely zero! It dawned on me that we can seldom win an argument because arguments and disagreements are seldom about the truth.

Rather, arguments are about each person's perception of the truth. And as most of us know, our perceptions are our reality. So the lesson here is to avoid arguing with the people in your life. Agree to disagree and move forward on that with which you can agree. Arguing only causes the emotional defenses to be raised and almost always stops positive discussion/communication. So no matter what, try not to argue with the important people in your life.

Although surely not totally relevant to all situations, consider the old saying, "Never wrestle with a pig because you both get dirty and only the pig likes it." Or if you prefer a more direct approach, from Steve Gilliland's book Hits of Humor, "Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience."

What Gets Rewarded Is What Gets Done

So if we can't have ongoing control over how others act and people make conscious decisions about their behavior and the only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it, what must we do or understand to keep and improve the relationships with the key people in our lives?

The first step is to better understand what motivates others. Given an appropriate level of personal caring, civilized behavior, and reasonably fair compensation in the workplace (or attention in personal settings), motivation is something that comes from within an individual. Abraham Maslow's theory is that we are wanting animals and that our behavior is determined by unsatisfied needs that we want to satisfy. Thus, satisfied needs do not normally motivate us.

We don't really motivate people to do things; rather, we create conditions that cause them to want to do what we want them to do. The environment will either encourage the desired behavior or discourage it. I have always liked the flower analogy when thinking about motivation. What is the best way to make a flower grow? There is clearly one way not to make a flower grow—reaching down and pulling it up. Rather, it is much better to influence the flower's environment by putting fertilizer on it (not too much!), tilling the soil, adding water, keeping it away from other environmental negatives, getting it into the sunlight, etc.

People, like flowers, also benefit more from nourishing, positive environments and periodic positive attention than they do from being pulled. It is best to create an environment in which the other person can grow. Motivation is not something one does to other people; rather, it is providing an environment in which people grow themselves.

We must remove barriers and create a climate that allows people to grow. An important element of this process is to treat people the way you want them to become. You can't treat your kids like kids all the time and expect them one day to magically wake up as adults. You need to be shaping them for adulthood during the process.

The title concept of this section comes from a book entitled The Greatest Management Principle in the World by Dr. Michael LeBoeuf. See his website for more detailed information at http://www.michaelleboeuf.com/.

Dr. LeBoeuf believed the greatest management principle in the world is "the things that get rewarded get done"—or stated another way, the behavior you reward is the behavior you get. Dr. LeBoeuf's book, although written many years ago, includes many specific examples of how this reward concept works in the real world. Dr. LeBoeuf illustrates this concept with the fisherman, frog, and snake parable that follows.

As Dr. LeBoeuf explains, the parable contains two important lessons: First, you get more of the behavior that you reward. You don't get what you hope for, ask for, wish for, or beg for. You get what you reward. Come what may, all living beings are going to act in their own best self-interest, and it's unrealistic to expect them to do otherwise.

And second, in trying to do the right thing, it's oh so easy to fall into the trap of inadvertently rewarding the wrong behavior and getting the wrong results.

By and large, people behave the way the reward system teaches them to behave. And it's true for the executive, the salesperson, the janitor, your partner, your child, or anyone else.

Dr. LeBoeuf notes, you would think that such a simple, obvious principle would be well adhered to in most organizations. Guess again! The single greatest obstacle to effective performance in most organizations is the giant mismatch between the behavior needed and the behavior rewarded. Organizations of all kinds fall into the trap of hoping for A, rewarding B, and wondering why they get B.