How do you go about getting people to change their behaviours? The Mindful Business Charter (MBC) is all about change, encouraging the changes in behaviour that will reduce the unnecessary stress in the ways we work so as to create healthier and more effective ways of working.
On one level it feels like it ought to be easy to get people to change their behaviours for the better. Sometimes, of course, it is. But experience tells us it is often difficult, both to get the change happening and then to sustain that change. Too often we embark on a well meaning change programme and, after hitting our heads against a brick wall for months or years on end, we find that nothing much has happened, other than gaining a sore head and a deeper seated cynicism.
Understandably change is something that academics, governments, parents and commercial organisations have been studying for a long time and there are various different models and approaches out there. We have been working with the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London to understand and apply their COM-B model which we think is both robust and relatively simple to apply.
The model is widely used to identify what needs to change in order to reach a behavioural goal or desired outcome by uncovering the barriers and facilitators that affect behaviours. It will form a central part of our work going forward in terms of how we engage organisations with our work and then how we help those organisations to enable and embed meaningful and impactful change in the way their people work and interact, internally and with third party organisations.
In this series of five articles we will explain the basis of the COM-B model and, through the use of examples and analysis, apply it to the principles of MBC. We hope this approach will allow you to identify some behaviour changes you can make in your organisation and then embed them, as well as helping you better appreciate the work the MBC does.
Before we get into the detail, it is worth bearing in mind, of course, that behavioural change is just that — change. It could be about any one or more of four things:
The COM-B model can be used for any of these scenarios.
What is COM-B?
COM-B looks at how our capability, motivation and opportunities inform our behaviour in specific situations. Then, through moderating and adjusting each of these factors with a sequential approach we can achieve the change in behaviour we are aiming for.
At times, some of the steps may feel obvious or superficial. We’d encourage you to live with that and engage with those steps nonetheless, because each is a vital part of the process. Each step builds on the previous ones. Each situation will be different. A step that in one situation feels straightforward might in other situations be the key to unlocking a successful outcome — and therefore taking the time to understand that step is vital if you are to be able to apply the approach to a variety of situations.
The importance of specificity
Identifying the behavioural change you want to may seem to be the obvious starting point, but it may not be as straightforward as you think. We need first, to be able to clearly distinguish between our aims or purposes and the behaviours that achieve them.
One simple example is that of losing weight. This, in and of itself, is not a behavioural change —weight loss is the outcome of behavioural changes. We could develop the idea further and say that we will eat more healthily and exercise more. These would certainly influence our weight, but as they are still very unspecific and don’t actually provide us with any clear guidance on what our behaviours would be, change is unlikely to occur, or be long lasting. Being more specific will help, for example committing to eating fruit as opposed to biscuits if you are feeling peckish between meals, or going for a walk or run three mornings a week before sitting down at your desk.
In the context of the MBC, we know that our purpose is to create healthier and more effective ways of working by reducing unnecessary stress in the ways we work, but that doesn’t give you any specific behaviours to work on.
The Charter is based on four pillars which are then explored further in bullet points. Some of those bullet points, while describing general behaviours we want to encourage, lack clarity as to actually what is it that someone is going to do, for example:
To begin a behavioural change analysis we would need to refine that a little more in order to identify specific behaviours that we wanted to encourage/discourage.
Other bullet points are more specific, for example:
They tell us much more specifically what we need to try to do, without the need for further refinement.
As we move through the remaining articles, and understand the steps of the COM-B model, it is worth keeping in mind that being as precise as you can be will make the analysis much clearer and will also make it more likely the desired change will be made. After all, there isn’t one solution that will solve all behavioural change challenges — so the more specific we are, the more tailored and effective the recommendations will be.
In the coming weeks we will be publishing further articles that will help you utilise the COM-B model in your own organisation. These will include;
The COM-B model was developed and devised by Susan Michie, Maartje van Stralen, and Robert West in 2011 at University College London. We thank all at UCL who have worked on this behaviour change model, and especially those who have assisted us in learning about it, and discussing its implementation within the work the MBC does.
To find out more about the MBC and the work we do, visit our website or contact us directly — richard@mindfulbusinesscharter.com or charlotte@mindfulbusinesscharter.com
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