When corporate leaders talk about change, they usually have the desired result in mind: gains in performance, a better approach to customers, the solution to a formidable challenge. They know that if they are to achieve this result, people throughout the company need to change their behaviour and practices, and that can’t happen by simple decree. How, then, does it happen? In the last few years, insights from neuroscience have begun to answer that question. New behaviours can be put in place, but only by reframing attitudes that are so entrenched that they are almost literally embedded in the physical pathways of employees’ neurons. These beliefs have been reinforced over the years through everyday routines and hundreds of workplace conversations. They all have the same
underlying theme: “That’s the way we do things around here.”
This phrase (and others like it)
typically refers to the complex, subtle practices that become ingrained in an organization’s culture, to the point where they become part of its identity. Habitual thoughts and behaviours are not bad in themselves; indeed, they are often the basis for what a company does well. But when circumstances shift or the company becomes dysfunctional, those habits may need substantive change.
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