Three Keys to Making Behavior Changes Stick

Done right, investing in sustainable learning enables workers to close the knowing vs. doing gap. For sustainment to work, however, a real shift in thinking is required.

For years, “main event” components of learning — such as virtual or face-to-face programs or workshops that introduce new concepts, skills, tools and behaviors — have dominated learning interventions. This approach has neglected the importance of ongoing sustainment and reinforcement of the new knowledge and behaviors. We call the neglectful approach “spray and pray.”

Our experience shows that for sustainment plans to be successful, they need to fit with the learning environment, the nature of the work, and the work styles and capabilities of the target audience. A successful approach includes the following three actions.

1. Assess the learning environment. Leaders should think about the environment for learning whenever they embark on an initiative that requires changing behaviors in the workforce. A significant range of conditions exist in organizations that can impact choices about how to support and improve adoption and mastery of new knowledge, skills and tools. A comprehensive assessment will identify what learning practices, processes and tools currently exist in the workplace and then evaluate them at three levels: organizational, work group and individual.

2. Identify ownership levels. In the spray-and-pray world of performance improvement initiatives, organizations fail to define who is expected to drive the behavior change and application of new skills and tools. Rather, it’s assumed that everybody has a role, with the manager population implicitly central in supporting individual learners back on the job. But in the case of everybody owning it, nobody owns it.

In the “sustain to attain” approach, the learning environment assessment defines the primary- and secondary-level ownership of sustainment activities. They fall into three categories:

• Organization drives: The learning and development organization invests in centrally driven reinforcement activities and events.