C.A.N.N.O.N Associates

Changing me – changing you: exploring behaviour change

Jim Cannon, PhD, FCIPD, FCMIJim Cannon, PhD, FCIPD, FCMI

2828thth July 2008 July 2008

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How do we reinvent ourselves?

• Who / what should change – me, you, the situation?

• How do you challenge your paradigms?

• What are you learning today – what are you ignoring?

• Are you confronting your fears or colluding with them?

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So what do I want to change?- and change to?

• My attitudes?

• My skills?

• My behaviour?

• My mind map?

• My vision?– And what is it possible to change?

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Why is change difficult?

• Self awareness of what to change

• Will to change

• Competence to change

• Conscience – congruence with values

• Positives and negatives of change

• Vision of me and my future

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Self -Renewal‘Learning is a risky business, and we do not like failure. By middle age most of us

carry in our head a catalogue of things we have no intention of trying because we tried

them once and failed. If you want to keep on learning you must

keep on risking failure - all your life. It is as simple as that.’

John Gardner John Gardner

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The healthy cycle – which can get blocked

Action Final contact(inertia) (Hanging on)

Mobilisation Satisfaction(negative self-talk) (guilt)

Awareness Withdrawal(denial) (immobility)

Sensation (De- sensitised)

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Why do we find it difficult to change?

Identify a change in your life that you intended, but did not carry out

Discuss with your neighbour what prevented you

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Are you lost in the forest?

• Where is your time (thinking time) and attention focussed?– ‘What do you do? – do? – I live’

• What do I fear?– If I fail, what is my identity?– The tale of Grendels mother

• Why are you lost?– Connections with where you have come from and

where you are going.

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What do I do when I am lost in the forest?

• Develop wilderness skills– ‘Pay attention to the silence’– Determine your vocation and your avocation– Conversations with the universe of those who can speak into

my life – what are we not saying?

• ‘release the frameworks of the mind’– ‘Nothing comes more between me and my customers than

my MBA’ – D Whyte– ‘If you confirm 10,000 things in the world you learn nothing. If

10,000 things confirm you then this is enlightenment’ –Buddhist teaching

– ‘If you are argue for your constraints they become your limitations’ – Vaclav Havel

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Some tactics for personal change

• Change some easy things (what you read, your route to work, your desk position, newspaper, local bar)

• Find the levers of change in your life (fans and supportive critics, ‘the pebble in the shoe’, environment)

• The voyage of discovery - journey to serendipity. (Juvenilia)

• The signposted conversation (different modes of thinking)

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Modes of thinking

• Creative - Practical / factual

• Emotional - Rational

• Detail - Big picture

• Empathetic - Self-centred

• Problem focussed - Solution focussed

• Positive - Negative

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Cognitive Behavioural Therapeutic Strategies

The distinctive feature of cognitive behavioural approaches,is that they combine cognitive problem solving techniques of cognitive psychology with behavioural tasks sometime used in behavioural counselling.

Cognitive TechniquesCognitive Techniques

Reality TestingReality TestingDisputing

irrational beliefsDisputing

irrational beliefsSocratic

QuestioningSocratic

Questioning

Advantages and

disadvantages

Advantages and

disadvantages

Challenging- Automatic thoughts

- Underlying assumptions

Challenging- Automatic thoughts

- Underlying assumptionsUse of humourUse of humour

ReattributionReattribution

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Cognitive Behavioural Therapeutic Strategies

The distinctive feature of cognitive behavioural approaches,is that they combine cognitive problem solving techniques of cognitive psychology with behavioural tasks sometime used in behavioural counselling.

Behavioural TechniquesBehavioural Techniques

Monitoring negativeautomatic thoughts Monitoring negativeautomatic thoughts

Social skills trainingSocial skills trainingSelf instructional trainingSelf instructional training

BehaviouralexperimentsBehaviouralexperiments

Activity scheduling

Activity scheduling

Mastery and Pleasure ratings

Mastery and Pleasure ratings

RelaxationRelaxation

Modelling

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The role and techniques of the coach

• Root cause analysis (fishbone)• Insight questioning• Breaking the problem into learnable elements• Reframing• Pros and cons – force field analysis• Formative feedback• Consequence walk through• The behaviour lab

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Coaching for change

Help your neighbour to identify how they can overcome the blockage

identified earlier and come up with a plan for doing so

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So how do I change?

‘Learn to be honest with myself and those around me and the dynamic of the changed

relationship will change the situation’.

D Whyte

‘A change has come over me, and that change has come through you, through you alone’

H. Ibsen

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Looking for the positives in any change

• ‘I learnt something’

• ‘I won’t make the same mistake again’

• ‘I was more fortunate than some’

• ‘Today is the first day of the rest of my life – I can choose to let the past go’

• ‘I cannot change history, but I can steer a different path into the future’

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SARA

Acceptance

Rejection

Time

Emotion

Shock Anger

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A strategy for change

• Understand your vocation and avocation• Build continuous self awareness by

constructive and reinforcing feedback• Place your self in situations where your view

of the world will be challenged.• Eat the elephant in bite sized chunks• Commit yourself publicly• Reward yourself

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Thank you