Adam Fridman is currating responses to this question: What is the single biggest obstacle to creating sustainable behavior change?
Here is my response:
I was an academic advisor in college at CU Boulder in the late 80’s even before the word #diversity was a thing. We had several Native American Indian students who were so brilliant; however, these students were not succeeding in a traditional way. Our task was to look deeper to identify some root causes to the difference between aptitude and performance. Of several factors, the one i found most compelling was the internal struggle of belonging to their heritage vs belonging to the world. This lesson has been deeply woven into my appreciation for the internal and cultural struggles individual face as they have an internal drive to succeed and at the same time have an even deeper more primal need to belong. I believe the biggest inhibitor to sustainable behavioral change within a company culture is an individuals sense of belonging. Does he/she belong to the status quo — where there are individual power struggles that are real or does he/she belong to an emerging culture. That is why modeling from the top -> down is so vital. People’s need to belong is more primal than their need to do the right thing. As a leader — ensure that it is psychologically safe for people to belong to an emerging vision of the company or task.
Jennifer Sertl, Founder Agility3r
585.704.5202
You can check out Adam’s work here → 100 Leaders Were Asked
