Pfaff & Associates

Understanding How People Change:

Implications for Training

Lawrence A. Pfaff, Ed.D.

The Components of Training

Employee development efforts are fairly consistent from one organization to another. Typically, development takes a training approach with classroom education as the central activity. Training can include one or more of the following:

Conceptual Material - Concepts are the starting point of understanding. They give people a common theoretical framework. Many books on management and leadership are primarily conceptual in nature. Unfortunately, concepts are frequently overemphasized, giving a theoretical "feel" to training (Conger, 1992).

Skill-Building Exercises - An effective employee must have practical skills. Most training includes skill-building exercises for participants. Typically, these are role-play exercises or simulations conducted during training.

Personal Awareness - Job performance is affected by personal values and attitudes. Personal awareness activities include sensitivity training, outdoor experiential education, and personal assessments such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

These approaches are all useful to the training effort. But organizations struggle with the fact that many participants will not improve with training. Managers often observe widely different results when two individuals with the same skill deficiency receive the same training. Why? What prompts one person to change while another does not? The answer may be found in some psychological research done in the fields of health promotion and disease control.

A New Model for Change

Traditionally, we have relied on an unsophisticated concept that implicitly defined change as the movement from unproductive or inappropriate behavior to productive or appropriate behavior. Change is seen as a dramatic shift from one stable state (inappropriate behavior, unproductive, unskilled) to another stable but more appropriate state (Prochaska, 1991).

What is wrong with this conceptualization? First, it leads us to expect people to change quickly. So we offer a one-day, one-time coaching skills training session and are disappointed with the results. Life-long behavior cannot be changed quickly.

Our traditional conceptualization leads us to expect change to be a dichotomous event. We think people should shift instantaneously from poor skills to good skills. This is analogous to expecting people to instantaneously shift from being shy and reserved to outgoing and gregarious.

Let's describe an alternative conceptualization of change developed by several researchers (Prochaska, DiClemente, & Norcross, 1992; Prochaska & DiClemente, 1992; Prochaska, 1991; McConnaughy, Prochaska, DiClemente, & Velicer, 1989). This model more accurately describes how people change. It can also help us in our training efforts. The central concept of this model is the notion of stages of readiness to change. Four categories of readiness have been defined: precontemplation, contemplation, action, and maintenance. The stages of change were first identified in a 1982 study comparing the processes of change used by smokers quitting on their own and smokers participating in two commercial treatment programs. Subsequent research has established that the amount of progress people make in changing behavior depends on their stage of change readiness.

Precontemplation. Individuals in the precontemplation stage have no intention of changing their behavior in the near future, usually defined as within the next six months. Many precontemplators deny they need to change, or they do not feel their situation is serious enough to change. They are resistant to acknowledging that a problem may exist. It isn't that they can't see the solution, they can't see the problem. For them the cost of changing behavior clearly outweighs the benefits. Precontemplators may feel that they are being pressured. Coerced change is rarely successful. When the pressure is off, they revert to old behavior patterns. The precontemplator is the manager who during training says, "I don't understand why I'm here. I don't need any of this."

Contemplation. Individuals in the contemplation stage acknowledge that they need to change, and they are seriously considering change. Movement to this stage is critical for change to occur. An individual must acknowledge that he/she has a problem and know what the problem is for productive change to take place. Contemplators weigh the pros and cons of the problem and examine possible solutions. An individual who is at this stage has somehow gained a new awareness of his/her current behavior.

Action. This stage is a period of active effort to change behavior. Action involves overt changes and requires considerable commitment of time and energy. Training programs are action oriented and designed to help people at this stage. Unfortunately, action does not always equate to permanent change.

Maintenance. This is the stage in which people work to consolidate gains and prevent relapse. Traditionally, this is viewed as a static stage. However, maintenance can be a continuation, not the absence, of change. In an organization, maintenance occurs when environment and management support the changes the individual is making.

Making Training More Effective

The model described above gives insight into the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, of employee development efforts. It can help us understand why one manager has changed his/her behavior after training while another has not. The changing manager was most likely at the contemplation or action stage when he/she attended training. The non-changing manager was at the precontemplation stage and probably did not understand why he/she was even in the training program. Remember, training programs are designed for people who are at the action stage. They can help move an individual from contemplation to action, but the vast majority of training programs are designed for the minority who are ready to take action.

Individuals must be moved from precontemplation to contemplation before or at the beginning of training. To move ahead in the cycle of change, precontemplators must acknowledge the need for personal change. What causes people to begin to think seriously about change? Prochaska (1992) found that the individual needed "consciousness raising" in order to progress. Consciousness raising was defined as a systematic method of confronting the person with observations about his/her behavior. In other words, the person must be helped to see his/her behavior from the perspective of others. Only then can we increase the likelihood of training success.

360 Degree Feedback is Critical

Let's quit pretending that if we deliver state-of-the-art action focused programs to employees, they will take advantage of them. We must prepare people for action before their participation in training. Reliable, valid 360-degree feedback can provide the impetus a person needs to move from precontemplation to contemplation. It can also move contemplators to action. For those at the action stage, it provides a clear roadmap to accelerate the change process. Follow-up assessments can be used to measure continued change from action through maintenance. And, when the feedback is delivered by competent trainers/consultants, its impact is increased even more.

We have designed three 360-degree feedback inventories to increase the potential for productive change. The Management-Leadership Practices Inventory (MLPI) is designed to measure 20 practices essential to a manager/leader's effectiveness on the job. The Professional Communication Inventory (PCI) is designed to measure 12 critical communication and relationship skills. The Team Practices Inventory (TPI) is designed to measure the areas critical for a team's success. The MLPI and PCI are measures of an individual's practices from the perspective of boss, self and others. The TPI gathers information from team members, the team leader and, when appropriate, people outside the team. The feedback they provide is critical to effective behavior change.

Conclusion

Discussing the difficulty of modifying problem behavior, Mark Twain commented: "Habit is habit, and not to be thrown out the window but coaxed downstairs a step at a time." Thus, improved manager and employee performance does not occur with one bold training effort. Change requires movement through discrete stages. Proper design of the total training and development effort, including 360-degree feedback, training activities, and follow-up, can greatly enhance training effectiveness. Otherwise, we are delivering training that is likely to fail.

To learn more, contact Pfaff and Associates, 6667 Pleasantview, Portage, Michigan, 49024, 269-370-0083.