“That’s the Way We Used to Do Things Around Here” by Jeffrey Schwartz, Pablo Gaito, and Doug Lennick | strategy+business
When corporate leaders talk about change, they usually have a 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 behavior 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 behaviors 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.”