PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT SPECIAL...CHANGING A HABIT

The Transformer

To change a habit, first understand what aspect of the behaviour needs to change, says Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit

When covering the war in Iraq a decade ago, New York Times journalist Charles Duhigg came across an unusual experiment in Kufa. Located an hour away from Baghdad, the army major posted there was trying to stop riots in the city which were breaking out with alarming regularity. "The first thing he did was to request the Mayor of the city to clear all the food vendors from the streets," says Duhigg. The next day, the crowds started gathering in the streets, and by early evening, had reached a sizeable number. The army was on stand-by. By 5 pm, people started wandering off looking for the kebab vendors who usually plied their wares there. After searching in vain, the crowds gradually started trickling off looking for food and by 8 pm, the streets had cleared out and the riot was averted. In fact, after the major arrived, there were no further riots in the city, says Duhigg. The major let on that studying habit formation and alteration was something that the US Army paid close attention to. To change habits, it was critical to understand the key triggers behind them, which may not necessarily seem obvious at first glance.
    Once back, this experiment stayed with Duhigg and eventually formed the genesis of his newly-released book, The Power of Habit. "I started seeing everyday things in terms of habits, and carried out a few experiments of my own as well," he says.
    Duhigg realised that he would take a cookie break at work every afternoon. To try and get out of this habit, he tried a series of alternatives, from drinking tea to going for a walk to just going up to the cafeteria and chatting with people at the time he normally took his cookie break. At the end of these experiments, he realised that it wasn't the chocolate chip cookie which was driving him to take the break, but the opportunity it presented to socialise with his colleagues in the middle of the work day. Having figured that out, Duhigg started getting up from his desk at about the same time he'd take his break and instead go up to a coworker's desk and gossip for ten minutes instead. The result: He got out of the daily cookie-eating pattern, he was still satisfied with the end result of the break, and was 30 pounds lighter to boot!
    "A habit has three components," he says, "the cue which is the trigger for the behaviour, the routine, which is the actual behaviour and the reward which is how the brain remembers it." In his case, the cue was 3.30 in the afternoon, and the reward, the thought was eating the cookie. It was only later that he realised that the reward was socialising and the cookie was the routine. Once he realised that he would still feel as satisfied even if he skipped eating the cookie, it was easier for the new habit to be formed.
    "Changing habits is mostly focussed on the second stage, but the first and third are more important," says Duhigg. That is also why most attempts to change existing habits tend to fail miserably. He further classifies some habits into 'keystone' habits, or quite simply, habits which cause a chain reaction and change other behaviour patterns and habits as well.
Citing the instance of former Alcoa CEO Paul O'Neill when he took charge of the company, Duhigg narrates how O'Neill shocked analysts by telling them that his priority as CEO was going to be improving worker safety. There was no mention of improving performance or profitability, just the goal of aiming for zero accidents and making Alcoa the safest company in the United States. Interestingly though, a year later, the company's profits hit a record high and by the time O'Neill retired over a decade later, the stock was worth five times more than when he had taken over.
    "A trigger like this creates a common set of values which changes how the company thinks about itself," says Duhigg. That ultimately changes the company's culture and triggers a series of small wins. "This way, people feel that they can be a part of the change and this brings about a sense of momentum to everything they do," he says. At Alcoa, encouraging open communication on improving worker safety also led to more communication on how other aspects of the business could be improved and started a chain reaction which resulted in better numbers for the company.
    Marketers have wisened up to the influence habits have on shopper behaviour and are using this to anticipate and influence customer behaviour. By reaching out to consumers during periods of change can result in them giving the retailer more business than usual. For instance, US department store Target analyses the consumer data, to be able to predict what stage of pregnancy a customer is in and accordingly, send appropriate coupons (along with other unrelated ones to ensure that the customer doesn't get alarmed). All of this goes far beyond simple analytics to understand what habits drive specific behaviours.

 Changing habits is more about understanding how to change your behaviour rather than actually changing it.

 Once you know how has to be done, you'd be surprised (says Duhigg) at how easy it can be.

—— Priyanka Sangani —— ETCD120518