Craig considers how rules have impacted his behaviour.
Our behavioural drivers model, ‘Why people do what they do’, delves into both the cultural and personal factors that impact behaviour. One of these cultural factors is rules, which is explicit regulations or advice that drives behaviour. In our model, rules splits down into three elements: guidelines, policies and laws.
A guideline is the recommended way of doing something, or best practice. Many organisations have guidelines, such as how to run a meeting, or how to use the company’s databases. They aren’t something you have to do, but it’s recommended and helpful to drive consistency. Guidelines often work well when you have a culture where people are aligned; in what they believe, how they do it and why they behave that way.
Policies are the official way of saying, ‘This is the way we do things around here’. When creating policies, it’s vital to look at the whole picture, ‘What’s the system we’re working on? What’s the culture we’re working on? And, importantly, how does this make things easier and more straightforward?’ A policy that creates complexity and confusion can severely impact people, clients and results.
Behaviour is also impacted by laws. We understand that breaking the law means consequences. One of the most prominent laws in the UK is the speed limit, and yet it’s one of the most broken laws across the country. This may be because people believe they’re a safe driver, so think that going slightly over the speed limit isn’t dangerous, while others may believe the speed limit has a 10% leeway. But when the person who enforces the law is watching, for example there’s a police car driving behind, the behaviour is often quite different! This is due to different beliefs, which can cause people to break the law.
At Rambutan, we often find that to achieve targets, an organisation needs to change behaviour. These targets may be to increase employee engagement, improve productivity or embed a learning culture. To achieve this, sometimes new policies are introduced with a belief that these alone will change people’s behaviour. However, to change behaviour we need to consider other factors that drive people to do what they do, not just adjust the ‘rules’ element. It’s important to consider the social influences of employees, the beliefs of the team, the purpose of the organisation, or how these interact with the policies put into place.
Some great questions to ask yourself when looking at our why people do what they do model and specifically the rules element:
- why do I do what I do?
- why do I behave in a certain way?
- how do guidelines, policies and laws impact me?