How many times have you been in a training session? I’m not talking just about this year but let’s go back and count every session you’ve been to. Now, think back and try to recall how much you really remember and how you applied that acquired knowledge from those sessions in practice? If you are like most people, it wasn’t much.
Many training sessions take place in the hope of correcting or changing behaviour, but little do we know that by doing so, they are just treating the symptoms rather than the actual disease. When you don’t have the solution or remedy for the disease you’re experiencing, I’m sure your training session will bear no sustainable results as you are not tackling the root cause.
Moreover, in today’s busy and competitive world, you can’t afford to waste your time or money in a training session that does not bear fruit. Therefore, if you want your next training and development budget to be spent on something that leads to sustainable behaviour change, I’d suggest that we focus on changing people’s mindset.
No amount of training in new skills or techniques will get you the change you’re seeking. Breakthrough results require a change in what drives behaviour and that is mindset.
Recently, I had the opportunity to hold an event to launch an exclusive partnership with The Arbinger Institute, an organisation that has spent 45 years researching human behaviour, psychology and motivation to develop an approach that shifts people’s mindset.
From the event, “The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organisations”, we uncovered the importance of mindset and how it is at the core of everything we do and influences our ability to perform.
Without knowing, it, we sometimes operate with self-deception — a process of denying or justifying away the relevance, significance or importance of contrary evidence and logical argument. In other words, we cannot see the reality clearly.
Moreover, in this circumstance, we could be operating from a self-centred mindset, which can have a negative impact on our performance and that of others. This is what The Arbinger Institute describes as the inward mindset.
In detail, the inward mindset is what is at work when you focus solely on MY result and see others more as objects, and less as human beings — you might view them as vehicles, obstacles or irrelevancies.
This mindset impedes behavioural change as individuals prefer to stay where they feel most comfortable and tend to be blind to what others need; therefore, they become prone to creating conflicts.
On the other hand, the outward mindset is what is at work when we focus on being accountable and helpful to the goals of others and to the entire organisation. We will see things as OUR results and see others as “people”. In fact, this is when the individual is focused on collective success and every person is invested in the success of everyone around them.
Individuals then have the desire to improve others and care about others’ interests. Then they begin to see the work as a function of how they can best fulfil the needs of others in a way that creates real and sustainable results. Simply put, this outward mindset creates a culture of authentic collaboration and accountability.
The truth is, when mindset drives behaviour and behaviour drives results, don’t you think it’s critical to concentrate primarily on changing the mindset so we can get the desired results in the end?
Arinya Talerngsri is Group Managing Director at APMGroup, Thailand's leading Organisation and People Development Consultancy. She can be reached by e-mail at arinya_t@apm.co.th or https://www.linkedin.com/pub/arinya-talerngsri/a/81a/53b
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