{"id":2705,"date":"2013-02-02T06:43:52","date_gmt":"2013-02-02T06:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=2705"},"modified":"2013-02-02T06:43:52","modified_gmt":"2013-02-02T06:43:52","slug":"kicking-the-habit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=2705","title":{"rendered":"Kicking the Habit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"no_smoking_400_wht_6805\"<\/a>It is not easy to kick a habit. We all know that. And for some reason the\u00a0‘bad’ habits are harder to kick than the\u00a0‘good’ ones. So what is bad about a ‘bad habit’ and why is\u00a0it harder to give up?\u00a0Surely if it was\u00a0really bad it would be easier to give up?<\/p>\n

Improvement is all about giving up old ‘bad’ habits and replacing them with new ‘good’ habits – ones that will sustain the\u00a0improvement. But there is an invisible barrier that resists us changing any habit – good or bad. And it is that barrier to habit-breaking\u00a0that we need to understand to succeed. Luck is\u00a0not a reliable ally.<\/p>\n

What does that habit-breaking barrier look like?<\/p>\n

The problem is that it is invisible – or rather it is emotional – or to be precise it is chemical.<\/p>\n

Our emotions are\u00a0the output of a fantastically complex chemical system\u00a0– our brains. And influencing the chemical balance of our brains can have\u00a0a profound effect on our emotions.\u00a0 That is how\u00a0anti-depressants work – they very slightly adjust the chemical\u00a0balance of every part<\/strong> of our brains. The cumulative effect is that we feel\u00a0happier.\u00a0 Nicotine has a similar effect.<\/p>\n

And we can achieve the same effect without resorting to drugs or fags\u00a0– and we can do that by consciously practising some new mental habits until they become ingrained and unconscious. We literally overwrite the old mental habit.<\/p>\n

So how do we do this?<\/p>\n

First we need to make the mental barrier visible – and then we can focus our attention on eroding it. To do that we need to remove the psychological\u00a0filter that we all use to\u00a0exclude our emotions. It is rather like taking off our psychological sunglasses.<\/p>\n

When we do that the invisible barrier jumps into view: illuminated\u00a0by the\u00a0glare of\u00a0three negative emotions.\u00a0\u00a0Sadness, fear, and anxiety.\u00a0 So whenever we feel any of these we\u00a0know there is a barrier\u00a0to improvement hiding\u00a0 the emotional smoke. This is the first stage: tune in to our emotions.<\/p>\n

The next step is counter-intuitive. Instead of\u00a0running away from the negative\u00a0feeling we\u00a0consciously flip into a different way\u00a0of thinking.\u00a0\u00a0We actively engage\u00a0with\u00a0our negative feelings\u00a0– and in a very specific way. We engage in a detached, unemotional, logical, rational, analytical\u00a0\u00a0‘What caused that negative feeling?’ way.<\/p>\n

We then focus on the causes<\/strong> of the negative emotions. And when we have the root causes of our Niggles\u00a0we\u00a0design around them, under them,\u00a0and over them.\u00a0\u00a0We literally design them out of our heads.<\/p>\n

The effect is like magic.<\/p>\n

And this week I witnessed a real example of this principle in action.<\/p>\n

\"figure_pressing_power_button_150_wht_10080\"<\/a>One\u00a0team I am working with\u00a0experienced the\u00a0Power of Improvementology. They saw the effect with their own eyes.\u00a0 There were no computers in the way, no delays, no distortion and no\u00a0deletion of data to cloud the issue. They saw the performance of their process jump dramatically – from a success rate of 60% to 96%!\u00a0 And not just the first day, the second day too.\u00a0 “Surprised and delighted<\/em>” sums up their reaction.<\/p>\n

So how did we achieve this miracle?<\/p>\n

We just looked at the process through\u00a0a different lens\u00a0– one not clouded and misshapen by old assumptions and blackened by ignorance of what is possible.\u00a0 We used\u00a0the 6M Design\u00ae lens\u00a0– and with\u00a0the clarity of insight it brings the barriers to improvement became obvious. And\u00a0they were dissolved. In seconds.<\/p>\n

Success then flowed as the Dam of Disbelief crumbled and was washed away.<\/p>\n

\"figure_check_mark_celebrate_anim_150_wht_3617\"<\/a>The chaos has gone. The interruptions have gone. The expediting has gone. The\u00a0firefighting has gone. The complaining\u00a0has\u00a0gone.\u00a0 These chronic Niggles have\u00a0have been replaced by the Nuggets of calm efficiency, new hope and visible excitement.<\/p>\n

And we know that others have noticed the knock-on effect because we got an email from our\u00a0senior executive that said simply “No one has\u00a0moaned about TTOs for two days … something has changed<\/em>.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That is Improvementology-in-Action.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is not easy to kick a habit. We all know that. And for some reason the\u00a0‘bad’ habits are harder to kick than the\u00a0‘good’ ones. So what is bad about a ‘bad habit’ and why is\u00a0it harder to give up?\u00a0Surely if it was\u00a0really bad it would be easier to give up? Improvement is all about … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Kicking the Habit”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,15,17,19,20,22,24,30,33,35,38,41,42,44,45,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-6m-design","category-design","category-examples","category-fish","category-flow","category-healthcare","category-improvementology","category-operations","category-quality","category-reflections","category-safety","category-stories","category-how","category-three-wins-r","category-what","category-teach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}