ARTICLE 13

Published in the Journal CEO IT 

MICROBEHAVIOURS: THEIR IMPORTANCE IN MOTIVATING PEOPLE AND HIGH PERFORMANCE
by Dr David Freemantle

Dr David Freemantle was previously Director of Personnel of British Caledonian Airways. He now runs a consultancy business specialising in leadership, motivation and customer relations.

He is the author of fourteen business books which have been published in 19 different languages.
His book HOW TO CHOOSE (How our greatest successes are a reflection of the small everyday choices we make) was published by Prentice Hall in 2002. Dr Freemantle can be contacted at: team@superboss.co.uk

Microbehaviours are the tiny behaviours that comprise any one big behaviour. Thus making a telephone call is a big behaviour whilst the tiny behaviours are for example the style of greeting, the tone of voice, the choice of words, the time devoted to listening as opposed to speaking and the responses given to the person the other end. All these add up, along with a thousand other microbehaviours, to influence the performance of a team. In other words a major factor in the success of any business is the millions of microbehaviours adopted by its managers and employees.

The examination of microbehaviours will become a critical area of study for the HR profession as companies dig deeper and deeper to discover the elusive connection between people and performance.

There are two dimensions to any business: the impersonal and the personal. The first is founded on systems and the second on psychology. Under the auspices of scientific management there has been much attention focused over the last few decades on the first - but at the expense of the latter. Managers around the globe along with their professional HR advisers have been seeking a 'system for success' by which they can apply 'tools' to spark the motivation that brings high performance.

These 'tools' come in the form of policies, procedures and personnel systems such as 'objective setting', 'performance appraisal' 'team briefings' and 'empowerment programmes'. There is a strongly held belief that the application of these 'tools' will lead to high performance.

Thus strategic HR policies are adopted by which line managers are trained and 'tasked' to use these 'tools' to enhance the performance of their teams. Despite assertions to the contrary the role of the manager in many companies is seen as one of managing tasks in order to achieve quantified results. Managers assign people tasks and then expect them to achieve the necessary results.

All this can be very impersonal for the simple reason that it is 'system' (or policy) driven. Much neglected is the psychology of this process and especially an in-depth understanding of the role of behaviours and (and what I will term) microbehaviours in the execution of these tasks. It is truism to state that successful businesses are built on relationships and by that I mean the personal relationships managers have with employees as well as with customers, suppliers, shareholders and the community at large. The better the relationships an organisation (as represented by its managers) has with these various groups the greater the probability of success.

Conversely a company that suffers poor relationships is likely to lose business by losing its customers, employees and eventually shareholders. A key factor in any relationship is the behaviours adopted between the various parties involved. Behaviour determines the effectiveness of the relationship which in turn determines the effectiveness of the business. Behaviour is a topic that has been much neglected in personnel management for the simple reason that it is IMPOSSIBLE to manage other people's behaviour.

Behaviour is very personal and is a product of the inner soul of each individual employee. When managers command people to behave in a certain way they are effectively attempting to command the souls of employees. When managers command people to behave in a certain way they are effectively attempting to command the souls of employees Thus a manager can instruct an employee to undertake a task.

However what it is impossible to do is instruct an employee on the behaviour he or she should adopt to undertake this task. At best the manager can advise or suggest. For example you cannot instruct employees to smile at a customer. At best you can advise them to do so. Behaviour is at the core of high performance

My central thesis is that high performance is not a just a function of the tasks and skills of employees in pursuing a desired objective but more importantly a function of the behaviours they adopt in carrying out these tasks and applying their skills. Expressed another way, behaviour is at the core of high performance.

This begs a question of what we mean by behaviour. The word 'behaviour' is bandied around and used very loosely. We assume we know what 'behaviour' is but I suspect many HR professionals have widely differing interpretations of the word. We know for example that good behaviour is 'writing a thank-you letter' whilst bad behaviour is 'swearing at a boss'.

To understand behaviour it is thus necessary to differentiate between macrobehaviours and microbehaviours. Macrobehaviours are the steps that individual takes in pursuing a given objective, for example meeting a customer, walking the patch, or staying late to clear a backlog of work.

Microbehaviours are the minutiae of movements that comprise a macrobehaviour. For example a microbehavioural choice is whether or not to call a customer by her name, whether to use the title or the first name and then how frequently to use that name.

When walking the patch the microbehavioural choice is who to talk to, what to say, who to listen to and who to ignore. Using the example of the macrobehaviour in the previous paragraph ('writing a thank-you letter) microbehaviours are all the minute tiny behaviours that go into this - for example whether or not to handwrite the letter, how to sign the letter, how to introduce the letter, what emotions to display in the words used and so on.

These choices of macrobehaviours and microbehaviours have a critical impact on the performance of any business and can never be determined by head office edict or the commands of senior management.

Thus how employees seek to interpret a policy, and the behaviours they choose in doing so is as vital to future success as the policy itself.

What managers do at 9.00 a.m. on a Monday morning will influence the performance of their teams Similarly what managers do at 9.00 a.m. on a Monday morning will influence the performance of their teams. The choices of macro- and microbehaviours available to them are infinite.

Here are just a few for example: At 9.00 a.m. on a Monday morning managers can...... ......leave their doors open ......shut their doors open ......spend 5,10, 20, 30 or 60 minutes 'walking the patch' ......choose to speak to certain people but not others ......choose what they say to people ......choose what questions to ask (personal or business) ......choose who to listen to and whether or not to take advice ......check their e-mails ......make a few calls ......read the newspaper ......prepare for the first meeting of the day ......go into the first meeting of the day In fact the list is endless.

Even the top HR expert in the world could not prescribe the most effective pattern of microbehaviours to be adopted by a manager in any given circumstance at 9.00 a.m. on a Monday. Yet a manager's choice of these microbehaviours will largely influence the effectiveness and performance of their teams.

Why is it that in one organisation I studied recently one team consistently achieved higher customer satisfaction ratings than all others teams and also why is it that this team had a much lower staff attrition rate than the others? The organisation was the same as were the personnel policies that applied.

The only difference was the manager and the way he behaved with his team compared with other managers. The microbehaviours of this particular manager influenced the microbehaviours of every single member of the team. They loved him because all his microbehaviours demonstrated that he loved them. Thus they loved what they did and equally so loved their customers.

These microbehaviours (for example the frequent spontaneous celebration of minor successes) emanated from their hearts and related to how they felt about their boss, their customers and their work. They did not emanate from HR policy, company vision or core values. It is much easier for a manager to manage tasks than behaviour It is all too easy for personnel professionals to concentrate on the impersonal side of the profession by focusing on strategies, plans, policies, systems and procedures for 'getting the people thing right'.

Similarly it is much easier for a manager to manage tasks than behaviour. Tasks come in the form of paperwork, e-mails, meetings, analyses, numbers, targets, reports and proposals. The behavioural side is much too complex and defies definitions that can be encapsulated in papers to the board.

The study of microbehaviours will make it even more complex, given the millions of potential tiny behaviours that can have an impact on performance.

At best HR professionals talk of 'attitudinal change' and 'culture change programmes'. Even then it is relatively easy to come up with values statements that say "we believe in open and honest relationships with our employees" and then devise a 'system' of regular team briefings to enhance communication.

However the effectiveness of this policy and of the application through team briefings will depend on the myriad of microbehaviours adopted by each manager. In this case the team will judge a manager not by the content of the team briefing (which is often prescribed by Head Office) but by the broad range of microbehaviours used to implement the briefing.

A frown, a disinterested look, a negative gesture, a rushed approach, garbled words, a failure to listen are all examples of microbehaviours which in time aggregate to form an overall behavioural pattern which will have a negative influence on the team and thus performance.

These microbehaviours are choices managers and employees make to reflect the innermost workings of their hearts and souls. In other words to achieve high performance it is necessary to go beyond the definition of the strategy, the implementation of the plan, the undertaking of the task, the monitoring of the results and take a constructively critical look at the patterns of microbehaviours managers and employees adopt and which influence the implementation of the plan, the application of the task and the accomplishment of a final outcome.

However whilst managers can look at the microbehaviours of individuals in their teams what they cannot do is 'manage' the microbehaviours of these people. At best they can influence employees and help them develop more effective microbehaviours. Furthermore they can look critically at their own microbehaviours and choose to improve their own approach. Thus if a manager chooses to be happy, to joke and to smile this might have a positive impact on the team - whilst if a manager chooses to frown, to say 'no' to whatever suggestion comes his way and to give people little time then this might have a negative impact on the team. There is no certainty about this.

Where managers need help from the HR profession is in developing an awareness of their own microbehaviours and how these impact the business. It means helping managers and employees push back boundaries to go beyond habit and routine and adopt new behaviours which might just have a more positive impact.

A Starbucks employee commented "I do like the tie you are wearing today". You cannot have a policy instructing employees to adopt microbehaviours such as these which make the customer feel special For example, the other day I was sitting in a Starbucks in Millennia Walk, Singapore, reading a paper and drinking a caffe latte.

As I frequently visit Singapore I am a regular at this particular Starbucks and I know the 'partners' there quite well. One of them passed me by to clean the next table. She glanced at me and said "I do like the tie you are wearing today". This simple comment really made me good, it perked me up for the day. Then I thought.

She did not have to say this. In fact in twenty years of sitting around in caf?s and restaurants I cannot remember the last time a waiter or waitress made such a comment to me. What this waitress did was adopt a small microbehaviour (nine words to compliment a customer). No wonder this particular Starbucks has just been given the award for the best Starbucks in Singapore for customer service.

Yet Starbucks (or any company for that matter) could not have a policy which states "you must comment on customers' ties". Because microbehaviours are so small they often go unnoticed by managers and to that extent they are largely neglected in the debate on how to achieve high performance. Yet my assertion, and this is the subject of my book HOW TO CHOOSE is that it is these microbehaviours which are critical in determining the success or failure of any business. To be successful requires choosing successful microbehaviours.

Over time these microbehaviours aggregate and evolve into a perceived pattern which can be linked to success or failure. The theory of 'emergence' is particularly apt here. First we have to understand our own microbehaviours and how these emerge into traits and outcomes upon which people judge us.

As much of our behaviour is driven by our subconscious we need to become conscious of our existing patterns of microbehaviours. In doing do we can then determine whether there are more effective microbehaviours we can adopt which enhance the probability of attaining the outcomes we desire.

The connection between microbehaviours and performance requires much further debate and the HR profession will have a vital role in this. The purpose of my book (and this article) is to stimulate that debate.

© Dr David Freemantle, Superboss Ltd, P O Box 813, Windsor SL4 2XU Tel: 01753 833226; Fax: 01753 863412; e-mail: team@superboss.co.uk alike.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: DR DAVID FREEMANTLE

Dr David Freemantle is one of the world's leading experts on customer service and motivation. He has written fourteen best-selling business books including the widely acclaimed "What customers like about you" and more recently "The Stimulus Factor", "The BUZZ" and "The BIZ" . These books are based on his extensive research worldwide.

He is based in Windsor UK where he lives with his Venezuelan wife Mechi and two children Ruth-Elena and Linnet. He welcomes contact by e-mail from readers (e-mail address as above).

ARTICLE COPYRIGHT © Dr David Freemantle