I have written about modelling in previous posts. But this is such an important tool in helping organisations to collaborate, communicate and demonstrate powerful leadership that I want to explain more about this powerful technique.

The performance excellence locked up in an organisation’s workforce is one of the biggest single factors that determines the competitiveness of a business. Here is where competitive advantage originates. Those businesses that recognise where they have exceptional performance and try to understand and create more of it, will be the winners of the future. Behavioural modelling can help businesses achieve higher levels of sustainable performance and learning.

Behavioural modelling is an example of ‘double loop’ learning, in that it involves helping the business to perform a skill better, so that the structure of this process can be taught to other individuals. And at the same time the business is taught the process of how to model it (i.e. learning how to learn). This ‘double loop’ learning methodology is both highly cost effective, drawing on the resources internal to the company at hand, and also guarantees long term systemic change.

The goal of behaviour modelling is to identify the essential elements of thought and action required to produce the desired excellent behaviour. It provides a description of what is necessary to produce a similar result. This process can be used to understand a particular example of excellence better by unpicking the processes which underlie it, and from there to be able to teach others how to do it. Conversely, it may be used to refine performance in others by specifying the steps followed by those expert or excellent performers. In this respect, the modelling process has much in parallel with that of business process reengineering.

The foundation of the modelling process is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, not least because NLP developed out of the modelling of human behaviours and thinking processes. NLP modelling involves finding out about how the brain (‘Neuro’) is operating, by analysing patterns of language (‘linguistic’), behaviour and non-verbal communication. The results of this process are then put into step-by-step strategies or programmes (‘Programming’) that may be used to transfer that skill to other people. One of the biggest challenges in modelling exceptional performance comes from the fact that these ‘experts’ often are not consciously aware of what they are doing. They are therefore unable to provide a direct description of the processes that make up that excellence. In fact, many experts purposefully avoid thinking about what they are doing, and how they are doing it, for fear that it will actually interfere with their intuitions!

Therefore the four step process as outlined below, particularly the implicit and explicit phases, is essential. Implicit modelling allows a direct intuitive representation to be formulated about that engineer’s subjective experience and the explicit modelling elicits the explicit structure of the excellent performer’s experience so that it can be transferred to others.

The methodology of the project follows four distinct phases:

• Initial Needs Analysis – discussion to ascertain the elements of excellence and required use of the results.
• Implicit modelling – use of 2nd positioning to pick up intuitions. Effectively shadow the person on the job.
• Explicit modelling – conduct a formal 45 min interview with each person to be modelled using a discussion guide for the interview to gather data, and to record the interview on camcorder/mp3 recorder for later analysis.
• Model Building Phase – To build a model to be used in an effective training or transfer of skills programme and also for recruitment selection and induction.

One of the challenges for the modeller is dealing with the vast array of information that is presented to him or her during the process of modelling … more about that in a later post.

If strategy is to be successfully executed, and bring effective turnaround in business performance, we need to communicate what it is that we want employees to do.  In other words how to behave.  This is obvious. But organisations often find this hard to implement in practical ways. Perhaps this is because communication is, by definition, open to interpretation.  Encoding and decoding, rather like the raft of confusing codex in any multimedia environment, is a fluid process and open to errors of configuration.

behavioural influencers

The Viral Change approach to organisational change is refreshing in its ‘bottom up’ approach: what will strategic excellence look like for us as an organisation and what will people be doing?  What are the 5 or 6 or so, critical behaviours that are going to achieve this for us? Sounds easy perhaps. But this needs careful attention and consideration (worthy of separate post).

Then as part of this ‘viral’ spread of change, we need to find those people who are already demonstrating this behaviour, for this is ‘excellence’ based on our future strategic needs.  Strategy is, after all, about where we want to be, and behaviour is about how we are going to get there.

So, given that we want to spread a certain set of behaviours, those that are deemed as excellent or noteworthy – those worth copying – modelling is one of the fundamental ways of ‘communicating’ that behaviour. Of course, I am talking from an NLP modelling perspective here and whilst this might present a rather lengthy process in its full programme, there are certainly useful learnings in change to be drawn from the formal modelling process.

The two elements to consider in modelling skills and behaviour are the observable, externally presented behaviour and also the internal mechanisms and strategies that individuals have developed (often subconsciously), or ‘what makes people tick’. 

The individual’s external behaviour is influenced by the higher logical levels of learning and change, such as capabilities and beliefs/values (see earlier posts on this topic), so it is to these that we must look for the deeper strategies for change.  The first step in the modelling process is usually implicit modelling; through that state of ‘not knowing’ an observer models the externally presented behaviour of the subject to gain insight (through the feeling mind) into state, thought processes, beliefs and attitudes. 

Then explicit modelling – the formal, interview type structure – is used to build on this model. Viral Change is focused on influencing external behaviour; external behaviour is observable and we can describe it accurately through language. However, if a successful behavioural change agent’s most important capabilities are internal (ie. thinking and feeling processes) – and often unknown to them – it is probably important to spend some attention in this area too.

Most people today accept that their ability to behave effectively is influenced by their feelings, way of thinking, beliefs, values and sense of identity. It therefore becomes crucial to identify thinking strategies and other ‘intangibles’ that are so important in ensuring these ‘change agents’ have the resources to maintain the momentum that the struggling organisation needs.  The problem is that often people are not conscious of what is going on for them – they are ‘unconsciously competent’ at the behaviour and have never picked apart what it is they do.

Here, a process of ‘macro modelling’ can be useful to help the individual understand what it is they do, and therefore facilitate transference of this behaviour overtly to others (through viral and other communication channels) but also to help the individual being modelled to demonstrate those strengths more of the time, especially when under duress or when facing difficulties.

For example if a required behaviour is ‘keeping customer promises’, macro modelling is undertaken in the following way:

1. Locate a time and space representing the context in which the person manifests ‘delivering on

macro modelling

promises’.   Find the beliefs and values which guide him in this context.

2. Locate another space for a context in which the person is not able to manifest ‘delivering on promises’.  Find the beliefs and values which are different in this context.

3. Establish a new location for a third position in which the person can view both the effective and the ineffective contexts.  From this perspective evaluate the similarities and differences between 1st and 2nd contexts with respect to beliefs, values and anticipated consequences.

4. Have the person return to each of these positions and from each one, move to action, or see the next steps he or she would take, as well as consequences related to those actions or steps.  This helps them to consider the ‘larger system’ in which they demonstrate this behaviour.

5. Add a 4th perspective, from which to consider all three.  From here, evaluate the presuppositions, assumptions, skills and capabilities operating in the evaluations that were made in the 3rd position space.  Are they appropriate? How did you select what constituted ‘delivering on promises’? What did you presuppose about values and beliefs in those contexts?  etc

This process helps to build up the model of how that person ‘does’ this behaviour both in terms of actual behaviour as well as mental processes.  And the simpler this model is, the more effective it will be in application.  The understanding gained (through this and other tools), can of course, be used to develop a profile by which to ’recruit’ similar behavioural change champions for the programme. 

Whilst a formal modelling process is not required for a Viral Change programme, an understanding of the tools and benefits of modelling is very helpful in ensuring the programme’s success.  Changeworks Communications undertakes regular modelling and viral change programmes for large and medium sized organisations.  Contact Sue (sue@changeworkscom.co.uk) for more information.