Why do people often resist efforts to change their behavior?
Change often comes at the expense of losing something or someone that you have become accustomed to. When it comes to behavior change comes at the loss of part of ourselves that we have gotten used to. Change in behavior also requires that you have to admit the behavior is in need of change. If a behavior is negative then the change may be necessary but not always easy. Even a negative behavior can be hard to change because you have to realize that you should have changed it before now and try to understand and rationalize why you didn't. Change is like growth in an organization. Not always pleasant but many times necessary.
I have been a part of several church plants over the years and one of the things that has been proven is that the team you start with is not the same team that will be there after 3 years. It is necessary for the team to get along and work together to get the church planted and help it to grow but more often than not the team grows apart as the church grows because they come to decisions where they have differences and are not prepared to work through it. When it comes to the issue of changing behaviors everyone is somewhat resistant to change because they all feel they are right in their understandings of what needs done. This resistance often comes at the expense of friendships that have been for many years.
I have also had to deal with the resistance to behavioral change with my current employer. Through my employer we did personality profiles trying to understand the various styles in our organization to help us work better together. Through this process it was revealed that my supervisor and I have the same personality type. For my supervisor this was their first time understanding their own personality and the traits of it but I had done this test several times. Due to my history with these profiles I have learned how my behaviors affect my work attitude and have taken lengths to work with it and change the behaviors. My supervisor has not learned how to change their behaviors and as such it has been very difficult to work with them because they do not understand the negative impacts of their behaviors on those they supervise.
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This is a very interesting post.
ReplyDeleteChange can only come through suffering, be it tragic or small in nature.
Someone once told me that we can only know what we've experienced. I see that as a completely true statement. We know what we want or don't want by what we've experienced. And that will either motivate us to be different or we will continue in the pattern we've known throughout our lives.
I think it's interesting that you state how you've worked to change some things in your personality but your supervisor has not...so, in effect you are seeing you before you decided to change some things. Perhaps, in time, your supervisor will see the positive changes he can make by seeing how you have been able to overcome the negatives.
Good post.
Cindy
(ps is it possible for you to change your comment links to include "url" or "anonymous" I may not necessarily want to link to my personal blog. :) )