Quotes About Behavior

When you want someone to behave in a new way, explain the "new way" clearly. Don't assume the new moves are obvious.

successful change transformations were more likely to set behavioral goals:

Ambiguity is the enemy. Any successful change requires a translation of ambiguous goals into concrete behaviors.

It's clear that we imitate the behaviors of others, whether consciously or not. We are especially keen to see what they're doing when the situation is unfamiliar or ambiguous. And change situations are, by definition, unfamiliar! So if you want to change things, you have to pay close attention to social signals, because they can either guarantee a change effort or doom it.

ladder your way down from a change idea to a specific behavior, you

In situations where your herd has embraced the right behavior, publicize it. For instance, if 80 percent of your team submits time sheets on time, make sure the other 20 percent knows the group norm. Those individuals almost certainly will correct themselves. But if only 10 percent of your team submits time sheets on time, publicizing those results will hurt, not help.

Thinking, Fast and Slow, mentioned above, and Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational. One of the handful of books that provides advice on making decisions better is Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, which was written for "choice architects" in business and government who construct decision systems such as retirement plans or organ-donation policies. It has been used to improve government policies in the United States, Great Britain, and other countries.

Behavior is contagious. Help it spread.

Habits are behavioral autopilot, and that's why they're such a critical tool for leaders. Leaders who can instill habits that reinforce their teams' goals are essentially making progress for free.

Small targets lead to small victories, and small victories can often trigger a positive spiral of behavior.

Knowledge does not change behavior," he said. "We have all encountered crazy shrinks and obese doctors and divorced marriage counselors.

Fundamental Attribution Error." The error lies in our inclination to attribute people's behavior to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in.

Until you can ladder your way down from a change idea to a specific behavior, you're not ready to lead a switch.

People tend to overuse any idea or concept that delivers an emotional kick.

Character is always more caught than taught.

Why are you attracted to self-sabotage? I

A situation in itself," he said, "is neither happy nor unhappy. It's only your response to it that causes your sorrow. But

She says, Why are you attracted to self-sabotage? I don't know, Dr. Berger. Is it because it takes less courage to hurt oneself than to hurt others?

Sometimes, people can also project "snobbish thoughts." They do not have to make offensive and belittling remarks but their actions project negative thoughts that you are stupid, uncultured, useless or that you cannot be trusted. People with deep-seated feelings of inferiority but having a limited degree of success may feel the need to psychologically chop others down. Some people belonging to the so-called "upper social class" also do this.

Because no one has ever seen a woman behave so wrongly as to ask a man to love her, unless she were more deranged than the next person. I would be a proven fool if I ever spoke a word that would bring me reproach. If he were to learn it from my mouth, I think he would lose esteem for me and lastingly reproach me for having spoken first. May love never stoop so low that I beseech him first since he would then esteem me less.

My mother taught me to treat a lady respectfully.

Habits are either the best of servants or the worst of masters.

Since then I have searched for my heroes among small-t truths. I always find them among people learning the art of acceptance: not acceptance of defeat or acceptance of some inability to influence their own futures, but rather acceptance of life on the planet, acceptance of the grays rather than the black-and-whites, acceptance of the astonishing range of human emotion and human behavior.

Of all my dysfunctional behaviors, she hates me putting empty containers back where they don't belong. "I don't care if you weigh seven hundred pounds the rest of your life and don't stop picking your nose till you're forty," she told me once, "but if you put one more empty container anywhere but in the garbage, I'll have you put to sleep.