The Power of Prompts to Reinforce New Behaviors

Prompts activate behaviors. 

Without them, most behaviors and actions would never happen. Take, for example, what occurs when we see a red light or feel a few drops of rain. We instantly hit the brakes or grab an umbrella in response. 

Life is filled with so many prompts that we often take them for granted and operate on autopilot without thinking much about them. But they are a secret weapon when it comes to forming a new habit.

Without a reliable prompt, many actions don’t happen or are forgotten. This is especially true when we try to create a new habit. Most of the other behaviors and actions we depend on are already tied to well-established prompts or triggers.  Prompts such as alarms, reminders, meeting room doors closing, making a cup of coffee, brushing your hair, or closing a phone application can all be used to initiate a pre-determined action or behavior. 

Leaders looking to create new habits or to incorporate a new behavior or routine into their leadership style have one of two choices when it comes to prompts. Either to piggyback on an already existing prompt or to design a new one. 

Let’s say you’re attempting to build a habit focused on “agreeing to disagree” when confronted with a sharp divide in perspectives or viewpoints with colleagues. Instead of advocating and arguing over an issue where both parties are dug in, you want to elevate the idea and behavior of asking to agree to disagree. 

However, when you’re at loggerheads with colleagues you typically forget to employ this idea and continue to struggle over who is right and who is wrong. Only after the exchange is complete do you remember that you should have agreed to disagree much earlier in the discussion to avoid unnecessary conflict. To build this habit, you would do well to either tie this behavior to an existing prompt or design a new prompt to trigger the offer of agreeing to disagree. 

Existing prompts might be:

• Any time a colleague repeats their argument or presents the same opinion three times in a row 

• When you begin to feel frustrated that the other person is no longer listening to your argument

• If the other party points their finger at you when making their case 

By tying the new habit of agreeing to disagree to an existing action that often occurs, you can use that action to trigger your desirable new habit. 

Another option is to design a brand-new prompt that doesn’t naturally exist. In the case of agreeing to disagree, a new prompt might be something like shaking your head in strong distaste or closing a notebook once you’ve stopped listening during a heated discussion. You commit to doing the desired new action any time you perform this new prompt. The idea is to build a new habit by automatically doing X after Y.  

Whether using an existing prompt or creating a new one, these options are essential for building new habits.  Small nudges can be powerful aids for creating new patterns of behavior. 

Find or design a prompting cue for the habit you want to incorporate. What new action could you engage immediately after reading a Field Note? Even Field Notes can become a prompt. 

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