Stacking up habits

“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not.“
Octavia Butler

Starting this week, we at Advantage Performance Group are reading and meeting together via Zoom to work our way through James Clear’s blockbuster bestseller Atomic Habits.  We’re talking about how we as an organization – and how each of us also individually – can apply its principles to help us reach our full potential.

In his first chapter, Clear describes the power of thinking small by telling how Dave Brailsford was able to transform the British Cycling Team from underwhelming unknowns to Olympic champions in just 5 years. He did so by having everyone focus on hundreds of small improvements – bike-related upgrades like more comfortable seats and more aerodynamic and warmer racing suits, but also unexpected ones like better hand-washing to keep everyone healthy and ideal pillows and mattresses to improve everyone’s sleep patterns.

Our first session yesterday was to identify some things we already do that we could do just 1 percent better with the help of a tiny new habit, which had us brainstorming in breakout sessions about the aggregation of marginal gains. Then we focused on how we could use BJ Fogg’s theory of habit stacking (also from the book) to build the new action into our routine by pairing it with a habit we already have, ideally something that’s easy or something we really look forward to.

Lori decided she could fit in her new habit before letting herself have her earned Diet Coke break. Jon will be adding in his new habit every night before he turns off his computer. Jeff works from home and will go into another room to inspire him to do his new activity. Peg suggested we could use the same theory to help more of our clients bake in new behaviors from the experiential learning we deliver.

Indeed, one of our thought leader partners, 1st90, has built an award-winning mobile learning platform doing just that, helping new employees, new leaders, and others in transition establish new habits quickly by incorporating small actions in the flow of work. In 2020, we teamed up with 1st90 to develop a solution for SAP that was recognized with a Brandon Hall Group Silver Award for Best Advance in Mobile Learning Technology.

If you’d like to hear more about that or other ways the 1st90 platform is helping new managers get up to speed quickly, new leaders become better bosses or sales teams sell with purpose, contact us or talk to your Advantage partner. We’d love to show you the 1st90 habit-building platform.

Meanwhile, have you read Atomic Habits? Is it changing how you work? We’d love to hear from you about that!

One great thing for 08.16.22 – This algorithm makes you rich, fit, and smart.
James Clear on being the architect of your habits.