PEOPLE DON’T CHANGE BECAUSE WE TELL THEM TO. DRIVING BEHAVIOUR IS OUR SECRET WEAPON.
Javier Bajer is best defined as a Cultural Architect. He spent the last 20 years helping organisations and cities change old habits, allowing their strategies to work. With both theoretical and practical understandings of what makes people engage and behave in certain ways, Javier creates award-winning interventions that produce change in record times.
Telling people to engage, collaborate or innovate is like warning someone about a speed limit. It becomes a sign in the road that reminds us to avoid getting a ticket. Once far enough from the camera, we revert to our old behaviours.Behaviours are outcomes, not inputs. To change actions, we need to change beliefs. And that requires a very different approach. I believe in smart interventions that quickly nudge old habits into new behaviours.
Javier Bajer is Founder & CEO of The Talent Foundation and a former Senior Executive at Accenture in London. He works with a wide range of global organisations, ranging from HSBC to Buckingham Palace, to the City of Buenos Aires, and many others.
According to Javier Bajer, cultural change can last an eternity if he expects people to get involved with his strategy due to a new slogan, a speech at a public meeting, a company-wide survey followed by “empowerment” meetings or the announcement of a new bond structure. These traditional approaches can not really work because behaviors are outcomes, not inputs. Treating them as inputs can only produce small changes and it is difficult to justify investments.
However, this change will happen much faster if you create a coherent environment where new beliefs are reinforced. If you build a shared mental model (mentality) where the purpose and benefit can naturally coexist and develop a large-scale leadership that helps each person acquire property as they begin to drive changes that add value in everything they touch.
Javier Bajer is an active fellow of the RSA, the Editor-in-Chief for Strategic HR Review, a professor of culture change at Universidad de San Andrés, and a Visiting Fellow of the Business School at the University of Surrey.
His speaking style quickly engages audiences to think differently, not only about their organisations, but also about themselves. People are left with an urge to act right after the event.
