Our willpower can be weak when faced with temptation.
But according to management consultant Peter Bregman the more people are pressured to do something they’ve chosen not to do, the stronger their resolve grows.
A surprising strategy
To help people sustain change and stick to a decision, Bregman says, try tempting them out of it. Enticing someone to break a commitment can be a great tool to help them maintain their commitment. Why?
Because in addition to having made a choice – to get to work an hour earlier, for instance – taunting people and suggesting they amble in when they want, can make them reluctant to break a commitment. No-one wants to be the person who caves in to peer pressure.
Make it fun
When you’re egged on to do the wrong thing and the stakes are high, your resistance is greater.
If everyone knows you’re on diet and you eat the dessert your client foists on you, you won’t live it down. This approach has broad application. Do you have a co-worker who wants to speak less in meetings? Try egging him on.
A team leader who wants to leave work at a decent time? Prod her at 5pm with her incomplete to-do list. The brilliance of this psychology is that it can make work more fun.
And successfully withstanding pressure also builds confidence in people’s commitment. Remember that to make this an effective strategy and keep it good-natured, the commitment the person wants to make needs to be self-motivated and the person doing the ribbing needs to be a trusted friend who doesn’t abuse positional power.
