Changing Behaviour - At Least Externally

I just got back from driving on one of the major highways in the city. The speed limit is posted at 70 km/hour (44 miles/hour) and just about everybody was observing it! It wasn’t long ago that something like this would have been unthinkable. When I first moved here a friend told me that a red light meant “be careful as you drive through”. Most traffic laws were taken as friendly suggestions and largely ignored. Many of them still are, of course, but the situation is much improved over the old days. If you don’t remember the old days, visit Cairo and you’ll get a rough idea!

So how did the authorities manage to bring about this rather impressive transformation in societal behaviour? Looking back I can see some clear and rather well accepted principles applied.

The most important is that they started enforcing the rules. More police stationed at intersections. More radar controls for speed. Recently they have even installed cameras to photographs tag numbers of speeding automobiles. They have also significantly increased the fines for speeding and other offenses.

The other element that started long ago was communication. The highway ministry started a campaign to stop the “Traffic Monster” as a way of highlighting the danger that came from irresponsible driving.

Both of these together have had a positive impact. Through more consistent enforcement people have started to see a connection between their bad driving and the penalties they have to pay. The billboards and adverts then serve to explain to people a bit of what’s happening – why the changes make sense and are reasonable.

When I first started working in Turkey I saw similar changes in our supplier base. We wanted to purchase our products locally but realized the industry standards were way below what was required. So we began by having classes for potential suppliers, explaining to them what our needs were and offering them help in understanding the technical issues involved in producing to those standards. Then we gave out some orders and the suppliers confirmed our suspicion that their poor performance had little to do with technical issues. Those we had trained delivered terrible product that was very inconsistent.

We responded by inspecting every shipment very thoroughly and being absolutely merciless in our rejections. Our inspectors wouldn’t let the suppliers talk them into taking defective material. And between the two, explanation and enforcement, we were able in a pretty short period of time to develop a group of suppliers who understood what we wanted and who also believed that we would not accept less; that there would be consequences for providing bad material. At the same time we made a point of paying on time, and in many cases even paying part in advance. We wanted them to see too that working with us could be profitable for them.

I find it helpful to reflect on both of these experiences when I’m tempted to despair at Turkey ever making real change. It’s hard to be consistent. There’s a left turn lane near our home that is a monument to half-hearted enforcement. The highway department set it up using a new and better designed left turn lane and for two weeks stationed a police officer to show drivers how to use it. Then they gave up. I picture some enthusiastic young city planner designing that intersection and telling the police it can work, only to see half-hearted enforcement leading inevitably to failure, with the poor young planner blamed for a bad idea. A lot of really great innovations die this way.

Giving up on enforcement and standards is fatal if you want a group to change. You’ve got to be consistent. You’ve got to be fair and even handed. And you’ve got to communicate why the change is needed. Those things work just about anywhere. But of course, the bigger the change, the harder this all becomes.

If you have a small company and want your people to work to better standards this is what it will take. Determine what behaviour you need. Communicate the standards and the reason clearly. Enforce the standards consistently. Favouritism and unreasonable standards will both kill the change. But if your expectations are reasonable, if you communicate them well and if your enforcement is fair and consistent, you’ll be surprised what you really can accomplish. [good guess anonymous!]