During a recent workshop, we were discussing unintended cultural norms and took the opportunity to create a conditioned response to demonstrate our discussion in real time. This wasn’t something we had initially planned to do, rather an opportunity to offer some insight into how easy it is in a short time frame to create dependencies on people/reminders.

So how did we do this?

At the first break we set the expectation of it being a 25-minute break and wrote the time to be back on the flipchart as a visual prompt. Once we got close to the 25-minute mark we reminded them of the time and called them back in the room so we could restart on time. The second break arrived, and we reset the timescale expectation and wrote the time to be back on a flipchart as we had before. During the break we were discussing everything we’d observed/discussed and realised we had an opportunity to create an example, so we removed the reminder and call to return. As you have probably guessed, very few people returned ready to start at the set time (7% to be exact). As time went on we realised, though the experiment was interesting and enjoyable, we also had an agenda to get through. We decided to use the visual queue of us hanging around the doorway in hopes that someone would notice and begin the mass return into to the room. This worked!  Once everyone had taken their seats, we asked them what time they’d been asked to return. An uncomfortable murmur spread round the room as people started to notice it was now 15 minutes after that time. To which we explained what we’d done and offered the following insight into creating cultures.

Workplaces rarely set out to create passive cultures, it happens gradually over time, often through ‘helpful’ prompts. These are usually intended to remind someone they have a commitment, speed up response times or increase the chances of something getting done/completed. The initial prompt was never intended to create a dependency but unfortunately that’s what happens. It creates a reinforcing loop and a comfort that, in a daily battle to remember a growing list of things, someone else can be relied upon to nudge some of that list. The downside to these seemingly helpful reminders is that it creates an environment where people switch off and allow someone else to take the responsibility which should lie with the performer.

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