This is a really quick post, but it addresses something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I just read this article that starts out talking about how changing the environment can be key to changing behavior (How Brain Science Can Save You From The Wrong Job found via the Eide Neurolearning Blog).

In the training field, we usually focus on changing the person – having them know more, or having them acquire skills. My struggle with this is the continuing force of evidence that I keep seeing about the importance of the environment in a person succeeding or failing.

This may seem self-evident (Duh – environment matters.), but I don’t see a very sophisticated conversation about this in Learning & Development (maybe I need to go hang out with the performance improvement folks more and see what they are talking about).

For example, we have an enormous amount of attention (academics, government and industry) focused on dealing with the increasing rates of obesity, and the vast majority of them focus on changing individual behavior.  A vastly greater percent of the population is obese now compared to 40 years ago, but people are not fundamentally different now.  Their genetics, brain function and physiology are not significantly different.  What is very different is their environment — all the triggers and cues in the environment are the things that have changed — food options, physical demands of daily life, entertainment options.

The response to the obesity epidemic is almost always about getting individuals to change their own behavior, which is like pushing mud uphill. If we are serious about actual behavior change being our goal as L&D professionals, do we need to start addressing environment as part of the process?

So, what do you all think?  Why do you think we fail to address that?  Is it a political thing in organizations (i.e. Not My Job)? Is it too hard to get influence over the environment?

What would be the best way to incorporate a discussion of the environmental support of behavior change in the the conversation?

Hey Twin Cities folks,

I’m doing the Why Your Brain Loves Video Games & The Implications for e-Learning presentation at the Digital Learning Forum next week (April 11 6:45 pm).

All the relevant information is here: http://digitallearningforum.com/ and it’s FREE (who doesn’t love free?)

(And for MN PACT folks, I’ll be the May speaker there next month, in between Tom Kuhlman in April  and Elliot Masie in June, which is pretty heady company).