Thoughts on Habits – Both Good and Bad

Anyone scanning the entry dates in this Blog will note that the postings have not exactly been fast and furious. That’s annoying to me because the intention has been and still is to offer some regular comments and insights on topics of leadership, change and business improvement. The trouble is: I just have not gotten into the habit or routine of making entries, which is obviously essential to meeting that goal. (For some reason, the voice of Captain Kirk —— “Captain’s log, Star date …” comes to me.)

Habits are an interesting thing. Even though the topic seems to have been swamped by “7 Habits” mania, there still seems to be a lot of room to explore how they affect our behavior and effectiveness in our jobs and the success of any organization.

For some reason, most of what we’d call “good habits” require, at least to begin with, a meaningful dose of discipline. Even something as simple as saying “Please” and “Thank You” for most of us began with a lot of prompting (and annoying blank looks) from parents and other adults. The “habit” of posting to a Blog requires the discipline to do it on a regular basis—not something I’ve yet shown—and then convert that into something that comes naturally.

Many of the most important business or management habits are just the same. Establishing clear goals, for example, or communicating effectively require effort to get right and usually only become routine and “easy” after time and practice.

But the scary news is that the dark side of bad habits demands very little effort or practice at all. In English, the phrase “fall into bad habits” makes clear that all you need to do is let go, and down you tumble.… I’m not sure why the good is hard and the bad is easy, but it poses one of the most fundamental reasons why having a successful organization stay successful is so difficult.

So … Since I clearly need to work on my Blog-posting habit and since the concept of how habits, good and bad, provide a key to leading organizations in a fast-changing environment, I’m going to stick with this theme for a little while and connect it to some of the big issues we’re confronting today. My sense is it will be interesting and hopefully thought provoking.

But I’ll leave that to the next post – coming soon!