If you want to change any person’s behavior, you must take into account that everyone goes through 3 phases on the way to achieving the new behavior (see Figure 6.1). First is the Awareness phase, then the Knowledge/Skills phase, and finally the Apply phase.

In the Awareness phase, your learners need to understand why it’s important to change and why it’s important to master new knowledge and skills. Once your learners understand why they have to change or use new knowledge and skills, they ask: “OK, I understand why, but how do I do that?”

The Knowledge and Skills phase starts now. In this phase, your learners need information about how to change their behavior or how to do things. After learners master this phase, you can expect that they can successfully work on their behavioral change by using the new knowledge and skills. This is the Apply phase.

If you skip any phase, your learners will not be successful in the long term. Just giving your learners new knowledge without a clear explanation of why they must learn it and why it’s important in their daily lives doesn’t make sense. And teaching only new skills and knowledge does not guarantee your learners will use it in their daily life. Before you can focus on the Apply phase and your learners can transfer learning into application, the first two phases cannot be skipped. You can change behavior, but you cannot change the order of the phases needed for behavioral change:

1. Awareness.
2. Knowledge and Skills.
3. Apply.

If you feel comfortable with the 3 phases of behavior change, it will be easier for you to select content. If you match the purpose of each phase to the message, the different medium or the type of messages is going to be correct.

WORKING ON AWARENESS

When you work on the design of the media and the messages for the Awareness phase of your reinforcement program, use the definition of awareness: the state of being conscious of something; understanding the “Why?” question.

While creating a program that will result in impact within your organization, ask yourself: “Does it help my learners answer the ‘Why?’ question?” Table 6.1 offers some examples.

If your reinforcement program is based on a training event, your sources should be within the training materials, especially for the Awareness phase. Are you using mnemonics techniques? Recall from Chapter 2 that memories and emotions are produced and stored by different parts of the brain. The hippocampus produces and stores your memories, and your amygdala is responsible for your emotions.

If you use the same images, sayings, wordings, or expressions in the reinforcement program that were used in the training, your learners’ hippocampus and amygdala work together to remember their feelings and emotions about the topic. In my analysis of many training programs over the years, I have noticed many of these techniques being used in the first part of a training, when the facilitator works on awareness and answers the learners’ question: “Why do I need this training event?” Your use of the training materials in your reinforcement program will be effective and powerful.

ASSESSING KNOWLEDGE

Gaining knowledge does not automatically lead to behavioral change, although I agree that knowledge is needed for behavioral change. For that reason, the second phase is the “Knowledge and Skills phase.” What is the right balance for your reinforcement program?

When you create a reinforcement program for behavior change, you can just check the knowledge level necessary. What is key for the learners to know for each objective? In the 10-step approach to determine a reinforcement objective, the eighth step focuses on the key knowledge needed. Normally, you don’t need to ask a lot of knowledge questions; a reinforcement program is not an assessment tool. Creating good questions is time-consuming and not easy.

I have seen programs that require learners to answer 15 to 20 quiz questions, and then the platform shows the percentage correct and incorrect. Based on their scores, learners receive additional content to increase their knowledge about the content where they scored low. That is not reinforcement, but a mechanism to select specific training content.

As you build your foundation, don’t mix a reinforcement program with a form of micro learning. I like them to be separate in the design phase, but combined while helping the learner grow. If your reinforcement program is aligned with the 3 phases of behavior change, a knowledge check is included. Is the knowledge level high enough to move forward to the Apply phase? Or is the knowledge level too low and blocking any successful behavior change? If the knowledge level is too low, you can offer the learners additional micro learning if needed for behavior change. Treat this as a separate program and an add-on to your reinforcement program focused on knowledge and assessments.

I mentioned the importance of a knowledge check before moving to the next phase. I have seen good results and a successful behavior change if the learner’s score on questions answered correctly for key knowledge is 75 percent or higher.

APPLYING REINFORCEMENT WITH THE DO-DID-GO APPROACH

When you work on the Apply phase, your focus is on assignments, evaluations, and reflections. A proven approach is the “DO-DID-GO Approach,” consisting of three connected reinforcement messages.

In the Apply phase, you ask your learners to do something. Of course, a specific assignment should be based on the verb in the reinforcement objective. It’s important that this assignment be focused on the future. For example, “For the next week, you . . .” or “During the next two meetings, you . . .” or “In the next team meeting, you. . . .”

The second message is a did message, focused on the past. You ask the learners to look back and evaluate their performance on the reinforcement objective.

When you ask the learners to look back in the past, you increase the difficulty of the assignment. For example, “Last week we asked you to. . . . How did it go? Did you notice XYZ? For the next week, only focus on X.” Or “In the last team meeting, you. . . . Did you use ABC? For the next team meeting, only focus on C.”

DO-DID-GO

If you look at the structure of the did messages, you will see that they are based on the first meeting but have a specific focus. The second part of these messages is a new assignment based on the point just made.

The reason for a two-part message is simple: Not all learners will complete the first do assignment. It doesn’t make sense to ask for self-reflection if the learners did not complete an assignment. So, you give the learners who “forgot” the first assignment a second chance. You honor the learners who completed the first assignment by making the second assignment more specific.

After the do and did messages, the learners are ready for the evaluation and self-reflection during the go message. You can decide what reflection you want to use. The learners should write down their findings in learning journals or complete their action plans or make an appointment with their leader to share their learning or complete a survey or write an answer to an open-ended question or evaluate their own performance in other ways. Always check any questions against your measurement plan.

KNOWING HOW LONG EACH PHASE SHOULD LAST

Another question that you may have while employing the first principle is: “How do you determine the length of each phase?”

It depends. If your reinforcement program is based on a training event, you can start with an analysis of that specific training. Check the training goals, look at your timetable, and analyze how the different topics are spread out over time. Your goal is to understand how much time is spent on each topic and why the program is designed as it is.

Check the exercises that the learners did during the training event and estimate the impact on the learners’ brains. What was the structure, and what was the balance among awareness, learning, and applying? It is important to analyze the training event prior to building the foundation for reinforcement because:

• Reinforcement is not retraining.
• Reinforcement is not remembering.
• Reinforcement drives behavioral change.

Your reinforcement program drives behavioral change. If you create a retraining program or a reminder program, you can use the same proportions as were used in the training program. Reuse the training content and follow the structure of that training event.

If you create a reinforcement program based on a training event to drive behavior change, your understanding of that training event’s structure is crucial. If the facilitator of the training event spent enough time and effort on awareness, you don’t need to repeat all of that information in your reinforcement program. Or if the facilitator spent a lot of time on new knowledge and skills during the training event, you don’t need to retrain the learners in your reinforcement program.

If you carefully consider the focus of the training event compared to the focus of your reinforcement program, your reinforcement program should be almost the opposite of the training event. In Figure 6.2 you see the time spent in a training event compared with the time spent in a reinforcement program per phase of behavior change.

Over the last decade, I have analyzed many reinforcement programs and have seen all the variations you can think of. The lazy program designers divide the content from a training event into small pieces and use a technical platform or their own learning management system to send this segmented content to the learners over time. That is not reinforcement. That is just sending out training content.

If the training event is well structured and the facilitator guides your learners according to the training event’s established timetable, you can use the following balance of the 3 phases for your reinforcement training:

• 15 percent Awareness.
• 25 percent Knowledge and Skills.
• 60 percent Apply.

As you analyze the training event, you can adjust if needed. Be careful not to build an assessment tool or a retraining or recall program.

EVEN A LOSS IS A WIN

If you compare sports tournaments with your role as a reinforcement specialist, what similarities do you see? When I was an athlete, I saw all tournaments as indispensable reflection moments. Of course, I wanted to win the gold medal for every tournament. But looking back at my sports career, I lost more tournaments than I won. As my coach always told me after I had lost a tournament, “You learn more from the tournaments you lose.” (And then he probably added in his mind, “If you analyze the loss correctly.”)

You cannot lose going to a tournament. Either you win a medal and receive a confirmation that the way you trained was good, or you analyze your loss to gain valuable insights about where to improve. I never had this view when I was a top athlete; I was disappointed by every loss. During my growth period, I went to lots of tournaments and hardly won a match, but that was not a reason to skip tournaments. I learned from every reflection.

I have created some small “principle tournaments.” Challenge yourself in this assessment and see whether you win a medal or gain valuable insights about where you need to improve. Don’t skip this assessment.