Every day, we engage in activities and behaviours we are not consciously choosing.
For example, your morning routine.
Morning routines like getting out of bed, getting dressed, or brushing your teeth happen almost automatically. You might even order a latte and a cookie without realizing you’re not hungry. Around 80% of our behaviour is driven by implicit memory, operating outside conscious awareness.
That’s why you can implement a change in your organization, train people on a new activity or behaviour, and not see the expected results.
You think it’s resistance. It’s not.
The real issue lies in a critical, often-overlooked phase of the change process that happens after implementation: steady state.
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How the Brain Responds to Change
To understand why change doesn’t stick, it’s important to recognize three key characteristics of the brain.
First, the brain’s primary purpose is survival, making it naturally risk-averse. It prefers to keep us in our current state rather than venture into the unknown.
Second, the brain acts as a prediction machine. It is constantly and unconsciously processing information to anticipate what will happen next. This ability helps us avoid danger and navigate risk, often before our conscious brain is even aware. For example, jumping out of the way just before a car narrowly passes.
Our brain also uses prediction to enable more mundane activities, like anticipating the next step when walking downstairs. If you have ever tripped because you anticipated a step that wasn’t there, you know what it’s like when the prediction fails.
However, when it comes to changing, our brain’s prediction ability can get in the way. That’s because the brain bases its predictions on what has happened in the past. So, if you encounter something new or different, your brain will react based on your experience with a similar situation.
And because your brain’s primary purpose is survival, your default will be to stay in the current state, and question the need and assess the risk of doing something differently.
Third, the brain is energy-conscious. It wants to do the most work with the least amount of energy. That’s why it’s so quick to form habits. Once a behaviour becomes routine, the brain shifts it to autopilot, reducing the need for active thinking. This efficiency is helpful, but it is also what makes developing new habits more difficult.
Why Implementation Alone Isn’t Enough
These brain tendencies explain why implementation doesn’t lead to sustainable change.
Even when people consciously adopt new behaviours during implementation, those behaviours won’t last unless they are reinforced and embedded.
True change requires consciously uncoupling from existing habits and building new neural pathways. This process begins before implementation, continues through discovery, and continues through active engagement during implementation. However, without reinforcement, people will naturally revert to old routines.
The Role of Steady State in Sustainable Change
The steady-state phase is when the new behaviours and activities become embedded into your operation. Like brushing your teeth each morning, the new activities no longer require conscious effort; they become habits.
Skipping or rushing this phase can have serious consequences. New behaviours may fail to stick, reducing the likelihood of achieving desired outcomes. It can also increase the risk that future change initiatives will fail, as people begin to doubt the organization’s ability to implement change. Over time, individuals may even learn to avoid change altogether.
Sustainable change doesn’t end at implementation. It’s only complete when you have integrated those new behaviours into how people work and operate every day.
If your organization is struggling to make change stick, let’s chat. Book your Change Strategy Call with me today.
