Want to change behaviors? Forget education.

Here's my premise: If you want to change core behaviors, forget education or training. Neither one will do the job. It may sound shocking, but you already know this is true. You know you can teach a kid all day long how to clean up his room, but until he fears the consequences of not doing it more than he dreads the drudgery of doing it, he won't do it. You can train an employee step by step on how to properly handle the package/liquid/customer/whatever, but until her desire to do it differently exceeds her comfort level with her habitual approach, she won't do it the way you want her to. Show as many films, provide as many lectures, give as much instruction as you want, but behaviors change only when the motivation is sufficient. It's not about knowledge. It's not even about learning. It's about core motives. And it takes a whole lot of motivation to change established behaviors.

Why am I bringing this up? Because it seems to me everyone in education and training is missing a major tool in the toolbox when it comes to behavior change. To a man who has only a hammer, it's been said, every problem looks like a nail. And I'm thinking that there are a lot of bolts and screws and wing nuts being hammered out there in our field, problems being solved with classes and online training courses and instructional seminars, when there is another tool, much more effective, at our fingertips. One that is proven to change behaviors.

This tool has been used, refined, improved, and finally proven beyond question for something like 50 years. No educator doubts its effectiveness. No training professional has any question about its power. But we never use it. Why not? Because it doesn't sound like training. It doesn't look like education. It doesn't pass the smell test. It won't fit into the centuries-old categories that allow us to feel comfortable doing our jobs. But if anyone had the guts to give it a try, I'd bet it would work. In fact, I am betting it will work--and I'm not likely to lose this one.

The tool I'm talking about is the advertisement. More specifically, the TV commercial.

Before you scratch your head and dismiss these as the ravings of a lunatic mind, give it a think. How many millions, billions of dollars are poured into television commercials every year? Why does that happen? Why do otherwise sane companies pay over a million dollars for 30 seconds of Super Bowl airtime? I'll tell you what you already know. It's because they expect an even bigger return. What is that return? A change in behaviors. Oh, you might say, they're just getting their name out there. It's about brand recognition. Well, I respond, that's the same thing. Name recognition that doesn't drive change is worthless. These commercials are driving change. These companies want, assume, and fully expect that if they can get the right message in front of millions of people, some significant percentage of them will, if not immediately then soon, change their behaviors and buy a different product. Their product. And they are almost never disappointed. It simply works. If it didn't, the whole thing would collapse.

But the key phrase is, "the right message." You won't see the sophisticated behavior-changers yelling about how many Camrys are available for how much down and how much a month. You will see them presenting an attractive image. A feel. A sensibility about a product that suggests it's cool, it's important, it's right, it's delightful--it's attractive--to make this change. Good commercials toy with your core motivations. Your identity. They make you want to change. And they know how to do it.

They also know how not to do it. They stay as far away from education and training as possible. When was the last time you saw a commercial that seriously educated you on the particulars of the product in question? Not one that left you aware of the particulars (that buttery-soft leather interior!) but one that took even a remotely somber training approach, a textbook approach, to detailing the facts about the product. (Our leather is made from the hide of cows. The tanning process begins just after slaughter...) Nobody does that. Why not? Because it won't change your behaviors. It is an odd and ironic thing that companies spend millions upon millions getting just the right message out to customers in bite-sized, delightful nuggets, knowing it will pay off, while at the same time slathering their own employees with coat after coat of deadly dull, heavy, and tedious training that doesn't work well by anyone's measure.

What am I suggesting? Simply this: if our goal is to change behaviors, we should never again go back to the dry well of painstakingly dull knowledge. Of course a knowledge base needs to be established, and we must teach. But when the goal is to change behavior, to get over the hump, to get people to want to institute the new processes, the new approaches, we should abandon the assumption that if our charges simply know it, or know how to do it, they will therefore do it. We should abandon even the assumption that if we tell them how important it is, they will do it. The fact is, there is a well-known and proven way to get them to want to change. We should be students of this field of knowledge. We should study commercials. We should camp out with the advertisers until we understand what makes the good ads good. And we should apply that knowledge to training and education.

And if we must make a video, we should consider spending our meager monies on 60 seconds of pure delight rather than 60 minutes of step-by-step tedium.