Page 38 - The Power to Change Anything

Find Vital Behaviors 27

This terse comment gave birth to his strategy: “Eat fewer
calories than I burn.” His plan, while effective at explaining
how weight is lost, doesn’t exactly inform his daily actions. In
fact, his strategy focuses on an outcome, not on behaviors.
What he’s really saying is that if he does something right, as a
result of his efforts he’ll burn more calories than he eats. What
he has to do is still unknown.
Confusing outcomes with behaviors is no small issue. In
fact, when you look at most failed influence strategies, you’re
likely to find at least one example of means/ends confusion. For
instance, your neighbor attends a seminar on problem solving
with teenagers. She’s told that in order to commence the high-
risk conversation on the right foot, she needs to “establish a
good relationship.” That’s it. That’s what she’s supposed to do.
She’s given this counsel by a coach who actually believes that
he’s providing her with behavioral advice. In truth, your neigh-
bor is actually being told what to achieve, not what to do. What
the advice is really suggesting is: “Do something; we’re not sure
what it is, but do something that results in a good relationship.”
In a sense, this was the problem Wiwat faced when he first
started his campaign. He was told by the specialists he con-
sulted to make sure that people understood the problem they
were facing. Disease breeds in ignorance, so he set off on an
information-sharing campaign.
“The dreaded disease is coming. Beware, the disease is
coming. Soon one in four of us will be infected!”
What the enormously important campaign didn’t clarify
was what people were actually supposed to do. Without specific
behaviors, Wiwat and his team were also unable to take steps to
ensure that the public did whatever it was that they were sup-
posed to do. It turns out that without a behavioral focus, people
didn’t choose to enact the right behaviors, and the spread of the
disease only worsened. Based on the chilling information that
was being blasted from every street corner, Thai citizens were
indeed more worried; but the disease transmission rate actually