Marina Gorbis's Blog, page 1435

European Tax Avoiders Stay One Step Ahead of Authorities

In an effort to curb tax evasion, in 2005 the European Union began requiring Swiss banks to withhold taxes in the amount of 15% on interest earned by EU households, but in many instances the initiative hasn’t led to greater tax compliance or the repatriation of funds to the depositors’ home countries, says Niels Johannesen of the University of Copenhagen. Instead, many depositors have simply adopted new tactics for avoiding taxation. Swiss bank deposits owned by EU residents declined by 30% to 40% relative to other Swiss bank deposits in the two quarters immediately before and after the tax was introduced, with much of the money going to accounts in offshore centers such as Panama and Macau, Johannesen says.

Nigeria’s GDP Just Doubled on Paper: What It Means in Practice

Earlier this week, Nigeria ascended to the position of Africa’s largest economy following a recalculation of its GDP by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics. The long overdue exercise (the last one was in 1990) nearly doubled the country’s economy pushing GDP up to $510bn from $270bn. There is a general consensus among economic analysts and commentators that the changes are merely cosmetic — they certainly do not affect the daily lives of most average Nigerians, and their timing might be politically motivated given the upcoming 2015 elections which are expected to be highly contested. However, from the perspective of managers and CEOs operating in Nigeria, there are some important implications.

First, there will be some changes in the competitive landscape. Nigeria’s Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala mentioned the “psychological impact” of the announcement on foreign investors. Before the announcement, the stock market capitalization to GDP ratio for Nigeria was 33%, compared to 270% for South Africa. Post announcement, the ratio is 18%. Emerging market investors looking for upside potential in Africa will look at those numbers with interest. At the same time, inbound foreign direct investment into Africa may become more comfortable with basing operations in Nigeria or using the country as an entry point into Africa. The result for managers presently in Nigeria is that they will likely face more competition for assets and human capital. To succeed, they will increasingly need to craft a differentiated strategy based on superior knowledge of the Nigerian market.

In providing a better picture of the Nigerian economy’s constitution, the rebasing calculations also highlight the growing importance the Nigerian (and African) consumer. Before the rebase, oil and gas represented 32% of the economy; under the new set of data it contributed 14%. Much of the balance comes from previously unreported, consumer-driven sectors. For example Nigeria’s Nollywood film, music, and mobile phone industries have experienced rapid growth over the past decade. Managers that can develop disruptive strategies to tap into this booming consumer market will place themselves in a good position for success in Nigeria. They will need to innovate on platforms for marketing and distribution in order to overcome the persistent infrastructural challenges that the country faces.

Finally, Nigeria’s rise to the position of Africa’s largest economy provides the perfect sales pitch for raising foreign capital and recruiting foreign talent. Managers and CEOs launching new ventures should exploit the opportunity market to attract new investors with relatively low familiarity to the Nigerian market. They should also take measures to build their talent pipeline by marketing aggressively to well-educated diaspora members and foreign talent abroad.

Nigeria’s GDP rebasing can indeed be considered an exercise in window dressing. But it also provides the perfect opportunity for companies already operating in the country to pause and rethink their strategy for long-term success in what will be a very important market for Africa and the world.

What Matters About Mozilla: Employees Led the Coup

Brendan Eich had been CEO of Mozilla only two weeks when he resigned under pressure last Thursday because he’d financially supported California’s Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage, in 2008. Whether you view his resignation as a form of mob rule that stifles free speech or as a necessary outcome for a mission-driven open-source organization that must maintain the goodwill of employees, one thing is clear: we are going to be seeing a lot more of this.

Two things stand out about the Mozilla case. First, the most critical voices came from within the organization. And second, employees’ protests zeroed in on the political activities of the CEO, not those of the organization. In a sense, it was like a recall election.

But what brought us to this point? Information and communication technologies such as social media have reduced the cost and increased the speed of collective action, from flash mobs to Tahrir Square. Consider the unbidden “Starbucks Appreciation Day” rallies by gun-toting supporters of open carry last August, for example, or apps that make it easier to boycott target companies such as Koch Industries.

The history of activism toward corporations shows a remarkable increase in agility. In 1991, the HR department of Tennessee-based restaurant chain Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores sent out a memo stating that the company would not employ those individuals “whose sexual preferences fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values,” and the company fired more than a dozen gay employees. The policy was later rescinded, but the New York City Employee Retirement System filed a shareholder proposal to explicitly adopt a policy against gay discrimination, which the company was unwilling to do. (It is still legal in 29 states for employers to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.) The SEC allowed the company to leave the proposal off its proxy ballot until May 1998, and in October of that year it finally appeared for a shareholder vote, where it lost by a substantial margin.

Contrast this several-year shareholder campaign with the recent experience of the Susan G. Komen For The Cure Foundation. When the Foundation announced on January 31, 2012 that it would no longer provide funds to Planned Parenthood to support breast cancer screenings for low-income women, it immediately generated a firestorm of opposition on social media, with over a million tweets sent within two days. By the end of that week it had reversed course and restored the funding, which in turn generated opposition among detractors of Planned Parenthood. The controversy continues to dog the foundation and its employees.

Employees are perhaps the most important constituents in these brouhahas, because they are the ones who have the most intense day-to-day engagement with the company and its values. (Look at how fervently they reacted when Eich assumed the top job at Mozilla.) And that engagement with values makes sense: Our employers are linked to our identities, after all. We’re often called on to be company representatives, expected to speak on behalf of our organizations, whether it’s our official job or not. When someone I meet learns that I teach at the University of Michigan, for example, I might be asked to explain the school’s stance on affirmative action. Corporate recruiters who visit business schools are asked not only about job opportunities but also about the company’s approach to carbon reduction, domestic partner benefits, human rights codes for suppliers, and policies around community engagement. Recruiters bring news back to their company about what the new talent is looking for, where it informs changes in practice.

Now combine this intense focus on social issues with the ease of obtaining information about things like CEO political contributions. A recent article in Administrative Science Quarterly (the journal I edit) reports that new CEOs who had a prior history of donating to Democrats tended to increase the firm’s corporate social responsibility efforts more than Republican CEOs did. Firms that appointed Democrats to the top job increased their contributions to Democratic PACs; those that appointed Republicans increased contributions to Republican PACs.

How did the researchers know about CEOs’ political proclivities? By compiling 10 years’ worth of data on their campaign contributions, which are public record. (If you want to find out your CEO’s political donation history, go here.) In short, political contributions, like Eich’s donation to the Prop 8 campaign, are an open book — very easy to find online and aggregate.

Of course, it’s not just political contributions that are so readily available. As Facebook activity, tweets, blog posts, and other online traces of one’s orientation become a true permanent record, we might expect to see prospective CEOs thoroughly vetted on their politics before being offered the job. As with politicians, one errant tweet many years back might turn out to be disqualifying.

Boycotts against organizations are nothing new. But thanks to technology, it’s easier for employees, investors, donors, and customers to engage in social movements aimed at companies and nonprofits. Those organizations, in turn, are finding themselves dragged into political debates they might prefer to avoid.

Which Messages Go Viral and Which Ones Don’t

A recent study demonstrated that we can successfully predict which messages will go viral and which will not. This study showed that the ideas that are destined to spread have a characteristic signature at their origin — that is, quite literally, within the brain of the sender. These messages specifically activate key regions in two circuits in the sender’s brain: the “reward” circuit, which registers the value of the message to the sender, and the “mentalizing” circuit, which activates when we see things from the point of view of the person who receives the message. From the moment we first formulate a message, these two factors play a key role in whether or not they will go viral. The more you value an idea that you want to spread, the more likely you are to be successful at spreading it.  In addition, the more accurately you can predict how others will feel about the message, the more likely you are to be successful at spreading this idea. These findings are profound because they imply that we can predict which messages will go viral and which ones will not based on these two factors. If this is the case, how can you optimize both of these factors in the messages that you would like to spread in your business?

Let’s take a look at “value.” On the surface, it would seem that any idea that you want to spread is one that you might value, but have you really examined this value enough to communicate the essence of it? For example, if you are a biotechnology fund manager who wants to communicate the importance of investing in biotechnology, you may think that your value is in your recent success in investing for shareholders, but if you are a reasonable person, you will likely also have doubts about this. Hence, the value that you create for shareholders will create a value “x” that will activate your own reward center. But this activation will not be as large as when you also register that your actual value is that you are investing in helping to cure people from their illnesses or shorten their durations of suffering (”y”).  You may not be right all the time, but if this is your genuine reward, your brain’s reward circuit will be activated because this will always be true. Also, if you really recognize how emotionally satisfying this will be to you, this will provide further value and activate the reward center even more (“z”). Thus value has financial, social and emotional implications, all of which can add up (x + y + z) to enhance activation of the reward center of your brain.

Similarly, the degree to which you can predict the way your audience will feel may also involve multiple dimensions. How will they feel about the fact that you have a history of success in biotechnology investing? How will they feel about their own investment in the well-being of the world? Do they care about communicating this to their families? Would they be excited about the rapid advancements in this field and seeing the newness of the opportunity? Here again, these different aspects of how your audience thinks will help to accentuate the activation in your mentalizing circuit — where you form a mental picture of the audience’s needs and wants.

In addition to these factors, the study also showed that regardless of personal preference, if you have the explicit intention to spread a message, the message is more likely to spread. For example, for that same biotechnology investor, it would make a difference if he or she actually wanted to spread the message rather than just passively feeling that the message is valuable. This implies that it matters when you think of how a message can be useful to others rather than simply thinking about yourself.

All three factors (value, mentalizing, and intention to spread) point to the fact that the social currency of a message matters at the very source of the message.  If the message has value and takes into account the needs of others, and if you are committed to spreading this message, it is more likely to reach many more people than if you were just communicating a message that you were excited about.

Improve Decision-Making With Help From the Crowd

Most decisions in organizations are made by escalating them up the management hierarchy — and it’s usually the highest paid person in the room’s opinion (“HIPPO”) that prevails. The HIPPO model of decision-making will likely always be with us. But with the rise of digital technology, and with it the ability to get immediate feedback from customers and communities, crowdsourcing has become a powerful alternative for driving important decisions. The challenge is finding the right ways to introduce crowdsourcing into your management processes so that it opens up and democratizes decisions, harvesting the accumulated thoughts and perspectives from your customers and across your organization — but without bogging things down.

Consider these three examples from the frontiers of management:

Funding decisions at most organizations are made by senior management or maybe an independent panel. “Crowdfunding” relies instead on “the crowd” to make decisions by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, usually an online community of volunteers. Kickstarter is one of a growing number of crowdfunding platforms for gathering money from the public to fund all sorts of projects.

IBM saw these online social systems for investing in new ventures and decided they would like to develop a similar system internally for selecting innovative projects. In January 2013 they created “IBM iFundIT,” a program in which volunteers decide where to spend seed money using an intranet site for proposing ideas, commenting, volunteering, and funding. Instead of the typical process where technology projects are picked by a review board, people in IBM’s IT community can participate as submitters, backers, and evaluators. Employees submit their projects to a community and promote them through IBM’s Facebook-like internal social networks. Funding is raised over a period of eight weeks. 600 volunteer investors had up to $2,000 each to invest in the project(s) of their choice. Over 1,000 IBMers participated from 30 countries, applying to get part of the seed fund of $300,000. 160 projects were submitted and 20 reached their funding targets ($10,000-$30,000).

Given the success of the program in 2013, IBM’s CIO decided to invest $7 million to expand iFundIT in 2014. This expansion shows how social networking systems have begun to cross over from the consumer world to corporations to drive innovation. Not only does this approach give more control to employees, it results in innovative projects that are launched in a matter of weeks, not months.

New product development is traditionally approached by researching and developing new products in laboratories, take prototypes to customers for their reactions, and then go to production. Software companies have developed an alternative approach (“Agile” and “Scrum”) that uses rapid cycle testing of product features to see what customers like. Customers, instead of engineers or managers, make decisions on product designs in an ongoing dialogue.

For a number of years IBM has provided a forum to exchange new ideas for IT systems and apps: the “Technology Adoption Program” is a website where innovators can test their projects with early adopters and prove business value through adoption. Within the apps world it is almost impossible for smart managers to decide which app is a good idea in advance. A good idea is usually figured out after the fact, not before. (Who would have thought Candy Crush would take off the way it did?) When it comes to new products and services, customers are the key to success. So rather than have managers look at product ideas and pick the best solution, IBM provides a Technology Adoption Platform for employees to put up new apps, and then they measure use and let the wisdom of crowds make decisions on what goes forward.

What you work on is decided by bosses in almost all companies. But not at Valve Software, creators of video games (Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal), a game engine, and online gaming platform. Founder and CEO Gabe Newell says, “In 1996, we set out to make great games, but we knew back then that we had to first create a…place where incredibly talented individuals are empowered to put their best work into the hands of millions of people, with very little in their way.” They’ve been boss-free since 1996. “We don’t have any management, and nobody ‘reports to’ anybody else,” says Valve’s handbook for new employees. Newbies aren’t told where to work. Instead, they are expected to decide on their own where they can contribute most. Most desks at Valve are on wheels, so after figuring out what they want to do, workers push their desks to the group they want to join. There are no titles. Reviews happen by peers, and structure emerges. It may sound crazy and extreme, but it’s a useful benchmark question to ask the next time you’re stuck in a bureaucratic argument between functional silos: “What if we all had a shared objective to do the right thing for the customer?” In this case, though, the crowd is the community of employees, and the approach is about empowering workers, increasing speed, and eliminating waste.

In a world where continuous innovation is increasingly critical and organizations must move at the pace of software companies, competitive success — perhaps even survival — requires moving beyond exclusive use of hierarchical decision-making, drawing on the power of crowdsourcing and markets wherever possible. As my colleague Steve Stanton observed, “The combination of multiple perspectives offers a wider set of possibilities than simple seniority. Of course crowds can be wrong, or turn into thoughtless mobs, but if the process is designed carefully, with the right checkpoints and safeguards in place, crowdsourcing can bring fresh insights for wider consideration.” These examples show just a few ways your management processes (e.g., planning, budgeting, recruiting, and training) could be reengineered.

This revolution in decision-making processes will challenge conventional management approaches and shift power from your current leaders to employees and customers. It will surely meet resistance. The critical question is, will today’s leaders be willing to give more say to employees and customers, as IBM and Valve have? It will take trust in the cumulative wisdom of your customers and employees. For many organizations, this may take a long time, but for some, the revolution is already underway.

Why Your Analytics are Failing You

Many organizations investing millions in big data, analytics, and hiring quants appear frustrated. They undeniably have more and even better data. Their analysts and analytics are first-rate, too. But managers still seem to be having the same kinds of business arguments and debates — except with much better data and analytics. The ultimate decisions may be more data-driven but the organizational culture still feels the same. As one CIO recently told me, “We’re doing analytics in real-time that I couldn’t even have imagined five years ago but it’s not having anywhere near the impact I’d have thought.”

What gives? After facilitating several Big Data and analytics sessions with Fortune 1000 firms and spending serious time with organizations that appear quite happy with their returns on analytic investment, a clear “data heuristic” has emerged. Companies with mediocre to moderate outcomes use big data and analytics for decision support; successful ROA—Return on Analytics—firms use them to effect and support behavior change. Better data-driven analyses aren’t simply “plugged-in” to existing processes and reviews, they’re used to invent and encourage different kinds of conversations and interactions.

“We don’t do the analytics or business intelligence stuff until management identifies the behaviors we want to change or influence,” says one financial services CIO. “Improving compliance and financial reporting is the low-hanging fruit. But that just means we’re using analytics to do what we are already doing better.”

The real challenge is recognizing that using big data and analytics to better solve problems and/or make decisions obscures the organizational reality that new analytics often requires new behaviors. People may need to share and collaborate more; functions may need to set up different or complementary business processes; managers and executives may need to make sure existing incentives don’t undermine analytic-enabled opportunities for growth and efficiencies.

For example, at one medical supply company, integrating the analytics around “most profitable customers” and “most profitable products” has required a complete re-education of the account sales and technical support teams both for “upsetting” and “educating” clients on higher value-added offerings. The company realized that these analytics shouldn’t simply be used to support existing sales and services practices but treated as an opportunity to facilitate a new kind of facilitative and consultative sales and support organization.

The quality of big data and analytics, ironically, mattered less than the purpose to which they were put. The most interesting tensions and arguments consistently revolved around whether the organization would reap the greatest returns from using analytics to better optimize existing process behaviors or get people to behave differently. But the rough consensus was that the most productive conversations centered on how analytics changed behaviors rather than solved problems.

“Most people in our organization do better with history lessons than with math lessons,” one consumer product analytics executive told me. “It’s easier for people to understand how new information and metrics should change how they do things than getting them to understand the underlying algorithms … We’ve learned the hard way that “over-the-wall” data and analytics isn’t the way for our internal customers to get value from our work.”

Getting the right answer—or even Asking the Right Question—turns out not to be the dominant concern of high ROA enterprises. The questions, the answers—the data and the analytics—are undeniably important. But how those questions, answers and analytics align, or conflict, with individual and institutional behaviors matters more. Sometimes, even the best analytics can provoke counterproductive behaviors. Don’t fail your analytics.

Four Ways to Adapt to an Aging Workforce

Calls to maximize the utility of older workers — by honoring experience, providing training opportunities, and offering flexible work and retirement options — began to sound at least a decade ago. HBR contributors have suggested we “retire retirement”  and “adapt for an aging workforce.”

But proposing reform is one thing. Instituting it is another. Have companies followed through? Our analysis suggests that some are starting to. We’ve found four best practices for accommodating older workers that should serve as a model for other organizations:

Flexible, half-retirement. Although retirement reform remains stagnant at the policy level, companies are being more proactive about modifying employee exit schemes. For example, Scripps Healthcare has installed a phased-retirement program: Retirees work part time, while drawing a portion of their retirement funds, so they still effectively earn a full salary and benefits. Meanwhile the company avoids having to hire expensive temporary workers and retains talented employees in areas where skills are scarce. WellStar Health System offers a similar option for employees who have been with the company at least ten years.
Prioritizing older-worker skills in hiring and promotions. Companies like Vodafone are putting more emphasis on employees’ loyalty, track records, competence and common sense, all commonly found in older workers. Vita Needle does the same, noting that loyal older employees not only enhance the company’s reputation, but also yield higher quality work and attention to detail. B&Q (winner of the 2006 “Age Positive Retailer of the Year” Award) says that it hires for soft skills , such as conscientiousness, enthusiasm and customer rapport, which senior workers also seem to show in abundance, while Home Depot famously looks to older store clerks for the experience-based know-how that customers demand. And these aren’t just perceptions: A report from the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College has found that, compared to younger workers, older workers do have higher levels of respect, maturity and networking ability.
Creating new positions or adapting old ones. Migros Geneva retrains employees for jobs that better suit their aging skillsets—for example teaching a 58-year-old former cashier to be a customer service representative—as outlined in this article. Marriott’s Flex Options for Hourly Workers program offers a similar service, helping 325,000 older “associates” around the world transition out of physically taxing roles by teaching them new skills on the job, while United Technologies invests $60 million dollars annually in its Employee Scholar Program. And Michelin rehires retirees to help oversee projects, foster community relations, and facilitate intergenerational mentoring. This strategy works at the executive level, too. HPEV, the intellectual property and product development company, recently formed a Strategic Advisory Board headed by a recent retiree, Dick Schul, recognizing the value of his 43 years’ experience in the industry. Other companies, such as ExecBrainTrust, specialize in matching recently retired executives with temporary consulting roles.
Changing workplace ergonomics. Although not all older workers are feeble, companies can and should adapt for those who need some extra support. BMW has made inexpensive tweaks to workplace ergonomics for older employees (think wooden assembly-line floors, custom shoes and easier-to-read computer screens), as described in this post.  Another example comes from Xerox, which recently introduced a training program to teach better ergonomic health strategies and raise awareness about the normal aging process. Unilever UK has also instituted a wellness program designed to prolong the working life of its older employees.

Companies that make these changes have seen tangible improvements in retention and productivity, organizational culture, and the bottom line. Since B&Q began actively recruiting older workers, its staff turnover has decreased by a factor of six, while short-term absenteeism is down 39%. Leaders say its growing ranks ofolder employees have been integral in creating a friendlier, more conscientious work environment. And profits are up 18%. Following its ergonomic changes, BMW has seen productivity jump 7% and its assembly line defect rate drop to zero. United Technologies has boosted its older worker retention rate by 20%, and Unilever UK estimates that it gains six euros in productivity for every one euro spent on wellness. Companies with high over-50 employment rates—at both the staff and executive level—are also proving to be leaders in their respective industries. Michelin and WellStar Health System are two examples.

Given demographic trends in the developing world, corporate workforces are set to age significantly in the next few decades. Is your organization ready to adapt?

In France, Grape Growers Use Price to Punish Nontraditional Winemakers

Economists would have you believe that prices are determined by economic forces, but sometimes they’re used as rewards and punishments. In France, many of the 15,000 Champagne grape growers charge less to those among the 66 Champagne makers that fit the traditional mold of being old and independently managed by descendants of the founders, and that don’t produce supermarket brands. Makers that violate these unspoken rules typically have to pay as much as several euros per kilogram more for grapes, a substantial markup, given that the average price is 9 euros, say Amandine Ody-Brasier of Yale and Freek Vermeulen of London Business School.

How African Firms Can Make the Most of Outside Investment

Trade between Africa and China surpassed $200 billion this year, strengthening China’s position as Africa’s biggest trade partner, a position it has now held since 2009. Less than 15 years ago, the corresponding value was a modest $10 billion. This statistic demonstrates the growing pulling power that Africa holds for foreign investors. Beyond trade relationships, investors increasingly look at African consumers and see immense opportunity to invest locally. For African companies, this presents a special chance to climb the food chain of global competitiveness.

After all, many of China’s present national champions began life as local partners in joint ventures with Japanese or Western operators. They successfully navigated the path from being local tour guides to competing on the forefront of many global industries. Similar windows of opportunity are opening across Africa today. A decade ago, most of China’s economic activity in Africa was situated at the level of government contracts (mostly delivered through state-owned enterprises) or haphazard imports from small-scale entrepreneurs. Today the ‘middle corporate’ sector is gaining traction. For example, Chinese special economic zones have been set up as far apart as Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and South Africa in joint cooperation with local firms, and Chinese factories are going up in many more nations. The Chinese are not the only ones in the mix − Indian, Brazilian, Israeli, and Western companies are setting up shop, too.

How can African companies capitalize on this opportunity? The key is to shift priorities away from short-term profits and towards longer-term autonomy by creating institutional memory and integrating around customer needs.

Create institutional memory. Foreign operators bring with them processes, operating models, and organizational cultures. The better the local partner can internalize (and adapt) these best practices to their business model, the greater the chance of autonomous success. Best practice transfer happens across all layers of the organization: people, technology systems, compensation, working practices, etc. A metrics dashboard should be used to track progress across all these layers.

Seek integration. By orienting towards greater control and value chain integration, local partners signal to the external market and, more importantly, their managers and staff that they want to be leaders and not followers. This helps with a process of self-selection amongst both investors and employees, leaving those that are willing to be pushed outside their comfort zone and have patience for a longer-term game.

It may seem that pursuing this strategy puts local firms at odds with the foreign partners they work with. But there are many reasons why this is a short-sighted view:

Competition grows the market. Foreign operators who breed independent local competitors often find that the local firms choose to grow the market in areas of non-consumption, rather than competing head-on.
Strong local partners are better at customer innovation. They understand customer needs better and may help the foreign operator garner unique insights that can be deployed elsewhere.
A reputation for sustainable partner development has its rewards. Governments and other local companies will prefer foreign partners with a track record of leaving strong domestic partners.

Today, most of Africa’s local partner firms have not positioned themselves to be able to stand on both feet following joint ventures with foreign operators. Some macro factors contribute to this, including the absence of effective government regulation or coordinating capacity through associations. Nevertheless, many African companies can do much more. There is a new Africa gold rush underway, and the local firms that can build successful partnerships will find the path to success.

The Key to Lasting Behavioral Change: Think Goal, Not Tactic

Why can’t I force myself to go to the gym before work? Get my high-priority work done before I check my email? Stop letting my expense reports pile up? Why am I so bad at changing?

Even the most motivated people can get stuck, frustrated, and lose hope during the process of behavioral change. As a time coach, I see this happen when clients become so fixated on specific tactics — getting up at 5 am, say, to make time for the gym, or a hard-and-fast rule that they never check email before 10 am — that they lose sight of the fact that many methods could lead to achieving their larger strategic goals.

Yes, habit change takes discipline, patience, and practice. But no, it shouldn’t feel like you’re constantly trying to force yourself to do something you really don’t want to do. That’s unsustainable. To make new habits stick, they must work with the reality of who you are and what’s best for you.

To identify tactics that will actually work for you and keep your focus on your big objectives, start by determining where you’re stuck. Identify a few areas where you’ve seen little-to-no behavioral change despite your best efforts — for example, blocking out whole days for big projects or going to the gym first thing in the morning.  Then zoom out to determine your real goal. Why was this activity important to you in the first place? Maybe you want to feel like you’re finishing priority tasks, or have a healthier, more physically active life.

Now brainstorm other tactics you could use to achieve those goals. If you’ve never managed to block out an entire day for your major projects, try finding two half-days instead. If you hate the gym or aren’t a morning person, don’t expect yourself to go there first thing in the morning! Instead, consider options like a bike ride after work or exercises you can do at home before bed. Identify activities that align with your natural tendencies.

You may need to try out a few different tactics until you discover when you can be most consistently effective. Test one of your hypotheses each week. For instance, you could try going for a bike ride after work for one week, and then the next week see if you can do exercises at home before bed. Observe what seems to fit most naturally with your schedule and motivation levels. Arrange your schedule in different ways and see what produces the best results. Once you’ve identified that sweet spot, guard that time from meetings and other activities.

If you need accountability, get it. Top performers embrace this reality and surround themselves with strong teammates and assertive assistants. They know that these individuals will help shore up any weaknesses and allow them to fully use their strengths. There’s no shame in surrounding yourself with people who will check in on you and ask you about the status of key projects or goals, whether that means hiring a good project manager or a motivated personal trainer.

But if there are tasks that you really struggle to do, delegate them or outsource them. It’s better to not spend willpower energy forcing yourself to do what other people can do for you. Save that effort for activities you can’t transfer to anyone else. Make a list of activities that you tend to fall behind on, such as filing expense reports, setting up meetings, or updating tracking documents. Then, see if you can find someone within your organization, an outside contractor, or a technology tool that could take these items off your list. If necessary, clear this strategy with your boss before proceeding. When it comes to chores like errands, you can do everything from ordering groceries to having shampoo delivered automatically online from Amazon. You can also hire assistants to do activities from organizing an event to picking up dry cleaning through companies like TaskRabbit or Fancy Hands.

By staying focused on the goal and experimenting with tactics, I’ve seen people who have never kept routines start to exercise consistently, make progress on priority projects, get on top of e-mail, and accomplish all sorts of other goals. Keep these principles in mind, and you can—and will—achieve lasting behavioral change.