When behaviour isn’t changing at work, even after agreement
You’ve had the conversations.
You’ve aligned on expectations.
You may even have committed, publicly, to doing things differently.
And yet, behaviour at work keeps reverting.
For leadership teams, this is often the most draining problem of all, not because people don’t care, but because effort and intent don’t translate into sustained behaviour change.
What this usually looks like in teams
Agreements are made in meetings, and quietly abandoned afterwards.
People nod along, then default to old habits once pressure returns.
Feedback is given, but behaviour changes briefly, if at all.
Leaders repeat the same messages with diminishing impact.
Accountability conversations feel tense, awkward, or avoided.
Everyone agrees something needs to change, but nothing sticks.
What’s happening underneath
When behaviour isn’t changing, it’s often assumed the issue is motivation, attitude, or resistance.
In practice, behaviour at work is usually shaped by the conditions around the team, what creates pressure, what gets rewarded, what’s tolerated, and what feels risky to challenge.
This is why behaviour can look aligned in conversation, but revert in action.
People aren’t choosing the old behaviour, they’re being pulled back into it.
Over time, this creates frustration and cynicism: “Why do we keep talking about this if nothing changes?
How behaviour problems tend to show up
Behaviour issues often look interpersonal, but they rarely are.
Avoidance
Difficult conversations are postponed or softened.
Issues surface indirectly or too late to matter.
Compliance without ownership
People do the right thing when watched.
Initiative drops when attention moves elsewhere.
Reversion under pressure
New behaviours disappear during deadlines or conflict.
Old habits resurface when the stakes are high.
These patterns rarely appear in isolation.
Most teams recognise more than one, and often see them showing up differently depending on the context, the pressure, and who’s in the room.
That’s why behaviour problems can feel inconsistent or confusing.
The issue isn’t just what is happening – it’s where and when it keeps emerging.
How behaviour actually shifts
Behaviour rarely changes because of a single conversation, agreement, or decision.
It shifts when expectations are reinforced in practice, signals are consistent, and the surrounding conditions stop pulling people back into old patterns.
Until those conditions are visible and addressed, teams tend to repeat the same cycles, even with strong intent and shared agreement.
That’s why behaviour is often difficult to change from inside the team alone.
You’re operating within the same pressures that shape the behaviour.
At this point, the question usually isn’t whether behaviour needs to change –
It’s where the pressure is coming from, what’s reinforcing the current patterns, and which signals are actually shaping day-to-day behaviour.
Until those dynamics are visible, teams tend to talk about behaviour in general terms, without being able to see what’s really driving it in practice.
Making sense of what’s shaping team behaviour
At this stage, the most useful work isn’t trying to fix behaviour.
It’s slowing things down enough to see what’s actually shaping it, the pressures, signals, constraints, and trade-offs that people are responding to day to day.
When those factors are made visible, behaviour stops feeling personal or inconsistent.
Patterns become easier to understand, and the conversation shifts from blame to choice.
This kind of clarity doesn’t come from more discussion inside the team.
It comes from structured observation, reflection, and an outside perspective that isn’t caught inside the same dynamics.
Start with a diagnostic conversation
If behaviour isn’t changing, the next step isn’t to push harder or introduce another initiative.
It’s to make sense of what’s actually shaping behaviour, where the pressure is coming from, what’s being reinforced, and why certain patterns keep returning.
A diagnostic conversation is a focused, one-off session to help you see those dynamics more clearly and decide what (if anything) should happen next.
You don’t need to prepare.
You don’t need to be certain.
And you’re not committing to ongoing work.
This conversation is about clarity, not commitment.
