Why Effort Doesn't Turn into Performance (CoSolve)

You’ve invested in training and change initiatives, but don’t see the results.

Maybe the same issues have come back.

If that feels familiar, it’s often not a knowledge problem. It’s how social risk shapes

behaviour, collaboration, engagement and organisational performance.

Why “knowing better” isn’t enough

Behaviour doesn’t change because people “know better”, it changes when the social risk of

trying something new is worth it. If you want change to stick, you must first know how your

culture responds when people try something different.

Have you seen classrooms full of enthusiasm that lose impact the moment people walk back

into work?

Did you think the content was wrong, or perhaps have a feeling that the conditions back at

work made it safer to go back to how things were. More often, the latter is true. Here is

why:

Belonging, fitting in, and what gets withheld

Behaviour is shaped by small, repeated actions, and those actions are shaped by the

environment, or “conditions”, and the people around us. Over time, those experiences

become stories and through those stories, people decide whether they belong… or just fit

in.

• Belonging is where you can be yourself.

• Fitting in is where you adapt away from what you really think or feel.

The bigger that gap, the harder collaboration becomes, and the more likely people are to

hold back what they know.

What happens to decisions when people withhold information? They become ill-informed!

You get fewer weak signals, awkward truths, but more “we didn’t see that coming.”

When people feel they belong, they’ll try. When they feel valued, they’ll keep contributing..

If your systems rely on people engaging and you think they’re holding back, it’s probably not

the tool or the process, It’s probably social risk.

Why we’ll risk physical harm before social rejection

As humans, we will risk physical harm before we risk social rejection. That’s why culture

often runs on group norms (thinking) more than logic, and on social stories more than

policy.

So if you want behaviour to change, don’t start with training, instead start with what

happens when people try something new or different.

• Who notices?

• Who helps?

• Who sees it as “trouble” rather than contribution?

• Where does it become a number instead of an insight?

That’s where CoSolve works: helping organisations understand how their community

responds to effort, not just what people know.

Try this this week:

Start with a problem you see repeatedly, don’t pick the biggest one that everyone has tried

to fix, choose one that people work around. A frustration if you like.

Try what I did: ask a member of your team to find someone who had already solved such a

problem, then share that as a success story.

Because the solution is often already there. We just don’t always look for it, and people

don’t always make it visible. They just get on with their work. Sharing success stories helps

people see themselves, and others, as part of the solution, and you as the bearer of good

news.

You can also ask a few simple questions:

• "What makes this harder than it should be?”

• “Who could help more here?”

• “Who already does this well?”

Now notice something else, not all questions feel the same to answer, some carry more

social risk than others.

For example:

• Low risk: “What makes this harder than it should be?”

• Medium risk: “What would you like someone else to do?”

• Higher risk: “What could I / your boss do to make this easier?”

People respond differently depending on what the question asks of them, and what could

“backfire.” That’s social risk. So don’t just listen to the answers, watch how easily people

answer as social cues tell you as much about your collaborative system as the problem itself.

Then take what you’ve learned, make a small change that helps, and thank the person who

made the suggestion. If it works, people will come back with more.

That’s one way to reduce the social risk of engaging.

Final thought:

You don’t need more training first. You need people to experience that trying something

different is worth it. When the experience changes beneficially, behaviour follows.

Close:

If this feels familiar, there are small changes that can help you get more from what you

already have.

That’s what we do: helping organisations turn everyday effort into real performance by

adjusting systems to work for people, not the other way around.

If you’re curious, I’m happy to share how we’ve applied this in practice across different

organisations, industries and countries.