As leaders, coaches, consultants, and change agents, we spend a lot of time at work convincing others to see things our way: We explain the rationale. We share the research. We articulate the vision and values. We highlight the benefits.

Our assumption is that once people think differently, they’ll act differently.

But there may be an easier way.

In most organizations, time is limited, stakes are high, and social dynamics are complex. Belief change can be slow and difficult. Our beliefs are tied to our identity, status, and sense of belonging. Asking people to rethink them can feel challenging, or even threatening, and cause significant resistance.

We’ve all been in a situation where the team languidly agrees to a new initiative, only to find that weeks later, nothing has been done.

Decades of research across social psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience support another path—starting with behavior. In practice, people often change what they do before they change what they believe. Belief change doesn’t always drive action; sometimes it is the result of it.

We Often Determine Our Beliefs From Our Actions

Although seemingly counterintuitive, social psychology helps explain why this works. According to self-perception theory, people do not always act based on fixed, preexisting attitudes. Instead, they often infer what they believe by observing their own behavior, especially in situations where their beliefs are weak, ambiguous, or evolving (Bem, 1972).

This means that taking action can generate evidence for new beliefs. When someone repeatedly engages in a new behavior such as speaking up in meetings, giving feedback, or sharing work earlier, they may begin to revise their self-concept: “Maybe I value transparency more than I thought.”

Sometimes belief follows the behavior, not the other way around.

From a change management perspective, this can explain and reframe resistance you might be experiencing. What looks like unwillingness to change beliefs may actually be uncertainty that will resolve only through experience.

Motivation vs. Action

Neuroscience and habit research adds additional context. Much of what we do at work is habitual, simply following the status quo rather than making conscious choices (Wood & Neal, 2007). These repeated actions strengthen neural pathways associated with habits, making those behaviors easier to repeat over time (Yin & Knowlton, 2006).

Behavioral economists have long demonstrated the power of defaults: small design choices that shape behavior simply because they define the path of least resistance (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). In organizations, defaults quietly govern how long meetings last, how decisions are made, and how work happens in spite of what people say they believe.

Motivation and values matter, but they are often overridden by situational factors and defaults. This helps explain why belief-heavy change efforts struggle when the surrounding system remains unchanged.

Social Norms and Behavior Change

One of the strongest lines of evidence for this idea comes from the work of social psychologist Betsy Levy Paluck. Across multiple large-scale field experiments, Paluck has shown that changing people’s perceptions of social norms—what they see as acceptable behavior—can lead to meaningful behavior change, even when private beliefs remain unchanged (Paluck, 2009; Paluck & Shepherd, 2012).

In a widely cited study conducted in post-genocide Rwanda, a radio program designed to model cooperation and respectful disagreement reduced conflict-related behaviors without producing corresponding shifts in deeply held beliefs (Paluck, 2009). Behavior changed first; beliefs lagged behind.

Her later work in U.S. schools showed a similar pattern. When influential students publicly modeled anti-harassment behaviors, rates of conflict and disciplinary incidents declined across the network (Paluck et al., 2016). The intervention worked not by persuading everyone but by altering what behavior was socially acceptable.

The lesson for leaders is that you don’t always need alignment to begin changing behavior. You can start by creating signals about what is expected, acceptable, and rewarded.

Lessons for Leaders

What does this mean for leaders trying to create change?

Instead of focusing on persuasion, try focusing on experiments.

1. Start with a low-risk behavioral experiment.

Rather than asking people to embrace a value (“We need a culture of feedback”), ask them to try a specific behavior for a short period of time (“This week, try giving one small piece of feedback each day to your direct reports”).

To make it successful, it can be helpful to define:

• The behavior
• The context in which it should occur
• The duration of the experiment
• A small set of outcomes to measure

This approach aligns with research on implementation intentions—concrete if-then plans that reliably increase follow-through by linking action to context (Ajzen, 1991). Framing the change as an experiment also reduces defensiveness and creates space for learning.

2. Leverage social proof instead of authority.

Paluck’s work underscores the importance of “social referents,” people whom others watch to understand what is acceptable (Paluck & Shepherd, 2012). Leaders can accelerate change by identifying respected peers or informal influencers and inviting them to model the desired behavior.

When colleagues see others acting differently without negative consequences, and ideally positive benefits, the behavior becomes easier to adopt.

3. Change the default settings of work.

Many organizational behaviors persist not because people endorse them but because the system quietly reinforces them.

Shortening meeting defaults, requiring agendas, embedding reflection into workflows, or standardizing decision documentation all change behavior without requiring ideological buy-in (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). Over time, as people experience the benefits, their beliefs about “how we work best” will begin to shift.

4. Reinforce behavior with fast feedback.

Beliefs update through experience, but only when outcomes are visible. Leaders can accelerate change by highlighting the connection between new behaviors and tangible benefits, such as reduced rework, faster decisions, or improved coordination.

Habit research shows that repetition paired with positive feedback strengthens new routines (Lally et al., 2010; Gardner et al., 2012).

5. Support with skill training.

Resistance doesn’t always occur because someone disagrees. Sometimes they don’t feel competent or don’t have a clear idea of the way forward. Teaching concrete skills like the BEST feedback model (Adams & Myles, 2025) or the steps of nonviolent communication (Rosenberg, 2025) reduces anxiety and gives people the confidence to try new behaviors.

Belief as an Outcome of Behavior

The traditional approach—*belief first, behavior second—*is tidy and appealing, but it doesn’t always reflect how people actually change.

Beliefs are shaped not only by ideas but by action, context, and experience. By designing environments that make better behaviors easier to try and harder to avoid, leaders can unlock progress without waiting for alignment.

Sometimes the most powerful shift doesn’t start with convincing people to think differently. It starts by getting them to do something differently and letting experience do the rest.

References

Adams, W., & Myles, T. (2025). Meaningful Work: How to Ignite Passion and Performance in Every Employee. PublicAffairs.

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179–211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T

Bem, D. J. (1972). Self-perception theory. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 1–62). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60024-6

Dolan, P., Hallsworth, M., Halpern, D., King, D., & Vlaev, I. (2012). Influencing behaviour: The mindspace way. Journal of Economic Psychology, 33(2), 264–277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2011.10.009

Gardner, B., Lally, P., & Wardle, J. (2012). Making health habitual: The psychology of “habit-formation” and general practice. British Journal of General Practice, 62(605), 664–666. https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp12X659466

Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674

Paluck, E. L. (2009). Reducing intergroup prejudice and conflict using the media: A field experiment in Rwanda.* Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,* 96(3), 574–587. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0011989

Paluck, E. L., & Shepherd, H. (2012). The salience of social referents: A field experiment on collective norms and harassment behavior in a school social network.* Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*, 103(6), 899–915. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030015

Paluck, E. L., Shepherd, H., & Aronow, P. M. (2016). Changing climates of conflict: A social network experiment in 56 schools. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(3), 566–571. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1514483113

Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Yale University Press.

Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2007). A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface. Psychological Review, 114(4), 843–863. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.114.4.843

Yin, H. H., & Knowlton, B. J. (2006). The role of the basal ganglia in habit formation. *Nature Reviews Neuroscience, *7(6), 464–476. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1919