Thursday 12 March 2015

Learned Behavior – an AHA moment!


I recently attended a seminar on Body Language that was an interesting refresher on what I know but in doing some preparation for that seminar I learned something new. 

The new fact was that generally, people walk on the same side of the road that they drive.  Something I had not been consciously aware of before so I decided to begin my own observational study. 

There are two critical factors to my study; first in the Philippines people drive on the right-hand side of the road, whereas in London where I lived prior to coming to Manila they drive on the left and second there are more people in Manila, per square meter than there are in London. 

Armed with this new piece of knowledge I began to observe peoples’ patterns of walking behavior when in large crowds of people and yes, it seems that people do generally walk on the right-hand side of the pavement (sidewalk if you are reading this and not based in the UK).  There are no rules about this but generally there is a two-way flow of people on one pavement and the unwritten code does seem to be that people walk on the right-hand side, just as if they were driving. 

So how does this knowledge help me in my world of training and development.  Well, it seems that people are not genetically predisposed to walking on a particular side of the pavement.  We were not born knowing which side of the pavement we should walk on.   We learn by observing and through experience particular patterns of behavior that become habitual.  Of course the key factor is that we can adapt our behavior in unfamiliar surroundings, given a reason, motivation and desire to achieve an end result.  A small, but important lesson I try to emphasize when working with organizations on ‘Change’ issues. 

Now does this all this new realization make me a better person?  No, but it explains why I keep bumping into people when walking in to work!

Gill
Manila
12 March 2015