Aim for Action: How to get people to do what you want them to do

Mt. Rainier with climber

In the mid-1980’s, when I worked at an in-house print department, my employer purchased a bar-coding system to keep track of our work. They installed it and trained us on its use. Much to my surprise, department members rebelled and simply ignored it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were wasted as a result.

Why did it fail? We had the knowledge and training to use it.

It’s a common problem. An organization provides training, but people don’t change their behavior. They muddle along, doing things the way they’ve always done them.

Aim for Action to the Rescue

Nancy Bacon (ChunkFlipGuideLaugh.com) and I developed the Aim for Action framework to address this challenge. When you want to move someone to action, you need to look at more areas than training. Aim for Action illustrates the areas you need to address. It was developed for the nonprofit world, but this framework would work in any organization, or even your own household.