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.

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.

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........

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