What do New Years resolutions and innovation have in common? More than you might think.

It is that time of year. Gym membership signups go through the roof, people toss out all the sweets in their house, and we're all certainly never going to skip a run again, right? The truth is, behavior change is really hard. By March, most of those gym memberships will go unused, and our pantries will look just like they did last November. As it turns out, innovation inside large companies is a lot like behavior change. So while we're contemplating spin class, it is a good time to also think about how we're approaching innovation.

Imagine if a really fit person in spandex showed up in your house this morning uninvited. They're super in shape and you think I like the look of that. I wish I looked like that! Imagine if they asked you to do pushups and sit-ups. Imagine them going into your fridge and tossing out anything they thought you shouldn't eat. And imagine them telling you that you'd been doing it all wrong up until they showed up. Your feelings might change from interest to resistance pretty quickly.

It turns out, a lot of corporate leaders feel the same way about innovation. It looks so attractive, bright people coming up with new solutions and landing the organization on the cover of some trendy publication. But, what often happens is that we, as innovation leaders, end up holding up a mirror to organizations. We telegraph a sentiment that the processes or structures in place are part of the problem. Turns out, to get on the cover of Wired, the organization itself might have to change in some uncomfortable ways. The problem is, like diets, many organizations and innovation leaders don't succeed.

In 2009, I heard Stanford's B.J. Fogg present his work on behavior change and health. I remember him saying: "the two hardest things are I will never again and I will always behaviors." I'll never eat cake again works until you have a craving for cake and then, when you eat the first forkful one day, you feel like a diet failure and decide diets just aren't for you anyway. That's one of the reasons we know most physicians have about a zero percent success rate in saying to someone you really ought to drop 20 pounds. In those moments, an outsider is simultaneously making a judgement, asking us to adopt a radical new behavior --eating differently, working out, etc --and pointing it out when we didn't ask for it. What works instead, according to Fogg, is when we, on our own, decide to take small steps. Today, I'm going to have one less soda and see how it feels, we'll think about tomorrow when it gets here. Then the next day you ask yourself can I do it again? Those little micro changes, micro observations, and micro affirmations lead to a lot greater chance of success.

Those, are is turns out, are the type of people who will soon call a personal trainer and say "I'm ready for this, let's get started". It becomes their choice, it is authentic to them.

In the innovation world, we often find ourselves examining big complex systems problems. These are the types of problems where there isn't a single easy answer, but rather a complex series of systemic changes and interventions. Often what, to a company leader, sounds like a simple ask can turn into an examination of things like org charts, incentive structures, budget cycles, and-- because we're designers --existential questions about the nature of humanity. Setting the latter aside, these explorations often lead us to asking our fellow leaders to adopt radical changes. And, unsurprisingly, their first response is often I didn't even know it was broken. Sometimes, we're even unintentionally criticizing their feature accomplishment, in that case it the reaction is even stronger.

What does it look like to borrow from B.J. Fogg when thinking about innovation? One answer is to start with the leaders or organizations who have already taken their own first steps. I remember working with a nursing colleague who had been thinking about a problem related to hospital acquired infections. She was invested and had already been trying some small steps on her own. She was ready for a coach, a support system, and someone to help with accountability. In the end, we ended up building on and refining her idea to great success.

But, it doesn't always go that way. I've led projects where we've been the personal trainer showing up unannounced to toss the cake out of the fridge. We once set out to create a better break experience to help nurses decompress, recharge, and re-connect with their work. We learned a ton about how nurses' days are structured, what motivates them, and what barriers they face. Being the super creative team we were, we came up with a new way of thinking about breaks, meals, and shift change. It was awesome and our prototype generated strong emotional, positive reactions! Except, we didn't work with the chief nursing officer. We didn't take in to account that in creating our new approach, which the staff loved, we were saying that the traditional processes and systems were broken and needed to go on a diet and start working out. It died after the prototype.

So, as we start a new year and new gym memberships, let's also think how we as innovators want to show up. Where are the people who have already taken their first walk around the block, or signed up for a health app? Where are the leaders who have decided they want to try something different and want support in increasing their chances of success? Let's meet those people where they are and be their force multipliers.