You’ve seen it happen. The proposal lands well, heads nod, and someone says, “Great, let’s do it.” Three weeks later, nothing has moved, and you hear the real decision was made in a hallway conversation you weren’t part of.
You get the usual explanations—politics, somebody undermined it, or people resisted. So you respond the way most organizations do: another meeting, a clearer email, and a stronger mandate from the top.
The problem is that none of this changes what people actually do.
Results come from behaviour
Every result in your organization, good or bad, is the sum of what people did or didn’t do. Strategies don’t deliver outcomes, and neither do plans; actions do. If the outcome isn’t showing up, then the behaviour isn’t showing up either, and the question worth asking is “Why?”
Organizational behaviour management (OBM) offers a clear answer. Behaviour is driven by what comes before it (antecedents) and, far more powerfully, by what follows it (consequences). This is the ABC model, and it explains the meeting after the meeting better than any theory about office politics.
Think about what happens once your meeting ends, and your colleague goes back to their team. Supporting your idea means extra work, there’s the risk of looking wrong in front of their boss, and it delays something they’re actually measured on. Letting it quietly drift costs them nothing. The meeting was the antecedent; what happens afterward is the consequence. Consequences win almost every time.
Where most leaders get it wrong
Most of our effort to change behaviour goes into antecedents: announcements, policies, training, and reminders. They matter, but they only get behaviour started. What keeps it going is reinforcement, and OBM is specific about what works: consequences that are positive, immediate, and certain. A genuine thank-you on the spot for following through beats a year-end bonus nobody connects to the action.
The flip side matters just as much. Many organizations unintentionally punish the behaviour they say they want. The person who raises a concern gets labelled negative, and the team that delivers early gets handed more work. Then we wonder why people stop speaking up or performing above average.
What this means for relationship roles
If you work in BRM or any partnering role, you rarely have authority over the people whose behaviour determines your success. That makes this skill essential. When you understand what reinforces behaviour on the other side of the table, you can design your follow-up, your commitments, and your recognition so that supporting the idea becomes the easier, more rewarding path. Influence stops being about persuasion and becomes about shaping the environment people act in.
A simple starting point
Before your next important meeting, ask yourself:
- What specific behaviour do I need from each person afterward?
- What will they experience right away, when they do it?
- What will they experience if they don’t?
If the honest answer to the last two is “nothing,” your idea is already at risk.
Go deeper
Our OBM Foundation course is built for leaders and managers who want to change behaviour using a scientifically proven approach instead of guesswork. You’ll learn the principles and factors that govern human behaviour, what causes negative behaviour, the common pitfalls when influencing others, and how to build strategies that encourage positive behaviour and align it with team and organizational goals. The certification exam is included.
The next session runs online from November 16 – 20, 2026. If you’re tired of watching good ideas fade after the meeting, this is a good place to start.
Lead and Succeed
Our coaches, Elka Schrijver and Peter Lijnse, have both won the prestigious Arnie Award from the Business Relationship Management (BRM) Institute for their work to embody, enhance, and promote business relationship management knowledge throughout the global BRM community. They have been actively involved in the BRM Institute since it was founded in 2013 and have been contributing authors for several components of the BRM Body of Knowledge and certification courses. They are currently writing a series of practical, user-friendly books about mastering business relationship management leadership skills.