Behavioural modelling and footie

I went to a seminar yesterday. I bloody hate seminars. OK, perhaps 'hate' is a bit strong. Let's just say I find them rather contrived, worthy, dull and self-important. However, the one yesterday was not too bad at all. I shall not though, dear reader, bore you into a liquified mass of blood and bone by re-living the whole seminar with you.

What I will say is that I am now an expert on 'behavioural modelling'. Which is nice. It's one of those typical trendy phrases that accompanies a typical trendy new training methodology or management style. However behavioural modelling is, despite it's intellectual-sounding name, nothing more than persistent nagging. Now those people who spout this stuff tell you it's all to do with human characteristics, psychology and neural pathways. Neural pathways? As far as I'm concerned it's just going on and on at people to do what you want, until they can't be arsed to resist.

And here's my case in point. I went to the seminar with a colleague. She's Scottish. And (obviously) a woman. These two factors combined work very strongly against her ever wanting to watch a footie match. Let alone an England footie match. She really dislikes footie and especially England-playing-in-the-World-Cup footie.

Now as soon as the seminar ended, the England match was due to start. How was I going to convince my colleague to watch an England footie match? I had a cunning plan which I had been putting into action for a number of days. I'd been nagging her about how fab footie was. What a great atmosphere you get when you watch a big match in a crowd. How much fun it is to enjoy a few beers whilst watching the match and revelling in all the friendly banter between your fellow drinkers. I re-iterated these 'positives' over and over, in little snippets for nearly a week. And the result? She watched the entire match, drinking beer in a packed Irish pub. She even cheered and screamed when England scored their two goals. Oh yes.

Behavioural modelling? Cobblers was it. It was persistent nagging that changed her mind and I'm sure her neural pathways didn't even notice.

I feel a seminar coming on.