James Grant needed a pen name.
Sure, it had to look good on book covers and posters.
But more importantly, it had to capture the attention of book buyers.
What better than a name that sat smack bang in the middle of two already famous crime writers on the bookshelf?
Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie.
Lee Child it was.
100 million copies of Jack Reacher later, Lee Child teaches us an important lesson about behaviour change.
He didn't create a new behaviour. He tweaked an existing one.
Child came to mind when I was working with a client recently.
He had a long list of things he wanted middle managers to do differently – communicate the vision, embed new programs, bring strategy to life at team level.
But instead we stripped it back to one thing: So what?
Whenever they were talking to their teams about a new initiative or company direction, we wanted them to ask and answer: so what does this mean for us?
No new meetings. No extra admin.
Just a focus on translating meaning for the people in their team.
That's how change really happens.
The behaviour is already there.
You just need to tweak it.
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