Behavioral Design for Effective Organizational Change

“Your detailed communication plan for the recent organizational change was excellent and executed flawlessly. However, it appears that the affected employees have not fully understood or implemented their part of the plan”.

The conclusion might be that people resist change. Do you recognize this? Have you tried something similar? If so, you should take a look into behavioral design. You might think that behavioral design is just a set of persuasive manipulation tools that can subconsciously influence your target audience to engage in the behavior you desire. This is, unfortunately, a common misinterpretation often encountered in discussions involving behavioral design. Understandably, any force for good can be misused for malicious purposes, without the need for dramatic attire like a black cape and gas mask from Star Wars.

It may surprise you, however, that when you immerse yourself in the use of behavioral design, you will not only create results that could not be achieved with the usual HR tools alone—but you will also alter your own perspective and paradigms of perception. The most significant change will be that you will come to perceive the actual world beyond our usual human assumptions and recognize the biological predispositions for irrational behavior that we humans have inherited and brought with us into our modern society.

With this newly developed lens, you will find insights such as:

What appears to be resistance is often a lack of clarity.
What appears to be laziness is often mental exhaustion.
What appears to be a people problem is often a situational problem.

The above insights are summarized in the book “Switch - how to change things when things are hard” by Chip & Dan Heath. At first glance, these perspectives may differ significantly from how you initially learned to think about organizational change and human behavior. Changing your own perspective can be difficult, but it lies entirely within your sphere of control, which is the good news. The challenging part is that we need to make a conscious effort to first discover and then change the way we think about and see things, and this can be hard. However, it is necessary if we want change to happen - and last.

A figure showing 5 behavioral design initiatives that can create positive and lasting change

In this article, I will discuss behavioral design and how you, as an HR professional or manager, can utilize it to positively influence individuals, including yourself, and facilitate positive change within your organization.

Human Beings are not as Rational as we Think…

Organizational change efforts often focus primarily on articulating “The why” of the change and the need for the change. Involved employees may thus very well recognize the why and the need for change but may not know how to apply it in their specific circumstances.

Moreover, leaders are often unprepared to effectively engage individuals during change or manage potential resistance. Consequently, considerable effort in the change process may be wasted on vague vision statements or intangible ideas about what needs to happen, when, and how.

Having a combination of a clear "how" and "why" combined with an individual's "will" to change should, in theory, bring the detailed communication plan to life. However, as mentioned in the introduction, this is often not the case. The assumption is that human behavior is entirely rational, which is not accurate.

Stop and think about your life for a moment. Have you ever made New Year's resolutions where you knew exactly why and how you needed to change? You were perhaps even fully motivated and had the will to change. But when you reached the point in your daily life where motivation was needed, it was nowhere to be found. Or you simply no longer knew exactly what you had to do. Is there a memory in the back of your mind of wanting to go on a diet, exercise more, or spend less time on social media? Why didn't you just make this much-desired change?

You are excused! You are human. And you can come far by understanding certain basic things about our human makeup.

Human Beings are Biased

First of all, we are biased. We do not see the world in a neutral way. Our brains rely on mental shortcuts to navigate the complexity of the world, and these shortcuts often lead to biased judgments and decisions. Here are a few examples:

1. Confirmation Bias: We tend to favor information that confirms our existing beliefs and ignore information that contradicts them. This can lead us to make decisions based on incomplete or skewed information.

Example: If someone believes that climate change is a hoax, they might only seek out information that supports this belief and dismiss evidence to the contrary.

2. Anchoring Bias: We rely too heavily on the first piece of information we receive, even if it's irrelevant or inaccurate. This can influence our subsequent judgments and decisions.

Example: If a consultant initially offers a very high price, we might be anchored to that number and perceive a lower price as a better deal, even if it's still above market value.

3. Implicit Bias: We hold unconscious biases towards certain groups of people based on their race, gender, age, or other characteristics. These biases can influence our behavior and decision-making, even if we don't consciously endorse them.

Example: A hiring manager might unconsciously favor a candidate who is similar to them in terms of background or appearance.

These are just a few examples of the many biases that affect our human thinking. Recognizing these biases is the first step towards mitigating their influence and making more objective and informed decisions.

Human Beings are Emotional

Secondly, we are emotional beings. We think we are rational, but in fact, we respond to our inner feelings and intuitions way more than we think we do. Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, has dedicated much of his research to exploring this very concept. Here are a few examples, drawing on inspiration from his work:

1. Loss Aversion: We feel the pain of a loss more strongly than the pleasure of an equivalent gain. This often leads us to make irrational decisions to avoid potential losses, even if it means missing out on potential gains.

Example: Fear of failing or losing something familiar can prevent people from trying new experiences or taking risks, and even keep them from quitting an unsatisfying job due to fear of losing the security and stability it provides - even if a new job could offer greater fulfillment and opportunities.

2. Halo Effect: We tend to judge people based on a single positive trait or characteristic. This can lead us to overestimate their other qualities and abilities.

Example: If someone is good looking, we might assume they are also intelligent, kind, and successful.

3. Affect Heuristic: We rely on our emotions and gut feelings to make quick judgments and decisions, especially when faced with complex or uncertain situations.

Example: If we feel good about a particular investment opportunity, we might be more likely to invest in it, even if the rational analysis suggests it's a risky venture. This highlights how our emotions can override logic in decision-making.

These examples illustrate how our emotions and intuitions often guide our decisions, even when we believe we are being rational.

Human Beings are Biological Beings

Lastly, our inner biological states guide us more than we realize when making decisions. The acronym HATE (Hungry, Angry, Tired, Exhausted) is often used to remind people that these states can significantly impair our judgment and thus also our accountability. You might also have heard of the term “Hangry”? Here's a few examples of why hunger and anger, specifically, make it difficult to make good decisions:

Hunger:

Impaired Cognitive Function: When you're hungry, your blood sugar drops, depriving your brain of the glucose it needs to function optimally. This can lead to difficulty concentrating, impaired memory, and reduced problem-solving abilities.
Increased Impulsivity: Hunger can make us more focused on immediate gratification. Studies have shown that hungry people tend to choose smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed rewards, even when the latter is objectively better. This short-term focus can lead to poor decision-making.
Heightened Emotions: Hunger can also make us more irritable and prone to negative emotions, further clouding our judgment and making it harder to think clearly.

Anger:

Narrowed Focus: Anger narrows our focus of attention, making us fixated on the source of our anger and less able to consider alternative perspectives or solutions.
Increased Risk-Taking: Anger can lead to impulsive and risky behavior, as we're more likely to act without fully considering the consequences.
Impaired Self-Control: Anger can weaken our self-control, making it harder to resist temptations or regulate our emotions. This can lead to poor choices that we later regret.

By understanding how our inner biological state shapes our decision-making, each individual can take steps to mitigate their influence and make choices that are more aligned with their long-term goals and well-being.

Awareness of and lessons learned from the above can, however, also inspire and inform HR and Management the next time we introduce change or communicate about the "next big thing". Let's take a closer look at that!

Behavioral Design can help us change - and drive change

If we acknowledge and learn from the above insights in a systematic way, the following approaches have proven their worth when it comes to change things - when change is hard (the subtitle of the book Switch, mentioned above).

Translate the strategy into concrete expected individual behavior
Map the process of current and expected behavior
Understand where the friction and obstacles are for expected behavior to happen and remove or reduce the obstacles with the use of behavioral insights.
Understand where it is easy to do undesired behavior – and apply friction

with the use of behavioral insights, so the undesired behavior becomes less easy - and less desired - to do.

Make sure people are not hungry or angry when you present your new next big thing!

The above steps can be taken in different situations and implementations are reflected into almost all the different toolkits available today for systematic behavioral problem solving. “The BASIC Toolkit” is developed by OECD in partnership with Dr Pelle Guldborg Hansen, and we highly recommend that you take a closer look at this, if you want more inspiration into how to use the insights from behavioral design to help you when introducing and driving change in your organization.

Conclusion

Change can be challenging! But if you understand the fundamentals behind human behavior and behavioral design, you will be able to lead change initiatives far more effectively, and at the same time, more humanely. So, what’s not to like?

If you’d like to learn more about behavioral design, please check out the resources mentioned below or reach out to Session to learn more.