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    You are here Home » coaching

    Cracking the Behavior Code

    Last updated on Jan 14, 2016 by Dan McCarthy · This post may contain affiliate links

    Guest post from Bob Nease:

    In attempting to explain the nature of physics,
    Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “Nothing happens until something moves.”  A corollary applies to our organizations:
    “Nothing happens until someone does something.” We can talk all we want, but w
    hat our managers, employees, and customers do is mission critical to business
    success. Perhaps more than anything, behavior matters.


    For better or worse, human behavior is complicated, messy, and
    unpredictable. This makes it difficult for today’s leaders to achieve optimal
    performance from their teams.  Great
    leaders, however, use three simple insights to understand and change the
    behaviors of their key people.


    Understand the Fifty
    Bits Challenge

    If you want to understand something about human behavior, there’s
    no better place to start than human brains. Each of our noggins processes a
    stunning 10 million bits of information per second. That’s comparable to the
    throughput of the original Ethernet cable. But an even more shocking statistic is
    that the conscious part of the brain – what we think of as the mind – runs at a
    pokey 50 bits per second.


    To get a handle on what this means, let’s assume that a cup of
    sugar represents the entire bandwidth of your brain. The throughput of your
    conscious mind? It’s a measly ten grains… almost negligible.


    In other words, it’s about 99.9995% true that our brains are wired
    for inattention and inertia. This heavy reliance on quick twitch, automatic
    behaviors served our ancestors very well 100,000 years ago, but today it
    contributes to behavioral hiccups.


    This isn’t meant to be an excuse or a reason to let people off the
    hook.  High performance often requires
    attention to detail and the ability to put effort into a project in the here
    and now for a reward in the future. Nonetheless, it’s critical to remember that
    people can’t pay attention to everything all the time, nor can they be counted
    on to endlessly optimize every decision they face.


    See Beyond Bad Behaviors
    to Underlying Intentions


    There are nearly as many behavior change strategies as there are
    professions. Educators tell us that better behavior requires better
    information. Economists argue that things will improve when we get the
    incentives right. Marketers claim that cajoling in just the right way will get
    things done. Each of these approaches shares a common fallacy: that people’s
    intentions and behaviors go hand in hand. They all implicitly agree with the
    belief that if we get people’s intentions squared away, good things will
    follow.


    These approaches are barking up the wrong tree because over time
    inattention and inertia create a yawning and persistent gap between our
    underlying intentions and what we actually do. 
    We refer to this chasm as the intent
    / behavior gap
    .


    The intent / behavior gap is a critical concept because it helps
    keep us from being fooled by observed behavior. If we incorrectly attribute bad
    behaviors to intentions, our efforts at change will leave us disappointed and
    frustrated.


    Activate People’s
    Pre-Existing Good Intentions


    Once you understand that bad behavior is often the result of
    dormant good intentions rather than active bad ones, everything changes.  Instead of looking for ways to change
    people’s intentions, we start focusing on strategies that activate the good
    intentions that most people already have. There are two main ways to do this:
    demand attention and leverage inertia.


    Demand Attention… Wisely

    If the problem is inattention, then one solution is to figure out
    how to capture people’s scant fifty bits. For example, you can stop people in a
    process and require that they make an active decision before moving on.
    (PetSmart does this with its customers during the checkout process, asking
    whether or not they want to donate money to help save homeless pets.) You can
    also simply go to where a person’s fifty bits are likely to be; this is why
    family members leave notes for each other on the refrigerator door or bathroom
    mirror.


    Demanding attention needs to be done carefully and wisely. One of
    the quickest ways to whittle away at your ability to capture the attention of
    others is to “cry wolf” too often. Let people know when you really need their
    “fifty bits” – and when you don’t. Also, try to push information to people when
    they need it rather than when it’s easiest to send.


    Leverage Inertia

    We usually think of procrastination as the enemy of better
    behavior. But that’s only true if the current state – or default behavior – is
    something other than the desired one. In that case, procrastination stands as
    an obstacle between the status quo and the better choice. If we can make the
    desired behavior the default, however, procrastination becomes an ally:
    changing to a less desired behavior requires an active change.


    This is the secret behind increased participation in 401(K)
    retirement plans. Early on, employers offered their workers the option to
    participate in these plans but the uptake was modest. Even matching
    contributions didn’t move the needle all that much: participation rates were
    about 30% to 40%. But when employers made participation the default option
    (allowing employees to opt out or change the level of their contribution),
    participation rates soared to 80% to 90%.


    The lesson: whenever possible, make the right behavior the
    natural, default choice. Leveraging the natural inclination toward inertia can
    be a powerful way to improve behaviors.


    In every organization, behavior matters. If you
    want to help your coworkers, your clients, and yourself, remember three
    important insights: people are wired for inattention and inertia, there’s often
    a gap between good intentions and actual behavior, and that those good
    intentions can be effectively activated by demanding attention (wisely) or
    leveraging inertia.



    Bob Nease, PhD, is the author of
    “The Power of Fifty Bits: The New Science of
    Turning Good Intentions Into Positive Results
    ”
    (HarperBusiness,
    2016).  He is the former Chief Scientist
    of Express Scripts, the nations largest pharmacy benefits management company,
    and has authored and published more than 70 peer-reviewed papers. Dr. Nease is
    the recipient of the Henry Christian Award for Excellence in Research from the
    American Federation for Clinical Research and the URAC’s Health Care Consumer
    Empowerment and Protection Award for his application of behavioral economics to
    health care. He and his wife currently divide their time between Phoenix, Austin,
    and a small farm in rural Italy. For more information about Bob’s work, visit www.fiftybits.com.

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