Designing blueprints for behavior change with Ruth Schmidt
in COnversation with Dr. Brooke Struck
In this week’s episode, Brooke speaks to Ruth Schmidt, Associate Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design, and expert in all things related to behavioral design and its application to organizational strategy. Their conversation looks at the evolution of choice architecture to a deeply human-centered evaluation of organizational systems and processes, and how it’s impacting behavioral change strategies, and ultimately, organizational success. Some of the things discussed include:
How insights from behavioral science and behavioral design can be used to complement each other in addressing organizational challenges, despite their differences in approach.
Balancing evidence of something working in the past, with evidence that something else may work in the future.
How behavioral design can improve strategy – moving from choice architecture to choice infrastructure.
Behavioral design and innovation. Having a true understanding of why you’re trying to innovate and aligning your systems, culture, and incentives with that ambition.
The role of leadership, and why behavioral interventions need to be driven both from the top-down and the bottom-up.
Access full transcript and recording here
Evidence – Something That Works & Something That Could Work — “Evidence that is driven by evaluation is more, what I call, ‘evidence of something working’. Where I might center where design focuses, I call that ‘evidence for solutions that could work’. So when you balance evidence for possibilities, combined with evidence of the fact that they work, that’s where you can maybe be both expansive in terms of what you’re looking for, but also know that you’re delivering the goods.”
Just ‘Cause The Cool Kids Are Doing It, Doesn’t Mean You Should Too… — “Peer pressure doesn’t go away after high school. It’s still there in big organizations. “Shiny big data”, “AI looks great!” But I think oftentimes, those organizations may not have thought through why it’s useful. What are the things that are going to actually help them achieve what they want? Why is it important to support certain types of either technologies or organizational capabilities?”
Aligning Incentives With Goals — “One way that we saw higher level leaders actually stick to innovation mandates, for example, is to actually attach it to their bonuses. Shockingly, people would do an awful lot if they think their bonus is going to be decreased at the end of the year.”
Choice Architecture to Choice Infrastructure — “Behavioral science has been very good at certain types of problems, and in what Richard Thaler calls interior design, interior decoration, it’s aced that. But what if behavioral science was more oriented towards some of those infrastructural parts… things like plumbing or electrics, those underlying conditions that allow a space to work.”
Learning Through Doing — “What I’ve seen work quite well, for example, is helping companies to develop capabilities in what it is they’re trying to do, and then also, in parallel, running a project which allows them to test those out. So in a sense, you’re creating a prototyping machine within an organization, which can make it much more clear and much more transparent to folks who may not be involved, why this is worth doing, the fact that there’s actually momentum and emphasis behind it.”
What We Should Do Versus What We Are Willing To Risk — “There’s a tension between what we feel we should do, but also the level of risk that we’re willing to embrace. And part of that is what ordinary people get stressed out by, whether it’s about achieving good health or becoming successful and being financially solvent towards the future. This present tense future tension is really difficult to navigate for any individual, more so for a company, in many ways.”