Is there a sweet spot for creating better experiences for both customers and employees?
I have been looking back at some of the experience projects I have worked on over the years, and I see that although behavior is mentioned, (be it in an archetype or a journey), it is mostly an afterthought, or something to tick the box of a template that was created.
Very few times have I seen teams or even agencies have a strong grownding in behavior to enhance or create an experience.
Behavior should not be an afterthought, it has to have a seat at the experience table.
To be able to have a seat, behavior has to be more accessible, less of a black box.
I am a strategy person at the core, and have worked on products, services, and processes for many types of companies, and I have to say that learning and the applying behavior was not an easy path (still learning every day)
I had to invest countless hours reading, asking, experimenting, testing, applying, and then going back and forth on each one.
I had to go through programs, like the one I did at Harvard Business School.
I had to speak to countless behavioral scientists to understand how they were approaching things. (Thanks to all of you for being so kind and helpful)
Then I had to try and digest everything, but still keep my business, strategy and design roots. (And yes, I may be guilty of going too far to the behavioral side sometimes, hence why I share all of this here, so the community can keep me In check :) )
I’ve put projects, opportunities and work on hold to keep focus and grow the behavioral area, because I believe in it.
The summary is that it has not been an easy road, and that understanding behavior is messy and complicated and not perfect (but so worth it)
It is our responsibility (at least I feel it’s mine) to help others understand how to apply behavior, how to use evidence based frameworks, to combine with the innovation, strategy and design work we do and to make the knowledge more accessible to others.
To those who are strategists, designers, innovation people, it is such a competitive advantage to understand behavior and apply it as a lens, but please also know that behavior goes beyond a few exploitable (sometimes) cognitive biases, so be curious and learn, it is worth it.
#behavioralscience #behavioraldesign #servicedesign #productinnovation #userexperience #customerexperience #digitaltransformation