No one needs behavioral science... that is clear!
Most organizations will keep doing transformation and change without it...and sometimes it even works.
However, when it doesn’t its because they are treating behavior as if it’s obvious and mostly about individuals that need to just try harder.
Behavioral science is a thinking tool that stops us from guessing about what people will do, why they’re doing it, and what it will actually take to make the change.
If you care about less risk in your transformation and change programs, here are the areas where you could focus on a bit more:
1. Moving Beyond Common-Sense Assumptions
Those common-sense assumptions about human behavior are prevalent but frequently lead to unsuccessful strategies... for example, assuming a lack of skill in an employee when the actual barrier is motivation or the system. You can't relying on hunches and beliefs.. instead, you need a good behavioral diagnosis to guide you.
2. Bridging the Implementation Gap
Everyone talks about the implementation gap.. but they forget implementation is costly, resource-intensive, and subject to high failure rates because the methods to systematically embed change are rarely translated into practical direction for managers... basically what to do, how to do it, and which strategies reduce real barriers.
3. Making Organizational Culture Tangible
Organizations often dismiss culture because it has been so fluffy and not tangible for so long... values without clear behaviors or ways to move these forward. Organizations could also move away from command-and-control ways of working and towards more autonomy and active participation.
4. Improving Interventions/Strategies
We must move away from one-size-fits-all assumptions and develop strategies to the real barriers affecting those we are working to help.
5. More Psychological Safety and Candor
If we don't have the environment for candid feedback and hard truths then we know that coordination,learning and innovation suffer. It is a good idea to move beyond sentiment scores and towards behavior, which helps drive actionable decisions.
6. Moving from For to With the Community
Behavior change can lack meaningful engagement with the people its supposed to help. Initiatives should not work to move norms without consultation and ownership, therefore. This means we also have get better at finding unmet needs and moving away from vague empathy.
7. Anticipating Unintended Consequences
Any strategy can have backfires.. but we can at least have things in place to stop strategies from even going out, or knowing what to expect in case something happens. To do this we need to move away from linear to systems thinking, knowing that behavior never happen in isolation.
In the end you need the outcomes, and those are enabled by the science of behavior change!