The LLM's can't tell Beliefs from Knowledge...
But when working on a change project, neither can most organizations. It is probably the most common mixup I see, because people use them interchangeably.
The problem is, that if you mislable them, you will waste time and money on solutions that won't change behavior, because you will be targeting the wrong thing.
Let me give you some quick definitions to make things more clear:
1) Knowledge is what people actually understand - It’s what your employees can explain, recall, or execute.
Some examples of this could be: • the steps in a new workflow • how to use a tool • why a safety protocol exists
When knowledge is not there, usually the solution is training of some sort - and usually the default for many orgs.
2) Beliefs are how people interpret what they know - Beliefs shape whether people engage, persist, or avoid doing something (and there are also levels of beliefs, but I won't get into that right now)
Examples in practice: • “This will slow me down.” • “Leadership won’t back this.” • “We’ve tried this before; it won’t work.”
Beliefs require evidence-based work and targeting on the things that created the belief in the first place, like consequences, confidence, norms, trust, incentives, and lived experience.
They also require you to know the strenght of the belief, and while weaker beliefs could be changed with comms, stronger ones will not move with that strategy.
So remember, if you treat a belief problem as a knowledge one, you default to more comms, more training, and more explanation, which rarely moves behavior, because the strategy is going to be wrong.
Equally, if you treat a knowledge problem as a belief one, you end up over-motivating people when they simply may need to just know what to do.
The reason why I got into behavioral science was the precision that it started giving my work and now the work I do for my customers.
Should you need precision in understanding and designing for your customers, patients, HCP's or employees - always happy to help :)
And from the article, be weary of the LLM's as they may not understand the difference either, especially important if you are giving advice or relying on them for the interactions with your customers.
Here are a few questions for you... which are for knowledge and which are for beliefs?
Use them when asking and they will help you target the right thing!
• Do they know it? • Do they believe it? • Do they trust it? • Do they expect it to help or harm? • Do they feel capable of doing it in their real environment?