Changing Behaviour That Works - And It Isn't What You'd Think.

Are the things we think we know are true about how change works giving us the opposite of the results we would like to see?

Maybe so.


Jeni Cross is a sociology professor at Colorado State University. 

So to run down, the three myths in the video are:

 Myth 1 Education changes behaviour 

Changing expectations changes behaviour.

Example: Want to change behaviour? 
Change expectations.  If you want to get them to take action say it is cracks around windows letting heat out and cold in, it worked better to promote energy conservation.  

16 little cracks  don't seem much as they do compared to one crack 16x bigger! Now that gets attention when we can see this big hole letting heat we are paying for, pour out. 

How you present information makes a difference 

Tailor the message to the segment. 

Example: Problems stemming from alcohol abuse. 

Require a different message for different segments.  What is true for heavy drinkers is not true for 
light drinkers - so they need a different message that relates to their experience. 

Consider random breath testing. This changed behaviour. Not because of education but because there are penalties for getting caught over the blood alcohol limit. 

Myth 2   Changing attitudes changes behaviour

Setting up expectations helps change behaviour - turning the light off

Changing habits changes behaviour.  When the rules of the house are to turn off the light when you are not in the house, this is easy to comply with. You don't need to change your attitude, you just need to conform to the rule. You don't have to even like it - just do it. 

Changing attitudes is hard! Words have different meanings for people. For one sector, Climate Change is a problem to be solved, for others they want to argue over whether it is 'true'.  This is a pointless argument to have if you want to change behaviour find something else that is not opposing, but will give you the outcome that is useful. 

So change the habits - based on values 
Sell  the actions that will work to help against climate change based on conservation not on climate change. Save time, save money, be frugal.  It is hard to find a reason to quibble against not wasting energy needlessly.  Conservation makes sense to both sides of the political spectrum

Myth 3  People know what motivates them. 


In fact they don't know. 

Biggest thing to drive behaviour is social norms. Musicians busking know this so they put money into their collection case to show passers by that's the normal thing to do. But the greatest predictor is seeing someone else do it - so they should have a friend come by regularly and put more money in!

Example: Hotel requesting patrons reuse their towels. Telling people that 70 percent of people reuse their towels in a hotel is actually more effective than a sign asking them to reuse towels to save the environment. In this case when tested, 58% will comply based on what other people do, compared to 38% based on saving the environment.This is actually the reverse of what they believe their motivations to be, when tested according to their actions.  Social norms are effective - and highly underestimated. 

Takeaway
So unlike so many of our public community advertisements to bring about change - where we focus on the few who make so many problems - perhaps we should be taking the opposite tack and highlighting the good behaviour we want to encourage - and showcase the problem makers as the minority - and out of synch with what's common.  Show people doing the thing that is the social norm that you want to encourage. 

For example. While we have some problems with alcohol and violence in some cities - in reality the great majority of people don't cause problems.  If we are showcasing problem behaviours are we in fact making this seem like the norm and leading us to expect the worst, not the best from people? 

Fun Ways With Math - Find Your Perfect Match!

This is a great video and occurs to me that this same analysis works not just for online dating but for identifying your ideal business prospect too.

The takeaway?

1. Optimize your profile
2. Be really clear on your data points and weighting
3. Be more picky - but around the right metrics.

Update:

So here is a guy having a go with mathematics - who has a better system?
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/01/how-to-hack-okcupid/

Two Lessons On Dealing With Disappointment

"It wasn't supposed to be like this!"

You worked out a good strategy and you did the work to make it happen but it just didn't.

The people you chose were all wrong and the grand plan just stalled and went nowhere.

It could have been a plan for business or for your personal life but the result is the same. Not the one you want.

You did all the things you could think of to make it happen.

You had the expertise to do what you wanted to accomplish once the plan was in action.

It just didn't work.

There is a lesson for us that we sometimes can fail to learn.  Several really.

Lesson One is this. 

We can't make someone want the things that we want. 

Even if those things would improve their life dramatically, by wanting the same things. It sucks, but there you go.  Identify the right people. Have a way to identify the wrong people.

Lesson: Find people who value the same things you do. 

The second thing we need to learn is this:

Good results don't follow according to logic. 

People buy the crappy thing instead of the fantastic one you have for them.  They make the decisions they make and they live with those decisions.  If they make the decisions that don't include what you offer, then you live with that.

If they buy the crappy product instead of yours then maybe they like that crappy approach. Did they like that crappy approach best?

Or was it the only one presented to them? 

We get results by what we did. Not what we 'could do'.

No matter how much better it would be...

Identify the actions that the competition is taking that you are not. Own it. Get smarter and take action of your own.

Lesson: If you don't ask, you can't get. 

Keep Cool And Hydrated In The Heatwave

Sassy Water

Cinnamon Water

American Sweet Tea

Cinnamon Spiced Iced Tea

Iced Coffee The Italian Way

Non Alcoholic Coffee Mojito

Just Sitting Back To Breathe

Many people seem to live their life at the beck and call and demands of others.

The children, the partner that insists...

Our ability to say 'no' to such demands, affected by our sense of self and what we "should" do in response, rather than what we would prefer to do.

What is it that sometimes leads us to work on life as though the choices of others are more important than the choices we would make for how we spend our time? 

Closing The Book of Longing

"So I closed the Book of Longing ..."

It's a great line.

The Book of Longing of course is the title of a poetry book by Leonard Cohen. So too goes a line in the  song "That Don't Make It Junk".  Beyond that the phrase reminds us of something that we may all be familiar with.  That longing that will and can never be satisfied.

We can drive ourselves crazy wanting for things that can't be ours, are not possible or are just forever beyond our reach.

Our attachment to the longing we feel can  eat at us. It can blind us to the beauty that is around us right now, and make tasteless the best that our life has to offer us.

What we long for can become like an addiction.  Not having what we long for can become a nagging kind of suffering that we bring into our own life and we can fall into the trap of thinking that the intensity of the longing can make it more likely to come to us.

That of course is not so.

The intensity of the longing only gives us intensity of longing.

And intensity of pain at not having that object of our longing.

Closing our own book of longing could be just the thing to let us see those other things in life that are so good that we have been overlooking.

Carrots - The Ulitmate Branding Example

Orange carrots - a branding exercise of success! 

We all know carrots right? Those orange things that you buy from the green grocer or supermarket. 

But that's not it at all. 

Carrots were not always orange in colour and making this the default colour was a deliberate tactic to associate the colour with a family and it is unlikely that orange carrots even existed prior to the 16th century. Before this time carrots were white or yellow or purple. 

So why are carrots Orange? According to Susan Broomhall Winthrop Professor of Early Modern History at University of Western Australia  the story ...

They were bred orange in The Netherlands during the 17th century from the older white and purple stock (that are now back in fashion as “heritage” varieties) to show support for the Orange-Nassau dynasty.

The Orange-Nassau were the leading family of The Netherlands from the mid-16th century (and are now its royal family).

The Dutch royal family on the balcony after the abdication of Queen Beatrix, April 2013.Wikimedia Commons

As the northern provinces of the Low Countries sought to break away from the Catholic Habsburg Philip II, who ruled from distant Spain,William of Orange-Nassau emerged as the only aristocrat with the power, influence and finances to lead them.

William and his family were to number among the leading Protestant families of Western Europe – although this didn’t stop a number of them from converting to Lutheranism or even Catholicism along the way.

William of Orange and his sons might have been successful military and political leaders and the prominent faces of the dynasty – but its women were doing plenty to increase the family’s hold on power in other, equally visible, ways during the period.

After a 12-year truce had been signed with Spain in 1609, the Orange-Nassau dynasty entered a new phase of influence.  See more

The Orange component was named after a town in southern France and it was this part, which identified their particular branch, which became a key tool in the dynasty’s strategic public relations.

The four daughters of Frederick Henry and Amalia, for example, all created new palaces and castles named after their family: Oranjewoud, Oranienstein, Oranienburg, and Oranienbaum. They even painted the buildings orange and planted orange trees in their gardens.

Fruit and veg brand marketing

So provocative were orange carrots seen to be in the early modern period that, at various points, they were banned from sale in Dutch markets as the fortunes of the dynasty waxed and waned politically.

Abraham Van den Tempel, Albertina Agnes of Orange-Nassau and her children (1668). Her daughter Amalia prominently holds a sprig of orange blossom. Wikimedia Commons

If eating humble carrots was the way that the general public could show support for the family, exotic oranges were the dynasty’s own particular fruit for brand marketing.

Politics and intrigue! A very good outcome and example of branding that has stood the test of time - and become the default association for this humble vegetable.