The inaugural Behavioural Exchange was held in Sydney, Australia earlier this month and it had a great line up of academics, policy makers, business leaders and everyone in between.  Unfortunately due to previous commitments I was unable to attend but I have been following the news and articles that have spawned from the exchange, including one written by Ben Newell exploring the question of Why Nudges Work.

 

For the readers of this blog you are not new to the fact that Governments have been exploring the field of Behavioural Economics and how they can use them to change behaviour in the payment of tax bills, option taking in health care, and the use of energy.  For the most part many of the articles I have read about the exchange have quoted the success of Behavioural Insights and how Nudge Units all over the globe are changing behaviour one nudge at a time.

The interesting thing about Newell’s article is he asks the question, why do nudges work?  In a connected sort of way I delved into his article because this is the same premise behind my interviews with leaders, to find out not so much about what works but if they know why it works.

In the article Newell referenced Academic and author of Nudge, Richard Thaler and his reminder to the conference that the issue of failing to replicate successes and learning from failed nudges is critical.

Therefore knowing there are 6 Principles of Persuasion is one thing.  But in understanding Dr Cialdini’s methodology behind them, knowing there are certain triggers for each principle and things that amplify thir use starts to get you into the why that Newell was discussing.  Going deeper still though by understanding Dr Neidert’s Core Motives Model you now know when to use each principle and why it is more likely to work than not.  So my friend, as a graduate of the Principles of Persuasion Workshop you are miles ahead of others who are just attempting to replicate what they read or observe.  Because you not only know what is happening but why it is happening.

But before we pat ourselves on the back too solidly, let’s return to Dr Thaler’s comment about failure to replicate.  It is great to have a persuasive success but how often are you delving into why it worked and even more importantly if you have persuasion failure why it occurred?  When I speak to many POP graduates they are always happy to tell me about their successes and not so keen to explore the failures; and it is through asking questions that I have discovered and that many of them don’t know why a particular approach was not successful.

Error based learning is a fantastic tool to evolve and hone our persuasive skill set.  To employ it effectively however you mustn’t just put your failure away in a drawer and blame the tools.  Instead pull it apart, look at why your approach didn’t have the impact or result you were hoping for and dig into the “why”.  It is this process of reviewing your persuasion activities and learning why things work and do not work that will make you an infinitely better persuader.

As Newell points out in his article “ It is worth remembering that much of the pioneering work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky – on which Behavioural Insights are based – focused on situations when people’s reasoning did not “work”.”

The key problem I see is all too often once something is seen to work there is a temptation to scrap the testing and measuring that identifies why it works or doesn’t work and in Newell’s words leaders just want to“run with it”.  It is crucial, however, for the continued success of the field that these replications are done (despite the clear practical challenges), and that failures to replicate are reported.

Focusing a little more on the “why” and “why not” questions might just provide the kinds of insights necessary to nudge the field forward.

Thanks Ben Newell for writing a great and though provoking article.  If you want to check it out have a look below:

Source: Newell, B (2014) Comment: ‘Nudging’ people towards changing behaviour, what works and why? 

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/06/05/comment-nudging-people-towards-changing-behaviour-what-works-and-why   

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