Behaviour School

The new science of changing behaviour at scale using Behavioural Engineering™

The Problem

Organisations the world over are trying to evolve their cultures to be more collaborative, innovative, productive and agile. Essentially, more competitive. All of it requires behaviour change on a mass scale.

Yet most change efforts rely on telling people to change, then hoping they do. New behaviours do not stick, and the intended results never arrive.

The Insight

Motivating individuals or giving them training is often not enough to change behaviour. Behaviour is powerfully shaped by the environment around it. If you can change the environment, you can change the behaviour, at scale. It's possible to do this using a systematic, science-based methodology grounded in behavioural economics, behavioural science and neuroscience. We call this Behavioural Engineering™.

The Program

In this program leaders learn the process of Behavioural Engineering™ and practise applying it to a real challenge. Michelle Rushton and Shaun Kenny, founders of People of Influence, have used it to help some of the world's great companies engineer behaviour change that lasts.

Watch
Equipping or engineering?

There are two ways to change behaviour. Both matter, but they work very differently. Most organisations only ever try the first.

Inside-out
Equipping
Equip the individual to change their own behaviour, by shifting self-awareness, capability, motivation, beliefs or values.
Outside-in
Engineering
Change behaviour at scale by designing the environment and the prompts around it, using proven behavioural science.
The Three Principles

How to engineer behaviour change

Every intervention is designed against three simple principles.

Easy
When designing interventions EASY focuses on reducing the barriers, hassle and friction associated with behavioural change in order to increase uptake of new positive behaviours and generate momentum.
Starty
When designing interventions STARTY prompts thinking around ways in which behavioural insights can be leveraged to capture attention, drive initial engagement and increase uptake of new behaviours.
Sticky
When designing interventions STICKY focuses on strategies and principles that make it easier to stick with change in the long run. Think of applying ‘sticky’ principles to encourage continuous engagement in new behaviours.

The principles behind our Behavioural Engineering™ approach are primarily drawn from the fields of behavioural economics and neuroeconomics. Behavioural economics has been led and popularised by researchers such as Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler and Dan Ariely.

Neuroeconomics, a different yet intersecting field, was pioneered by Professor Paul Zak. The research is deep and vast, but all of the principles have been tested first in laboratory settings and then ‘in the wild’ primarily with citizens by government ‘nudge units’ and with consumers of technology.

Key Outcomes

What your organisation walks away with

01
Know what great looks like
Everyone understands what it takes to change behaviour at scale, and the B = PAW model behind it.
02
Strategies you can use immediately
The proven behavioural science principles, Easy, Starty and Sticky, as practical tools for designing change.
03
Test it for real
Small, controlled experiments prove what actually shifts behaviour before anything is scaled.
04
A toolkit and a repeatable process
The tools and method, through Behaviour School, to run behavioural engineering projects yourselves.
05
Change that sticks
The new behaviour is embedded and the result tracked, so the change holds long after the project.
Session Flow

How the session unfolds

Delivered as a half day, full day or a series of modules. Timings and emphasis tailored to your group.

1
What great looks like
The science of behaviour change, and why training and willpower alone rarely shift behaviour at scale.
2
Behaviour = PAW
The model that explains behaviour: it only happens when three things are present. A Prompt (a cue in the environment that triggers it at the right moment), the Ability to do it (easy enough with the friction and hassle designed out) and the Willingness to act (enough motivation in that moment). Design for all three and behaviour changes, reliably and at scale.
3
The three Behavioural Engineering principles
How to design interventions that actually land, using three principles: Easy, Starty and Sticky.
4
The Behavioural Engineering process
Leaders learn how to:
  1. Define the organisational result they want.
  2. Identify the behaviours (uncomfortably specific behaviours) that they hypothesise will drive this result.
  3. Run controlled experiments in a ‘behaviour sprint’.
  4. Implement these learnings as an intervention at scale.
5
The Behavioural Engineering techniques
We have curated all of the behavioural science and behavioural economics techniques and interventions from the field (50+) into a toolkit structured according to the Easy, Starty and Sticky principles. Leaders work through these techniques to understand how to use them in different circumstances.
6
Design an intervention
Using the principles, process and techniques, leaders design interventions likely to shift their target behaviour, with help from colleagues and the facilitator.
7
Make it real
Each leader commits to a behaviour to engineer back at work, and how they will test whether it is working.
8
Embedding
Over the following weeks to months: behavioural nudges, facilitated peer group coaching, individual coaching - a range of options depending on the engagement.
Format & Delivery

Shaped around your goal

Format
Full day for Behaviour School. Running a Behaviour Sprint is a consulting engagement for 6-12 weeks.
Delivery
In person
Audience
Leaders and teams driving change at scale
Two ways to work with us

People of Influence is the consultancy through which Michelle Rushton and Shaun Kenny deliver leadership programs, team offsites and impactful conferences.

Contact People of Influence →

Leadership Engine is our proprietary platform for measuring and improving leadership effectiveness with diagnostics, dashboards and behavioural nudges.

Visit Leadership Engine →