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Bringing behavioural science ideas to fruition

On 9 August 2007, BNP Paribas froze $2.2 billion worth of funds. With this move, they were the first bank to concede the risks of US sub-prime mortgages. Many cite this as the first sign of the financial crisis. Since then, there’s been a total transformation of the way that businesses make decisions and the governance around decisions has noticeably tightened. With this has come the rise and rise of the business case – it’s now par for the course to have to justify every penny spent.

It could be argued that this is generally a good thing. But it becomes problematic when championing innovative ideas. It takes a leap of faith to endorse untested ideas, which invariably involve both financial and reputational risks. It’s undeniable that some of these leaps will fail, but what if there was a way to identify the ones with a greater chance of success?

This is where behavioural science can lend a hand. Used correctly, it can help to confidently predict whether an idea will work and even explain the mechanisms by which it might operate. What’s more, experimental methods from behavioural science can be used to test a prototype idea before rolling it out into a messy real-world context. In this way, behavioural science can give an idea greater credibility and help to justify it in a business context.

‘Do to think’, rather than ‘think to do’

“Too often,” says Dr Jules Goddard, Fellow of the London Business School, “businesses think to do.” They pontificate, think about ideas very hard, and yet do very little. Rather, he advocates, they should “do to think.” By trying an idea out and quickly discovering the problems, this furthers your thinking and improves the idea. By acting first, and thinking later, businesses can innovate and progress more quickly.

This approach is in stark contrast to that favoured by academics. In an academic experiment, the aim is to empirically demonstrate a hypothesis by retaining tight control over the parameters and possible confounders. More appropriate for businesses, however, is to quickly build a prototype which establishes whether an idea works, thus giving stakeholders the confidence to make a leap of faith. This is exactly why the Avon and Somerset Police were happy to take one such leap when they first heard of Ogilvy’s radical idea to protect the residents of the region from pickpocketing.

Unintended consequences on behaviour

Ask anyone who researches, studies or works in behavioural science and they’ll tell you that behaviour is dependent on context. An intervention which reduces a behaviour in one setting might have the opposite effect in another. Even experts with decades of experience and research under their belt make incorrect predictions about how people will behave in a situation, so it’s crucial to test interventions in context. Even the most well-meaning interventions can have unintended consequences on behaviour and this was the paradoxical effect of traditional efforts to reduce pickpocketing.

In one town or city or another, you’ve almost certainly seen posters which read: “Beware of pickpockets operating in this area”. Despite aiming to increase awareness of this common crime, these signs counterintuitively make life easier for pickpockets.