S7E3: Behavior Change vs. Change Management

Hello, hello my favorite people on the internet! Dr. K here, and I am pumped to be back with another episode of the Experience University Podcast! Today’s episode is about the number one question I get asked: How is behavior change design different from change management? I will explain the benefits of behavior change design and the many differences between the two. Be sure to follow along for more episodes in the coming weeks!

Today we are discussing:
More Than a Professor (2:04)
#1 Thing I Get Asked (3:31)
Success in Behavior Change Design vs. Change Management (5:18)
Differences in Methods, Timeframe, and Implementation Focus (8:08)
We are a Specialist Society (10:17)
Closing (12:34)

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Transcript

Dr. K:
You are listening to the Experience University Podcast with Dr. K. Season 7, Episode 3.

Speaker 2:
Welcome to Experience University where we aim to educate, inspire, and empower individuals who wish to design transformational experiences. Now, your host, Dr. Kristin Malek.

Dr. K:
Hello, hello, my friends! Welcome back. Episode three. I just have to say I am so pumped to be back on the podcast. You're going to get so tired of hearing me say that. But seriously, taking a season off, a year actually, which would be two seasons in my world, taking that year off was so important for my clarity, all the things going on just really being able to sit there and be like, what is my contribution to the world and to who and in what way? And I am telling you, I hope you can hear the purpose and the passion in my voice because I am just so pumped. 

Let me tell you, it's an interesting time to be a professor right now. If you didn't know I've been at the University of Nebraska, which is kind of what started and launched this podcast during COVID. But I've been here for four years, five years, and I've had three or four different job apportionments. And I'm actually at a place, starting this last fall, where I'm only teaching one class a year. I did teach an extra class in the spring just for fun. I couldn't imagine not teaching for a semester. And so I taught a class for free above my course load because I just wanted to have that interaction with the students.

And I'm doing so much in the community: speaking, training, leading workshops, doing some educational strategy, so much stuff. But I think that people just assume that I am just Kristin, I'm the professor. This is what I do. It's actually a very, very small part of what I'm doing in the day-to-day. I am doing so much with so many different organizations and that's why I just love it. I just love everything that I do. 

So today's episode, I have gotten a lot of comments when I talk about behavior change design. I'm like, OK, this is what I do. People will be like, OK, what do you like? You design events and experiences that change behavior and mindset. So who do you work with? And I say, OK, I work with a lot of directors of HR or internally with CEOs or managing partners. And I'll be designing events and experiences internally to change employee mindset behavior. I also work with a ton of CEOs and C Suites to design effective board meetings or leadership meetings to get everybody on the same page and to be visionary. Essentially, if you have a really bad board of directors and they're getting in the way of the CEO and C Suite doing their job, then I come in and design an experience to get the board of directors all on the same page supporting the CEO, which is pretty cool. And then externally, I do a ton with retreats and health retreats and just events at large that are looking to change behavior. So lots of training all the things.

So the number one comment that I get, especially from the C SUITE, is they're like, how is behavior change different than change management? I get this all the time and it makes sense, right? Behavior change, change management. And I will tell you that even statistically, McKinsey and Company is a huge consulting company that organizations bring in, they analyzed their own projects and contracts over the last 10 or 15 years, they analyzed their own to see all the change management projects we've been in charge of how many of them have actually stuck like 1 to 3 years later. And McKinsey and Company published a report, and they said we actually have a 70% failure rate. Projects are not sticking. This change is not sticking. 70% failure. 

I will tell you that in my experience doing behavior change design. Now again, if you listen to the last episode, it's kind of all over the map by industry of what exactly is behavior change design. But in my personal experience, we've had a 95% success rate three years after the event, the only times the success has not stuck, that I have been tracking has been because of a leadership change where they no longer supported that change. And if they just defunded the change completely, those are the only two situations, and it's much more the first than the second.

So if we're working on this project and we're changing behavior and we're doing all this awesome stuff and then the leader up and decides to just go to another company, another organization, then that change isn't sticking because a new leader comes in and they're trying to enact change in another way. So then what's the difference? Why is there such a difference? 70% failure to 95% success. There's a huge difference. And I would say it kind of breaks down into these different areas. 

So one, I would say the focus. Change management comes in and it's a very like process level change, it's very organizational change. And in my opinion, it can feel like it's a very top-down change, and behavior change design is kind of the opposite. You're working with small groups that are psychographicly the same. Maybe even some individuals, if you're looking at like leaders or high-performance leaders and you're scaffolding that behavior change. So I don't want to say like grassroots efforts. But if you think about that, you know, you're having smaller groups that are enacting their because you have to take people where they're at currently to get them to where you need them to be. So, you're splitting up the organization into these smaller groups and designing events and experiences specifically for them. And because of that, you are truly meeting people where they're at and designing an experience just for them. So that behavior change really sticks. So that focus is a little different. 

I would say the scope is different. In change management, you're looking at that systemic change and that broad kind of organizational change, and within behavior change design, you're focusing on specific behaviors or habits or values within a population. Now, when I say that leaders are all automatically like, well, we need process and systemic changes. Yes, absolutely. I'm not saying that that doesn't lead to that, but having the main focus on the specific behaviors, habits, and values within that population or subpopulation leads to those things, right? So when I say the focus is like in scope, it's like an initial focus and scope that we're putting our efforts on not just the end product overall.

I would say the goal overall is also different in change management. Your goal is really to have a smooth transition that's planned and managed. That's the concept of change management. But in behavior change design, your goal is really to have effective and sustained behavior change. So, so simple, but it's so true. The approach to change management is often planned and structured. People come in, they have their project management timelines, their checkboxes, and their goals. And in behavior change design, it's a human-centered and very iterative approach. 

So depending on the amount of behavior change, we're looking at when I design events and experiences, it's typically a 3 to 5 event series because you're meeting people where they're at and then you're taking you know, one step, and then two steps and then three steps. And so it's iterative, it's human-centered. So it's typically like 3 to 5, depending on how big that gap is you're trying to accomplish. 

I would say, when you look at the methods and tools that kind of align with that approaching goal, it's very different. So in change management, which I am certified in change management, and I understand the training. I'm not just sitting here as an outsider being like, it’s bad. I would say in change management, we have very specific models like different change models, and then we have specific communication plans and training and project management. That's kind of the change management method in behavior change design. We're really looking at behavioral insights theories, we're looking at prototypes and design thinking. So it doesn't mean again that you're not looking also at communication plans. It's just not the method and tool kind of in that industry. 

When we look at the time frame, change management is typically long-term. So change management, you're like, ok, within one year, within two years, etc. In behavior change, we're looking at short-term, long-term, and ongoing. So what's the behavior we want changed in this quarter and then, you know, within the next six months and then within the next year.

Continuing on from there, I would say when we look at the implementation focus, there are also changes there. So in change management, the implementation focus is really on managing resistance and that sounds so bad. And anyone who's trained in change management or is in change management, they're like, “Oh, that's not what we do,” but also you're sitting there internally like, yeah, that's totally what we do. We manage resistance, and then the focus is on communication and training. And in behavior change design, it's a small adjustment on the words, but it's a huge difference instead of managing resistance, we're designing interventions, which is actually a huge difference even just in those small words. So in behavior change design, we're designing interventions, experiences, and communication. 

So, if you were to line these up side by side, change management versus behavior change design, you would notice that these are actually very different approaches and very different fields. It's just a different mindset.

And so why haven't we been doing that? We haven't been doing that just because we've become a specialist society. We used to be generalists, like back in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, and then everything became so specialized. It's like, ok, you are going to be an event planner. So you are going to go and get an event planning, major degree, whatever, whatever certification.

I think at the University of Nebraska, I think we have a marketing degree that's in one college and then we have advertising and PR, which is in another college. And then, we have integrated communications which is different. You can take classes in the different majors, but everything's become so specific that it's useless unless you are a person who has time, energy, and interest to become cross-trained in five or eight different fields or specializations. And then you can see the overlap between them and how it applies to these situations. You're just not trained in enough to really understand how it all works. 

Like the fact that I'm trained in so many different things with just your body, whether that's Western medicine or Eastern medicine that goes from like just in your brain, you have the neuroscience of the brain, then you have neurolinguistics, which is the science of communication in the brain. Then you have psychology, you have like five different types of therapy, like internal family systems and CBT and then you have somatic therapy, understanding the energy in the body, which is from somatic therapy. But then also doing things with like Reiki, understanding how all of these things play together in your brain, how your neural pathways work and your meridians, there's just so much and that's why I truly think we haven't gotten into this particular area because we are so special because that's what our society needed in the Industrial Revolution. And we just haven't fully transitioned back into being kind of a specialized generalist, if that makes sense. That's kind of what I consider myself. I'm a specialized generalist. I see all the different things.

That is what I get asked most frequently, so I wanted to do a podcast episode on it. Change management versus behavior change design. I hope you learned a ton of interesting things and great takeaways. I am always here. If you want to reach out to me, my contact information is in the show notes. I'm always just a click away. Add me on LinkedIn, send me a message, tell me what you liked about the episode, go to my YouTube channel, watch the mini clips, and stay tuned. Get on my list serve so you know when these trainings are coming up because we want you there. We need more people that can do behavior change and help get our world where it needs to be and not just using it for evil and manipulation and marketing. We want all the good things because that is what we need. 

As always, I want to thank you so much for making the time to take the time, taking the time to make the time (interchangeable). I don't take your time for granted and I am looking forward to talking to you on the next episode.

Speaker 2:
Thanks for listening to the Experience University Podcast. Stay tuned for our next episode.