By Michael McCauley
We at Cerebyte talk a lot about changing behavior to support process improvement and high performance. But how is that change accomplished? Can the same approach be used in every situation — or at least the vast majority of situations?
Dr. B.J. Fogg of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab qualifies and categorizes behavior change in his “Behavior Grid.” This grid provides a framework that we can use to think about and plan for change. It distinguishes between the types of behavior changes desired — from starting a completely new behavior to stopping an ongoing behavior — and the schedule upon which the behavior change will be implemented, for example from a one-time change to sustained, long-term change.
Organizing and thinking about change behaviors in this way enables us to create specific persuasive technologies that address each type. This is particularly important when creating high performance organizations because large numbers of people will be impacted — for better or worse. In order to create lasting change as quickly as possible, it is important to match the persuasive technology with the behavior change desired.
At Cerebyte we have primarily focused our persuasive technology on creating what Fogg calls “Row 7 Behaviors,” behaviors that are always performed. These are behaviors that create sustained change and maximum organizational impact. But can organizational benefits be derived from the other types of behavior change identified in Fogg’s grid? I think they can. What do you think?