[00:00:00] Mel: Hi, and welcome to Less Chatter, More Matter, a podcast about all things communication without the waffle. I'm your host, Mel Loy, and in this show, I will give you short, punchy, practical communication tips and insights. You can start using in your communication practices right away. I'm a former corporate communication executive who happily took a redundancy, started my own business, and never looked back.

[00:00:27] Mel: These days, I use my 20 plus years of experience to help guide organisations of all shapes and sizes in how to communicate more effectively. I'm wife to Michael, cat mum to Cookie, aunty to 12 nieces and nephews, a yoga teacher, and a group fitness fanatic. I promise these episodes will always be short, sharp, and helpful, so let's get amongst it.

[00:00:52] Mel: Hi friends and welcome back to the show! If you are a regular listener, thanks for tuning in again, and if this is your first time here, then a big hello to you as well. And of course, if you like the show and think more people could learn [00:01:00] from it, would you become a reviewer?

[00:01:09] Mel: It'll just take you a couple of seconds to rate and review the show and it could make all the difference. Speaking of the show, let's get on with it. Today's episode is a fun one because I'm going to be sharing a bit of my favorite topic, behavioral science and how we can use it in our change communication.

[00:01:27] Mel: But first, let's just take a quick step back and quickly cover what exactly change communication is. At the heart of it, it's about influencing people, right? Because we want them to do or feel something differently to what they're currently experiencing. It's about motivating people to action or to understanding or acceptance of why something needs to change.

[00:01:49] Mel: Now, communication is not the silver bullet when it comes to change. It's just one of five pieces of the change puzzle. What are the other four pieces? Well, they are leadership, stakeholder engagement, [00:02:00] governance, and learning and development. Communication is absolutely an important part of change, but the point is it's not the only part or the most important part.

[00:02:10] Mel: It's also worth remembering that change communication is not the same thing as internal communication. I won't go over that again because I did a whoooole podcast episode, which you can go back to and listen to at your leisure, if you want to. That's episode 24. But in short, change communication is about really deeply understanding human behavior and then using communication to drive a desired response.

[00:02:36] Mel: So what is behavioral science then? Okay, so behavioral science is a study of why people do what they do, basically. And when we understand that, we can tailor our communication to influence their decision making. So today I'm going to be sharing five behavioral science hacks you can use to improve the effectiveness of your change communication.

[00:02:56] Mel: And I go into much more detail in my new book that's coming out [00:03:00] soon. So if you are interested in more of this, pop your name on the mailing list, link is in the show notes. And you'll be the first to know when pre sales open. Now, you may not use all or even one of these hacks every time you communicate about a change program, but it's worth knowing these techniques because you never know when you'll need them.

[00:03:19] Mel: So the first hack is what's known as the IKEA effect. And no, that's not another term for divorce. This is a cognitive bias that results in people placing more value on the things they've created rather than the gifts they're given. Even if those gifts, which are the same thing, are far more valuable or better quality.

[00:03:39] Mel: It's called the Ikea effect because the researchers from Harvard business school studied participants who assembled Ikea flat packs, made objects from Lego and folded paper into origami. And what they found was that participants viewed their creations as equal to, or of more value than similar products created by experts.[00:04:00]

[00:04:00] Mel: So how can you use the Ikea effect in change communication? Here's a few suggestions. Number one, make sure that some of the end users are involved in the design process of the change, and then use their experiences and words in your comms, because that shows people that their peers have helped co create the change, so they'll be more likely to value it.

[00:04:22] Mel: The second way you could use it is when you're working with leaders on their change communication, get them to work with their teams to break down what the change means for them and then co create their own implementation plan and draft a shared understanding of what that means for them. And another way you could use the IKEA effect is to get leaders to co create the comms with you.

[00:04:42] Mel: If they feel that sense of ownership and value their work, they're more likely to use the comms in the way that's intended. So that's the IKEA effect. Create a sense of ownership and creation. The second hack is called reframing. Now, some of you as experienced [00:05:00] communicators are probably already doing this without even realizing it.

[00:05:04] Mel: Reframing is a way of almost chunking down information or numbers into more palatable, less overwhelming, bite sized pieces of information. Or, it can be about taking the information you have and describing it in a different way that's more likely to spur on action. So let's look at the chunking down reframing first. I love this study that was done back in 2020 by a couple of researchers where they were testing to see how reframing could influence more people to sign up for some volunteer work. And what they found was that when they reframed an overarching goal of 200 hours a year into more granular sub goals, they had a great deal more success.

[00:05:44] Mel: So they went out and basically... asked people on this university campus. Hey, would you volunteer for 200 hours a year? Now they had quite a poor response to that, but when they started saying four hours of volunteering every [00:06:00] week or eight hours every two weeks, they got a much better response. In fact, They got increased volunteering hours by 8 percent over a 12 week period.

[00:06:10] Mel: So how do we use this in our change comms? Firstly, look at what your change is and consider if it might feel too overwhelming the way you're currently describing it. Then think about how you could potentially reframe it into bite sized pieces. So, for example, let's say your change is about a new strategy to increase your company's retail store footprint by 20 stores in the next 12 months.

[00:06:34] Mel: For many, that might feel like a pretty overwhelming, almost impossible goal, right? 20 stores in a year. And when it feels like that, we lose people's engagement or trust in the change. But, what if we reframed it and said it was an average of one to two stores a month? All of a sudden, that seems more achievable and much less scary.

[00:06:56] Mel: Well, I think it does, or okay, let's say [00:07:00] there's been a new enterprise bargaining agreement coming and under it, employees will receive a 3 percent pay rise in the next year. Now, 3 percent may not sound like a lot for many people. So what you could do is give some examples like that means a person who earns 120, 000 dollars a year will earn an extra 3, 600 dollars in a year, You could even go further and make some assumptions about that spend. So, you know, you could talk about how much extra fuel that would cover, groceries, all those sorts of things. So in this way, you make those numbers quite real for people, but also give them more of a context to how that would look in practice.

[00:07:37] Mel: So that's reframing. The third behavioral science hack you can try is what's known as the foot in the door technique. Now brands use this all the time. Just think about test drives when you're looking for a car, free samples handed out at the deli or the bakery, free access to an online tool like Canva.

[00:07:57] Mel: You know, it's free to a point. Then you want more. It's [00:08:00] enough to hook you in and a little taste of it. Then you pay for the good stuff. So the idea with this one, the foot in the door technique,\ is to start small. You give people a small positive experience they'll agree with, then start to level up with bigger changes.

[00:08:16] Mel: And again, this has been researched multiple times in international studies. So how do you use this in change communication? It's actually a really great technique for countering resistance. But it's also where you're going to need to work closely with the change manager or the project manager to make this happen.

[00:08:33] Mel: But what you can do in the case of big change is encourage them to start with something small. So for example. Let's say you're putting in a completely new piece of software to manage all facets of employee payroll, leave, performance management, et cetera, et cetera. Rather than roll it all out at once, start with the smallest, easiest piece of the system.

[00:08:53] Mel: Get people to trial it, see how much better it is than the old system, yadda yadda. And then once they're happy, they've got that foot in the door. [00:09:00] So you can move on to the next bigger piece of the pie. Now if you're wondering where this comes from, the foot in the door technique, as I said, is not a new thing.

[00:09:08] Mel: There's been a lot of studies. But it was first studied back in 1966 by Stanford University psychologist, Jonathan Friedman and Scott Fraser. And in all the experiments they conducted, they found that by starting with a small ask, you are likely to get a positive response to a secondary, bigger ask. So many similar experiments have since proven over and over again that the technique works.

[00:09:31] Mel: It absolutely works. It's backed by research. Give the foot in the door technique a go. The fourth hack is to counter loss aversion. Now, loss aversion theory is the idea that we value potential losses more than potential gains. And again, this has been proven time and time again in behavioral science research.

[00:09:51] Mel: So researchers Amos Sversky and Daniel Kahneman found this psychological pain we feel when losing something [00:10:00] is about twice as big as the joy we get from gaining something. That's huge. So the theory suggests that since people are more sensitive to losses than gains, They would take more risks to avoid losses than acquire equivalent gains. And this also relates to what we know as familiarity bias, or sometimes called the mere exposure effect, which shows people have a tendency to prefer, i. e. choose, products and services and options that feel more familiar to them, and they may even actively avoid considering new options.

[00:10:33] Mel: Does that sound like somebody you know? I'm just putting it out there. Do you know someone like that? Now, think about how this might apply to change communication. Let's say a customer might no longer be able to purchase a product from your store, but it's being replaced by another product that has more features.

[00:10:50] Mel: That's great, but unless the customer judges the replacement product to be at least twice as good as what they had, they won't be happy. And [00:11:00] they may well find a sneaky way to try and hold on to their existing model. Or let's say your business is changing up employee benefits and is partnering with a different hotel chain.

[00:11:09] Mel: And even though the discount is better at the new chain, unless that chain of hotels is deemed to be at least twice as good in what they offer, your employees are unlikely to be supportive. And again, they could try and find a workaround to try and get the discount at the existing hotel chain instead.

[00:11:26] Mel: So what can you do to counter loss aversion? Okay, well, you can try reframing like we just talked about, and you can look at how you could describe the benefits for the new thing in a different way. The other thing you can do is ask some deep questions to challenge what researchers have called the illusion of explanatory depth.

[00:11:45] Mel: I'll say that again, the illusion of explanatory depth. And this basically means that most of us think we understand more than we actually do. So, for example, you might use a laptop every day, and if you are asked to explain how it works, you can say, well, you turn it [00:12:00] on, fires up the internal processor, and it works.

[00:12:03] Mel: Okay, but now let me ask you to explain that process to me in detail, step by step. Could you do it? I certainly could. I'm sure some of you could, though. It's only once we ask for a detailed explanation of a person's understanding of why they think the future state is worse than the current state, that we discover how little they actually know.

[00:12:24] Mel: So you may not change their mind with that conversation, but you will start to shift their thinking and that's a great start to counter loss aversion. You can also draw on that familiarity bias and find ways to show similarities between what the person currently experiences or the product they offer and what the new thing is.

[00:12:42] Mel: Show them what's staying the same or not changing as well. So in short, you can build a bit of certainty that reduces some of the fear. Okay, the fifth and final hack I'm going to mention today is what's known as the labor illusion effect. So people have a tendency [00:13:00] to perceive products and services more favorably when they're made aware of the effort that was put in.

[00:13:05] Mel: So, for example, if you are introducing a new strategy, you could talk about how long it's taken to develop, how many people from the business have been involved, et cetera. Uh, if you're introducing a new product, you can talk about the hours spent on research and development, testing with customers, fine tuning.

[00:13:22] Mel: All of those sorts of things to make it just right. You can even talk about the amount of money you've put into that development. That's part of the labor illusion effect as well. And chances are that by talking in this way, you will spark that labor illusion effect. People will see the strategy in a more favorable light if they perceive.

[00:13:41] Mel: So much time and effort and collaboration has gone into its development. All right, let's do a quick recap of the five behavioral science hacks you can use in your change comps. Number one, the IKEA effect. So that's about creating a sense of ownership so people will value the change more. The second [00:14:00] thing is reframing.

[00:14:01] Mel: So chunk down the change into more digestible, bite sized pieces. Or think about how you might be able to explain something differently to make it a more positive impact. The third one was the foot in the door technique. So give people a small taste of the path of least resistance and then gradually move them on to bigger changes.

[00:14:23] Mel: The fourth was to counter loss aversion. So usually things like deep questions that challenge the illusion of explanatory depth or showing similarities between the old and the new. So playing to the familiarity bias. And number five was use the labor illusion effect. Share how much blood and sweat and tears has gone into the new strategy, the software, the product, the service, whatever it is, and people would likely value it more.

[00:14:47] Mel: I mean, for example, did you know it takes me sometimes an hour to pull together a podcast episode before April then goes and spends an hour editing it at least? [00:15:00] I'm just saying there's a lot of value in this podcast. So overall, what these strategies do is help to address reactants. That's another behavioral science term that basically means if we're told to do something, we won't do it or we don't want to do it.

[00:15:16] Mel: And we can counter reactants using these tools, but also by making the change as easy and as effortless as possible. Now, my new book, which will be coming out in the next couple of months, I talk in more detail about some of these theories and how to apply them to your change comms. So if you love this stuff as much as I do, and you're interested in finding out more, go to melanieloy. com book, or check the link in the show notes to pop your name down on the mailing list. And when you do that, you'll be the first to know when pre orders open. Okay. That's all for today. As always, if you like what you're learning on this podcast, please take a couple of minutes to rate and review the show.

[00:15:52] Mel: I will be forever grateful. And in the meantime, keep doing amazing things and bye for now.[00:16:00]