How can nudge theory help you overcome resistance to change?

Nudge theory is like giving someone a gentle push in the right direction. It's about influencing choices without taking away freedom. Imagine a fruit bowl placed at eye level while sugary snacks are hidden away. This small change encourages healthier choices without forbidding unhealthy ones.

One of my best lessons learned on nudging is that, by focus on "facilitating" the choice/decion-making of the buyer - instead of focusing on feature/benefits - I've been able to reduce resistance and objections and sell with more ease. So, instead of polarizing into the buyer-seller divide, I was collaborating with the buyer, introducing stimuli tightly aligned with situational and mindset map. In hindsight, and after 22 years of multidisciplinary mining and applying choice and decision-making insights, I feel that, more than changing the large scale behavior, nudge can enable sellers to tackle those 60% of deals that dead-end as "no decision" or "no sale." That's why I'm working on the NudgeSelling® Framework ;-)

The basic concept's premise is that, by changing some aspects of the choice architecture (contextual environment where the decision will occur), you can gradually gain trust and gently guide the final choice. Once, my buyer was petrified of fear his peers would crucify him with questions requiring explanations about "why" that choice. The choosing process was stuck. So, I proposed a "new support document" called Stakeholder Acceptance Criteria, that the buyer would distribute, individually, to each stakeholder to capture each of their criteria. That's an example in which the seller, after detecting fear/paralysis-analysis, introduced a nudge (document) that provided the risk mitigation relief to unstuck the buyer's decision-process.

I'd like to add: (1) Reduce the number of possible/plausible alternative paths to reaching the changed/desired state, as well as options or configurations that must be compared and chosen; (2) Use incentives for stimuli approach & desired action toward change; (3) Understand the subjects' "preference vs. outcome" map, regarding the personalization of the change benefit; (4) Provide defaults to ease choosing/execution effort, when appropriate, along the change process; (5) Give low energy-consumption feedback frequently, framed positively; (6) Expect and treat errors as learning opportunity or needed upskilling, as change is implemented; (7) Structure complexity to phase choice/decision overload along time. What do you think @Erin Ramirez?

In my experience, a risk-driven approach is effective. It provides: (1) a simple criteria for defining the key elements of the choice architecture; (2) a clear vision of the impact which, properly framed, favors trial & acceptance of desired behavior; (3) complexity isolation around each risk, less cognitive choice overload & easier comms; (4) anchors for the desired state w/favorable reference points early in the process; (5) enables tendency to undervalue future benefits by emphasizing immediate gains or mitigating perceived short-term costs; (6) multiple ways to framing the equation (risk=probability*impact) for each no-change risk, so that the info appeals to both, people with risk-averse/loss avoiders AND gain activator profiles.

Unfortunately, in my experience, there's no "full audience" as mentioned... Each subject is unique and the best you can do is to categorize and be prepared for the exceptions. Detailed profiles may change but, at a higher level of abstraction, categories will be representative via role (stakeholders, managers, worker), amount of change-generated impact (worker, CXO) or even, ability of organizational influence (advisor, mentors, instructors) etc. So, the change's choice architecture will have different plausible paths (per Eric J Johson's book: The Elements of Choice) for each category/group. Hence, different nudges (Incentives, Maps, Defaults, Feedbacks, Errors, Complexity structure) should apply differently for each category/group.

Other subjects' characteristics, disciplines and skills to consider: - Body language - Behavioral profiling - Align to fast/slow modes of thinking @ right time - Risk Appetite of groups (stakeholders, mgrs, etc) - Dominant Focus of key influencers of decision makers (promotion or prevention) - Motivation Direction of decision makers(approach or avoid) - Active listening - Critical thinking and analysis - Extreme empathy - "Pre-suasion" techniques (a la Master Cialdini)