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What is Behavioural Design?

This blog post is an extended introduction of Behavioural Design. You will get a clear idea about what it is, how you can use it in your professional and personal…

The Behavioural Design of Love and Desire

The wicked design problem of love and desire in long term relationships A long-term relationship is a classic behavioural design challenge. How do you keep being in love? And how...

How Jeff Bezos designs Team Behaviour

The design of high performance team behaviour at Amazon The number one question for every organization in the knowledge economy is to figure out how to get the highest level of...

The importance of extreme users in research

The importance of extreme users in research One of the biggest illusions of Market Research is that you need to interview "average consumers". That's absurd. What you're looking for in...

How to design an innovation habit?

The organizational habits that produce innovation and growth Why are some companies more innovative than others? I want to argue that they have habits in place that produce more ideas...

The behavioural design of the economy. On incentives and rewards

To get the rich and powerful to change their behaviour, is the most wicked design problem of our time I have been thinking a lot lately about society's inability to...

The psychological price of being rational is being unlikeable

Rational decision makers have to dare to fight common sense and social norms. This blogpost is about how being rational in organizations is actually pretty difficult. It comes at a...

How Norway nudges its citizen to drive electric

The surprising story behind Norways spectacular rise in EV's Did you know that in Norway more than 60% of all newly bought cars are electric? Here's the surprising story of...

The Behavioural Design of Applying for a Job

How do you apply for a job? From a Behavioural Design point of view, this is a fascinating question. When you are applying for a job, there are several challenges…

Growth Hacking vs. Behavioural Design

Growth Hacking vs. Behavioural Design We often get questions on the difference between Behavioural Design and Growth Hacking. The short answer is that Behavioural Design is a method to come...

Signaling: How to add psychological value

What is the cheapest way to feel insanely rich? To me, it is having a high-tea in a five-star hotel. For about 50 to 60 euros you can get a…

How to influence the perception of value?

In this blogpost I want to explore the concept of value. I want to argue that Behavioural Design is as much about influencing how people perceive and experience things, as…

How Behavioural Science and Data Science should collaborate

Last week I had the honour to speak and lead a data science hackathon at the I-com conference in Malaga. I have never been surrounded by so many brilliant people…

Personal coaching is pointless: four reasons

The lie at the heart of the coaching and Leadership-Industry I’m fully aware that I will probably get hate-mail for this. But I honestly think personal coaching is a gigantic…

How to influence those in power?

How do you influence those in power? Have you seen the talk that Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr did at the official TED2019 conference last week? Her performance became a viral sensation…

Mental models: How to design for intelligent decision making?

We want to talk about mental models. They are key for intelligent decisions making. We want to introduce you to one of our intellectual heroes. A man who turned 95…

How to live a meaningful life in a world that is spinning out of control?

A slightly modified version of this blog was posted on our Behavioural Design Digest Newsletter (subscribe now). In this blog I want to share a couple of thoughts on how…

What is design thinking?

Excerpt: In this post, we will explain what design thinking is all about. Originating from the innovation arena, it has gained popularity in other business domains. Driven by the success…

Nudging explained

Excerpt: In this post, we will highlight the main concepts from the work of Nobel prize winner Richard Thaler as explained in his bestselling book ‘Nudge.’ We will explain what…

Cialdini Influence in practice

Excerpt: In this post, we want to give some examples of how to use Cialdini’s six principles of persuasion in practice. Well, we won’t explain all the principles ourselves, but…

Cialdini on persuasion

Excerpt: In this post, we will introduce you to the work of Dr. Robert Cialdini. Who is an expert on how to influence people. And in the psychology of persuasion….

Motivation: explained by BJ Fogg

Excerpt: In our post ‘BJ Fogg Model explained‘ we have given a concise explanation of the BJ Fogg Behavior Model, which is a persuasion knowledge model. This post is for…

BJ Fogg model explained

Excerpt: this is a reference page on which you can find an explanation of the Behavior Model as developed by professor BJ Fogg who founded the Standford Persuasive Tech Lab….

System 1 and 2 quick guide

In our post ‘Kahneman Fast and Slow thinking explained‘ we have elaborated in depth on system 1 and 2 thinking. And Daniel Kahneman’s work. Therefore, this post is meant for…

Kahneman fast and slow thinking explained

Excerpt: this is a reference page. Here you can find the fundamentals of Kahneman’s breakthrough work on human decision making. Firstly, it will address his discovery of fast and slow…

How to create Excitement for a Design Sprint?

A Design Sprint is a thrilling experience. You get to collaborate with your clients on trying to crack problems that deeply concerns them. However, a Design Sprint also requires a…

How The Senate Hearing of Brett Kavanaugh turned into a framing nightmare for Republicans

Framing Blunder 1: Attack a likable opponent In theory, a Senate hearing is supposed to be nothing more than a carefully crafted show to shape public perception. The stakes for…

Why Nir Eyal is a bit of a hypocrite

Nir Eyal – the author of the book Hooked – taught a whole generation of designers and developers how to make people addicted to technology, by using techniques from behavioural…

Three Cardinal Sins against Customer-Centricity in Finance

Last week, I was attending a keynote presentation by the CEO of one of the biggest Belgian banks. He was presenting the story of the digital transformation of his bank...

What’s Neymar worth? A lesson in price psychology.

Behavioural economics has always been fascinated by pricing. Classic economic thinking has taught us that a price is a fair representation of supply and demand. A rational or even objective...

3 techniques that will supercharge your team’s creativity

Brainstorms must die Before we get to the goods of supercharging your team's creativity, there's one thing that needs to be taken care of first: Dead to the brainstorm. Maybe...

How To Make an Agile Team Customer-Centric?

Digital Transformation, Agile Transformation, and Customer Centricity are the three major challenges that are causing sleep deprivation of managers nowadays. You could summarise that Digital Transformation is meant to be...

How to create change by design

It’s hard denying we as humankind are facing serious problems today, and things need to change. Global warming is happening as we speak, obesity is overtaking smoking as the number...

Lose weight using behavioural design

Lose weight using behavioural design One of my favorite authors - Nir Eyal - once said: “Never trust a behavioural designer who’s out of shape." The reason is that being...

Chief Behavioural Officer: It’s the new ‘must-have’ role

Step by step, behavioural economics, and psychological science have expanded their reach to become an established part of the business, policymaking, and regulation - for anyone seriously interested in both...

How to win wars by influencing people’s behaviour

When terrorism is staged for YouTube, and all sides are media-savvy, the military is turning to the behavioural sciences for help. In 1955 Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who led the...

Rediscovering the Unconscious

“When you try to answer a question,” said Kahneman, “you sometimes answer a different question.” In a seminal 1979 paper, he and Tversky described a series of experiments that questioned...

How to write a mission statement that doesn’t suck

Ever been trapped in long strategic sessions to create a mission statement? Why it's so wrong isn't even primarily that's a complete waste of your time, but it is especially...

Rory Sutherland: Sweat the Small Stuff

This is a video we've watched over and over again. It's a TED Talk by a personal hero of ours Rory Sutherland. In his talk, he holds a plea to...