Social Marketing Panorama

Switching on Difficult Behaviors

I had the opportunity recently to hear an interview with Dan Heath about his new book Switch:  How to Change Things When Change is Hard, written with his brother Chip.  Dan is a senior fellow at Duke's CASE center for social entrepreneurship.  Chip teaches organizational behavior at Stanford.  Switch is about the difficulty of change--due to the fact that we have "warring" systems in our brains, a rational one and an emotional one--and how to set up conditions to tip the balance in favor of change.

As I listened to the interview, I struck by several statements that reinforced things I had learned in my practice and reading in social marketing:

• Effective communication does not guarantee change
• When our environment changes, it affects our behavior
• Change rarely comes from knowledge
• Emotions and experiences lead to big changes

The Heaths base these assertions on two things: their observations about the effectiveness of communication to effect change, made while traveling around the country promoting their last book, Made to Stick, about creating "sticky" ideas; work from psychology, showing that we have "dueling" emotional and rational systems in our brains, when it come to decisions about behavior. Their conclusion: "Emotion is the boss, and reason is the servant."

The book relates successful behavior change strategies from recent psychological literature, and contains vignettes and case studies from public health, political and business arenas. It sounds like an excellent addition to one's library of creating successful behavior change.  I plan to buy it--as soon as my "to read" stack dwindles a bit more!

You can hear the interview with Dan Heath on WUNC radio's The State of Things.  

Social Marketing--"Apropos of the...Snow"*

*With apologies to Dostoevsky.

Thinking back to last Monday, I was sitting in my office at home, looking out at the snow in my woods.  (Today is sunny and in the 70s.)  I was sitting here, reflecting on how very much the covering of snow changes everything.  Changes the way the trees look.  Changes the way I feel.  Changes what I want to do.

Then I began thinking, how can we make our behavior change efforts to be like the snow?!  In the same way that a layer of snow changes a bare (to some, unattractive) tree--and changes my feelings and thoughts about what I want to do, what can we do to our behavioral goals so that they look more attractive, inviting, desirable, for our audiences?  I believe that social marketing gives us a way to do this.  When I finally fell in love with social marketing, it was because it gave me a new way of seeing things (through the lenses of exchange, product, price, place and promotion).  It caused me to ask different questions (What are the barriers that stand in the way of behaviors after people get all the good information I provide?  What facilitates behavior change?)  It gave me a new way to think about behavior change (How can I make this "fun, easy and popular" for my audience to do?)  It provided me with strategies to cover my "bare" behavior change efforts with snow!

The Importance of Thinking and Asking Questions. I believe the mindset we bring to problem solving can have a profound impact on the strategies we develop.  I believe that the questions we ask about the sources of, and remedies for, a problem can affect the quality and success of our responses to that problem.  Sometimes people express concern that social marketing sure seems like a lot to do.  I like to tell them that social marketing is as much about the way we think, as it is about doing something!  I like to tell them that social marketing is as simple as asking a new set of questions!

So, here are some of the new ways to think about problems, which I discovered :
    I. Think behavior change (not just awareness and education)
       Know your audiences--their fears, aspirations, motivations, values, hopes, dreams
       Think benefits and costs of behavior
       Think when the right place and time is to interact with your audiences
       Think when they are in the right frame of mind to attend to your issue of interest

    II.a There are external factors that motivate behavior:
          Policies
          Access 
          Skills
          Actual consequences (of trying a behavior)
          Cultural beliefs and values

    II.b There are internal factors that motivate behavior:
          Knowledge and beliefs
          Attitudes
          Perceived risks
          Perceived consequences (of trying a behavior)
          Self efficacy (I"ve got what it takes to do this)
          Intention
(II.a & b:  NIMH Theorists' Consensus Conference, http://tinyurl.com/cqg7to)

And, here are some new questions to ask:
    I. How can I make the behavior "fun, easy and popular" for my audiences to do?
(Bill Smith, Academy for Educational Development, http://tinyurl.com/b823tt)

    II. For any behavior X,
        A. What are the things that make it easier to do X?  What are the things that
            make it harder?
        B. What are the good things that happen, when you do X?  What are the bad
            things?
        C. Who would approve of your doing X?  Who would disapprove?
(Simplified Elicitation Methodology, http://tinyurl.com/bts4oz)

My challenge to you, dear reader, is to ask yourself:  How can I make the behavior change I am working on like snow on the trees?  Can I ask other questions, than I usually do?  Can I think about things in a different way?  Let me know what you come up with!

“You Say You Want a [Resolution], Well You Know, We All Want to Change the World [and ourselves?]”

(with apologies to the Beatles)

Happy New Year! Well…it is that time again—the time when we start to make resolutions about what to do more of, less of, do better, do with whom, without whom, etc. Resolutions? Hey, are we talking behavior change here?! Yes, indeed! And on December 26th, National Public Radio’s show, Science Friday, offered help to us erstwhile resolvers, with evidence-based suggestions for turning resolutions into reality. As a public service to my readers, I offered these tactics from John C. Norcross, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Scranton in Scranton, Pennsylvania!

• Actually state a resolution (“I resolve to…”), rather than just thinking about it
• Make a public commitment (does telling my cat work?)
• Set a start or quit date
• Start with small changes—keep it realistic
• Make it measurable
• Have an action plan with specific to-dos and dates
• Track your progress
• Reward yourself with successes along the way
• Arrange your environment to help (place the harmonica out where you can see it, tape a reminder to air dry the laundry on the dryer door—and have hangers within reach)
• Have a buddy contact you to check on your progress, and to provide support
• Commit time and money

Wait a minute, this sounds like principles I use at work! Actually, I was delighted to be reminded how basic principles of behavior change can be scaled down or scaled up, from self to society. Dr. Norcross made several other helpful observations:

• Take it one resolution at a time (maybe two, if they are related)
• Successful resolvers do slip—especially early own—however, they don’t interpret those slips as failures
• Successful resolvers keep trying. If they don’t succeed in the current year, they tend to try again in the next year

You can hear the full discussion, or download a podcast of it, at the Science Friday web site.

So, using best practice behavior change principles is as easy as making a New Year’s Resolution! (You can even book mark this post as an aid!)