Why bit by bit is better for Behaviour Change

€150 a month sounds like a bill, whereas €5 a day sounds like a coffee (with oat milk and an ambiance) in Dublin.

Over 30 days, they’re the exact same amount. But when researchers invited savings app users to save either $5 a day or $150 a month, those offered the daily option were four times more likely to sign up (Hershfield, Shu & Benartzi, 2020).

The financial commitment was exactly the same, how it was presented made a substantial difference to people’s willingness to begin.

We all fall into this trap - inside and outside of work. We set goals that feel initially exciting (get rich or ripped) and then make little or no progress. We feel overwhelmed by the scale of the change - or it’s just not quite clear what it looks like on a day-to-day basis, to move towards the goal.

In the world of work - it’s not uncommon to speak in ambitious and vague terms about cultural transformation and high performance teams. The reality is - that achieving those things - takes small actions that compound over time.

“Be inclusive” is a nice ambition for a team - but it’s also very value. To translate that goal - a manager could say: our goal is to have more inclusive meetings - so the goal is ‘every meeting, every voice’ - we make sure we’ve give every person the chance to share their point of view.

Similarly, “share our vision more” might jump up a leader’s to-do list when they receive employee feedback that says the vision is unclear. But, what does that look like? Taking five minutes every Friday to re-state the vision, and update the team on the progress made that week towards it - that’s reasonable.

There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious - but, we need to give ourselves and others a manageable starting point.

Think about something you want to improve but keep putting off. What’s your less ambitious and less ambiguous ‘cost of a cup of coffee’ version of a current goal?

Book in a chat with me and I’ll help you think it through, 30 minutes, no cost - but you can shout me a coffee some day if you like.

Sources: Hershfield, H. E., Shu, S., & Benartzi, S. (2020). Temporal reframing and participation in a savings program: A field experiment. Marketing Science, 39(6), 1039–1051.

Voelkel, J. G., Milkman, K. L., & Duckworth, A. L. (2027). Behavior Change. Annual Review of Psychology, 78. Advance review.