What Your Employees Need and Can't Tell You: Adapting to Change with the Science of Behavioral Economics

by Melina Palmer

Overview

A Science-Based Organizational Change Roadmap for Managers

“A science-based playbook that is a must-read for every manager of people…” —John A. List, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Voltage Effect and The Why Axis

#1 New Release in Office Management and Business Operations Research

Adapting to change is part of life. But, change is hard and managing change is even harder.

First, understand how the brain works. Because we really don’t know how the brain works, we don’t know what makes us more receptive to change.  Employees can’t tell their managers what they need to “get on the train”, and managers don’t know either.

How to get your team on board. In her first book, What Your Customer Wants and Can't Tell You, author and behavioral economics specialist Melina Palmer, applies the science of behavioral economics to unlocking what is behind customer decisions. Behavioral economics combines elements of economics and psychology to understand how and why people behave the way they do in the real world. Now, in her sequel, What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You, she offers a highly actionable roadmap for business executives and managers faced with the task of instituting successful organizational change.

Actionable behavioral economics for successful change management.What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You delivers insights and research from behavioral economics and the greater behavioral sciences, presented in an enjoyable way that you can actually use to get results.

Inside find:

• An introduction to how the brain really works when faced with change
• Insights into key biases and concepts the subconscious brain uses to make decisions
• “Apply it” sections with tips on how to start using what you have learned—immediately

If you are responsible for managing change and have tried books such as The Heart of Business, Humanocracy, or Change, you should read Melina Palmer’s What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684810161
Publisher:	Mango Media
Publication date:	10/11/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	148
Sales rank:	962,776
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Melina Palmer is founder and CEO of The Brainy Business, which provides behavioral economics consulting to businesses of all sizes from around the world. Her podcast, The Brainy Business: Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy, has downloads in over 160 countries and is used as a resource for teaching applied behavioral economics for many universities and businesses. Melina obtained her bachelor’s degree in business administration: marketing and worked in corporate marketing and brand strategy for over a decade before earning her master’s in behavioral economics. She has contributed research to the Association for Consumer Research, Filene Research Institute, and runs the Behavioral Economics & Business column for Inc Magazine. She began teaching applied behavioral economics through the Texas A&M Human Behavior Lab in fall 2020. Her first book on the subject, What Your Customer Wants and Can't Tell You, was published in May 2021.

Read an Excerpt

From Chapter 1

Change is hard.

Would you agree with that statement? Most people do. After all, we’ve been taught this for essentially our entire lives. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” right?

As it turns out, old dogs can learn new tricks (and according to some they do so faster and easier than younger dogs because they aren’t as easily distracted). I’m here to tell you that, while we have been taught it for years, change doesn’t have to be hard.

If you approach change properly, it can actually be quite easy. In fact, people naturally and happily change all the time, we just tend to ignore the signs of it.

Since you are reading this book, I’m guessing you have had some interest in change and helping yourself and your team to be better at it. At one point or another you have likely come across the widely quoted statistic that 70 percent of change initiatives fail.

Here’s the good news and bad news: according to a review in the Journal of Change Management which looked at five separate initiatives using this statistic, “there is no valid and reliable empirical evidence to support such a narrative.”

You may be wondering if that is the good news or the bad news. The answer is, it’s both. On the plus side, we don’t need to feel bound by this unfounded, but widely claimed statistic anymore. On the minus side, we don’t have a number for the percentage of change initiatives that actually fail – in reality it could be more than 70 percent. And, unfortunately, because there isn’t another statistic out there to replace this one people will continue to cite that inaccurate claim and tout it as the gospel truth. How do I know that?

Sadly, that review in the Journal of Change Management isn’t new. It was published in 2011 (more than a decade before my writing this book). Because we have negativity bias and familiarity bias (which you’ll learn about in Part II) and love sensationalized headlines, we tend to believe what we hear often regardless of how true it is. If you search on Google for “70 percent of change initiatives fail” you will get approximately 251 million results. According to the page for the article that explains there is no empirical evidence to support that claim, it has been viewed 19,009 times. Even if that number is off by a figure of ten times (or 100!), we are still way out of proportion with the misinformation.

While we can’t change that, here is some more good news: now you know. And you can do something about it.

You can be a great manager and lead your employees through change in a way that feels natural; where they are happier, the business is more successful, and everyone wins. I promise it’s not in a utopian land of unicorns and rainbows. This truly is achievable for all kinds of managers, regardless of background, personality type, or experience. If you are ready to learn, I will teach you the art of change (which is solidly based in and backed by science).

So, what is the trick to being naturally better at change (and to help those around you to be more accepting of it as well)? As you will learn throughout this book, it takes an understanding of the rules of the brain and then working with those rules instead of against them. That’s essentially it.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me – there are no “silver bullets” when it comes to change. It does still take effort to get people on board with change, but the tools provided for you within this book will give you the ability to shift your focus from being a victim of the reactions of others, to updating the way you present the information to them so you get the reaction you are looking for more often.

Table of Contents

Contents

Part I: Big Plans and Micro-Moments

• Chapter 1: Culture, Change, and the Brain
• Chapter 2: Unlocking the Secrets of the Brain
• Chapter 3: Change Is All About You
• Chapter 4: And…It Has Nothing to Do with You

Part II: Roadblocks and Tools

• Chapter 5: Calming the Elephant
• Chapter 6: I’m Not Biased
• Chapter 7: Three Weeks? We’ll Do It in Two!
• Chapter 8: Questions? Concerns? Good. Let’s Get Started.
• Chapter 9: Status Quos and Shortcuts
• Chapter 10: We Tried That, It Doesn’t Work
• Chapter 11: I Want to Do My Own Research
• Chapter 12: He Always Meets His Goals, Just Do What He Does
• Chapter 13: Us vs. Them
• Chapter 14: He’s Out to Get Me, I Know It.
• Chapter 15: That’s Not Fair!
• Chapter 16: Late Again? She’s So Disrespectful

Part III: Leading Through Change

• Chapter 17: Where Are We Going?
• Chapter 18: It’s Not about the Cookie
• Chapter 19: Where’s the Fun?
• Chapter 20: Application and Final Thoughts

Editorial Reviews

With vivid accounts and research-based advice, Palmer charts the clearest course I’ve ever seen for managers seeking to navigate change. It’s a tour de force.”
—Robert Cialdini, New York Times bestselling author of Influence and Pre-Suasion

From the Publisher