Norms
Cultural norms are the behavioral expectations or rules to be found (and enforced) in a society (or company). Usually these are implicit, and rarely used in explicit ways to drive change. The way that people think and act at work is (obviously) critical in terms of executing strategy. However, strategy is a dynamic process and must change and morph as market dynamics change. This is the reason why the development of organizational values, which tend to be static, can be problematic and become obstacles for companies needing to change. We identified this issue earlier when considering the sea anchors and ground anchors associated with the process of priming. Continuity must be balanced off with agility and the capacity for change. Norms provide stability, but also can create roadblocks.
The problem is that most organizations do not explicitly think about and manage behavioral “norms” to align with their changing business strategies. The result is that it virtually guarantees that cultural norms become out of alignment with ever-changing business strategies. Organizations that perform well are very explicit about cultural norms of behavior. Most importantly, this level of clarity must be found among senior leaders in the organization. They must be highly visible in their role-modeling these behaviors. Simply talking about how people SHOULD behave is not sufficient.
Defaults
Defaults refer to an option that is automatically engaged when people are required to make a critical decision—but are indecisive. The notion of defaults is increasingly common in behavior change programs. For example, the leaders of an organization would like their employees to select a 401k investment or a health plan during open-enrollment. If employees take no action, then the 401k or health plan is enacted – by default. Most of us are probably aware of the frequent use of default choice architectures over the past few years. “We would be pleased to make your life a little easier for you by enrolling you in this easy-payment plan. You don’t need to do anything. We will do all the work for you. Just sit back, relax and enjoys all of the benefits associated with this plan.” “We will resubscribe you to this TV sports package unless you tell us otherwise.”.
Closely related to “default options” in decision-making is the concept of “inevitability” regarding choice and change. Elliot Aronson describes this psychological bias as it relates to earthquake preparedness. It also relates to how people respond to information about election outcomes as well as racial integration. Earthquakes, corrupt elections and racial discrimination are always with us—we must just get used to their occurrence. In many ways this assumption of inevitability aligns with the status quo heuristic we identified earlier in this essay: “this is simply the way our world works. Can’t do anything about it, so why try.”
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