Too many change initiatives fail because they treat people like rational machines. Behavioral science reminds us that change is messy, emotional, and full of bias.

In their book, “The Dynamics of Business Behavior: An Evidence-Based Approach to Managing Organizational Change (2024), Barrah and Jordanov offer a compelling argument for the integration of behavioral science into approaches to organizational change. Their core hypothesis is that behavioral science can, and should, significantly improve the success rate of organizational change initiatives. They argue that traditional change management methods, despite their utility, fall short because they don’t adequately address the human element in change (despite consistent claims to the contrary).

Behavioral science principles can effectively guide and enhance organizational change initiatives by providing a human-centric and evidence-based approach to understanding, influencing, and sustaining desired behaviors. This approach is formally known as Behaviorally Informed Change Management (BICM).

Behaviorally Informed Change Management is a methodology that successfully drives organizational change informed by insights from behavioral psychology and neuroscience. It is a framework that helps managers and executives approach organizational change in a human-centric way and a toolkit with evidence-based change interventions that can drive effective and lasting change. Here’s a breakdown of how behavioral science accomplishes this.

Understanding Human Behavior (BeSci as a Lens)

Behavioral science helps change practitioners view organizational change through a specialized lens, deepening their understanding of why people act and make decisions as they do. Many organizational change initiatives fail because individuals do not adapt their behaviors, regardless of how well-structured a change plan might be. Behavioral science helps identify, understand, and influence these human behaviors for better outcomes.

It recognizes that human decision-making is limited by cognitive abilities, knowledge, and environment (bounded rationality). People operate using two systems of thinking: System 1 (fast, intuitive, automatic) and System 2 (slow, deliberate, conscious). Designing interventions that cater to both systems (e.g., catchy narratives for System 1, comprehensive training for System 2) can make change more effective and easier to adopt.

Behavioral science also highlights cognitive biases, which are systematic patterns or blind spots in thinking that skew decision-making. Understanding these biases helps anticipate and mitigate resistance or suboptimal outcomes in change initiatives.

Bias	Description
Confirmation Bias	The tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of existing beliefs, which can hinder the acceptance of new information about change.
Anchoring Effect	Over-reliance on an initial piece of information (the “anchor”) when making decisions, which can lead to biased resource allocation in change projects.
Status Quo Bias	Preference for the existing situation, which can trigger resistance to disruptions of routines.
Planning Fallacy & Optimism Bias	Underestimating the time and resources needed for a project and overestimating positive outcomes, leading to unrealistic planning.
Curse of Knowledge	When experts or leaders assume others have the same level of understanding, leading to jargon-filled, complex communication that hinders change adoption.

Providing Tools and Frameworks (BeSci as a Tool)

Behavioral science provides practical tools and frameworks by offering structured approaches and specific mechanisms to understand, analyze, and influence human behavior in real-world contexts, particularly within organizations. While acting as a “lens” helps in building mental models and interpreting situations, the tools and frameworks translate this understanding into actionable strategies to drive results. Here are some key behavioral science frameworks.

Framework/Tool	Description
COM-B Model	Helps understand behavior by analyzing three interacting components: Capability (physical and psychological capacity), Opportunity (external factors enabling or inhibiting), and Motivation (internal factors driving or demotivating). It guides change managers to identify and address what prevents desired behaviors from occurring.
MINDSPACE Framework	Developed by the Behavioral Insights Team, outlines nine influences on behavior: Messenger, Incentives, Norms, Defaults, Salience, Priming, Affect, Commitment, and Ego. This framework helps shape the content and delivery of communication to make it more persuasive and effective in guiding behavior change.
Systems Mapping	A tool for visualizing and understanding complex interrelationships between people, processes, and systems, helping identify leverage points for behavior change interventions.

Applying an Evidence-Based Approach (BeSci as an Approach)

Behavioral science acts as an approach by employing a systematic, empirical methodology to understand and influence human behavior in organizational contexts, ultimately aiming to solve challenges and profoundly impact organizational growth and development. This goes beyond merely providing a way to view the world (as a “lens”) or offering specific mechanisms (as a “tool”), by outlining how to systematically apply behavioral science insights to drive results.

At its core, behavioral science relies heavily on the scientific method. This involves a structured process of developing hypotheses based on observations, conducting experiments to test these hypotheses, analyzing the results, and then forming conclusions. In organizational settings, this means not just observing behavior, but actively experimenting to influence it for the better. Approaches based on behavioral science are:

Characteristic	Description
Evidence-Based	The empirical method ensures that interventions and strategies are evidence-based. They are founded on well-documented research findings and facts, rather than relying on conjecture or gut feelings. This allows change managers to make informed decisions that have the best chance of achieving desired results.
Metric-Driven	Behavioral science quantifies behaviors and their impacts, allowing organizations to monitor progress and objectively gauge the effectiveness of their interventions. These metrics provide concrete measures of whether implemented changes are moving the organization towards its goals or if adjustments are needed.
Behaviorally Informed	By leveraging behavioral insights, change managers can develop interventions that align with how people naturally think and behave, which significantly increases the likelihood of those interventions being adopted and sustained over time.

Evidence-Based Interventions During Change

Evidence-based change interventions (EBCIs) are strategies or actions firmly grounded in scientific research and verified in real-world contexts. They are designed to mitigate change management challenges by providing a toolkit that addresses the human element, which is often perceived as complex and unpredictable. EBCIs go beyond mere theory by outlining deliberate, structured, and planned sets of actions aimed at altering the status quo.

In the most rigorous sense, “evidence-based” means interventions can involve extensive scientific literature reviews or even randomized controlled trials (RCTs), which are considered the gold standard of experimentation. While the ultimate goal is to provide a comprehensive, balanced view, drawing from peer-reviewed scientific journals, case studies, published books, and expert input, the authors acknowledge that different levels and types of evidence can inform interventions, ranging from subjective personal experience and systematic observations to best practices shared by industry experts.

Experimentation, testing, and iteration are also crucial for EBCIs, as they allow for necessary adjustments to ensure the intervention fits a unique organizational context. This involves embracing experimentation, promoting intelligent failure, and being aware of phenomena like the Hawthorne effect, where observed individuals can sometimes alter their behavior.

According to the authors, behavioral science offers specific interventions for six common organizational change areas. Here they offer some ideas for application during change in each of the six areas.

Planning & Risk Management

Premortem: Envisioning future project failure to “retrospectively” identify reasons for disaster, mitigating unseen risks and hindsight bias.

Reference-Class Forecasting (RCF): Using data from similar past projects to make more realistic and objective forecasts, combating planning fallacy and optimism bias.

Whole System in the Room (WSR): Involving all key stakeholders to co-create the change process, fostering shared understanding of risks and reducing resistance by addressing groupthink and confirmation bias.

Communication

Public Narrative: Crafting a persuasive story that moves from a personal “story of self” to a collective “story of us,” culminating in an urgent “story of now” to inspire action and build shared purpose.

30-3-30-3 Rule: Tailoring the change narrative into 30-minute, 3-minute, 30-second, and 3-second versions to cater to diverse attention spans and communication channels.

MINDSPACE: Apply the framework to ensure communication is resonant and persuasive by leveraging behavioral principles (e.g., credibility of messenger, incentives, social norms, making desired actions defaults).

Change Leadership

If-Then Plans: Simplifying the execution of new habits for leaders (e.g., “If a team member shares their perspective, then I will make eye contact and paraphrase”) to facilitate role-modeling.

Re-Anchoring: Helping leaders consciously adjust initial assumptions and allocate resources based on current needs rather than past biases, counteracting the anchoring effect in budgeting.

Gradual Escalation of Commitment: Encouraging incremental commitments for bottom-up change initiatives, akin to venture capitalists, to avoid large gambles and mitigate the sunk cost fallacy.

Stakeholder Engagement

Psychological Safety: Fostering an environment where team members feel safe to express ideas, admit mistakes, and raise concerns without fear of reprisal, crucial for open dialogue and problem-solving.

Organizational Network Analysis (ONA): Mapping informal relationships and influence networks (see my previous article on identifying influencers) to identify key influencers and change champions beyond the formal org chart, enabling more effective communication and change propagation.

Red-Blue Team Exercise: Structuring a debate where teams argue for and against a decision to stimulate constructive conflict, uncover weaknesses, and mitigate biases like status quo bias and groupthink.

Change Measurement

Change Measurement Toolkit: Utilizing tools like behavior change assessments (measuring frequency of new behaviors), pulse surveys (tracking sustainability), and organizational climate surveys (gauging attitudes) for a comprehensive view of change impact.

Shifting the Burden of Proof: Starting all project items with a “red status” on dashboards and requiring evidence to justify a “green” shift, counteracting overoptimism and promoting realistic reporting (e.g., to avoid “watermelon dashboards”).

A/B Testing Change Initiatives: Implementing changes in a subset of the organization and comparing outcomes to a control group to objectively measure effectiveness and refine strategies before wider rollout.

Learning

Go-to-Gemba: Encouraging stakeholders to visit “the actual place where work occurs” in other departments to gain firsthand insights, foster empathy, and break down silos.

Developmental KPIs: Integrating key performance indicators that focus on learning and growth (e.g., time spent on personal development) alongside traditional performance metrics, challenging outcome bias.

By applying the principles of behavioral science to evidence-based interventions, organizations can move beyond mere compliance to fostering genuine, human-centric change that is effective, lasting, and integrated into the organization’s core functioning. Behavioral science doesn’t just complement change management, it transforms it. By grounding strategies in how people actually think, feel, and act, organizations can move beyond awareness campaigns and compliance checklists to create meaningful, lasting change.

Whether you’re crafting compelling narratives, designing smarter interventions, or nudging leaders toward better decision-making, behavioral science offers a practical and evidence-based path forward. The opportunity is not just to manage change but to design it for human beings.

Sources:

Barrah, B. & Jordanov, P. (2024). “The dynamics of business behavior: An evidence-based approach to managing organizational change”. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.