Tips from the nudging expert: Two areas of focus that will make your managers perform better

As a manager it’s especially important to understand people, as it’s key to helping your co-workers do their jobs as effectively as possible. Now, how can we understand people when they barely understand themselves?

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Welcome to nudging. Nudging is often brought up as a tool – a smart and fun way to affect someone’s behavior. A picture of a fly in a urinal, a sticker showing where to throw out the trash or a note in the store trying to get you to eat more beans. These are all examples of nudging, but seeing them and thinking you understand what nudging is, well, that’s basically like seeing a paper crane and thinking you understand what a bird is. You’re seeing one expression of something that could take any number of shapes – shapes that aren’t necessarily that similar to what you’re currently seeing.

Nudging isn’t some little tool. It’s a mindset. A mindset that puts people front and center, uses the best research to understand why people behave the way they do and then tries to use that information to influence their behavior. It’s a mindset that has led to two Nobel prizes in economics for its revolutionary impact on how we can shape societies and workplaces in line with how people actually work.

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In this blogpost we’ll be covering a small part of the mindset nudging, more specifically how managers can approach motivating their co-workers.

One of the most important things as a manager is keeping your co-workers engaged and motivated. In order to do that effectively, managers have to understand how people work. This is not something that comes automatically or intuitively, but rather something that managers must be trained in. We need to teach them how to understand and manage their co-workers, so that they in turn can help their co-workers be the best they can be at work.

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Nudging tip #1: Managers should not listen too closely to their co-workers

A really bad manager doesn’t listen to their co-workers at all.

Fortunately, this kind of manager is not particularly common. However, the opposite is much more common, and this can also create issues. I’m talking about the kind of manager that listens too much to their co-workers.

As people, we have limited access to our inner world. We’re able to think one thought at a time. Pay attention to one thing at a time. This means our brains are constantly filtering out most of the things going on inside and around us. When we’re asked to provide an explanation for why we did what we did, or what could make us do something, our brain makes a quick scan and finds an explanation in line with how we’re feeling right now, what we want and who we want to be.

That explanation is never the whole truth.

If we as managers only go by what people say, we will constantly be acting based on incomplete and frequently even incorrect information.

When it comes to behavioral changes, the the explanations people provide might still be relevant, but that’s primarily true of one-off behaviors. If we want to make people repeat a behavior over time, , it’s more important to use the psychological principles that – as research has shown time and time again – control what it is that people do and don’t do.

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Nudging tip #2: Managers should help their co-workers motivate themselves

A common mistake managers make is trying to motivate their co-workers with rewards rather than finding what drives the person to either do or not do their job properly. Edward Deci, one of the most prominent figures in motivational research, puts it this way:

Together with Richard Ryan, Deci has created an explanation model for human motivation called self-determination theory (SDT). SDT is one of the most well-researched and well-established theories in the field of psychology, and should form the basis of each manager’s understanding of how they can motivate their co-workers.

In a nutshell, SDT posits that human motivation boils down to how well three basic needs are being met: Competence, autonomy and relatedness.

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Competence

…is the sense that I know what I’m doing. That my abilities are being harnessed and that the work I’m doing is engaging and challenging. The key is to find just the right level – if it’s too easy, you start feeling understimulated and bored, and if it’s too hard, you feel powerless and dejected.

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Autonomy

…is the sense that I have the power to control what I’m doing. I’m trusted, and I get to use my competence. I’m the one best equipped to understand myself, my knowledge and how I can use it to solve my tasks. This makes people really put their heart and soul into what they’re doing.

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Relatedness

…is the sense that what I’m doing matters to others. That others care about me and that I care about them. It matters to others that I’m the one doing what I’m doing. I’m important to my co-workers/the manager/the workplace.

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Lär dig enkla men kraftfulla sätt att applicera nudging i dina lärprojekt, så att beteendeförändringen faktiskt blir av.

Utbildare

Linus Olsson Collentine, Leg. Psykolog

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Neither pizza nor money can hold a candle to praise

An Israeli research study examined how a factory could increase its productivity and tried three different ways to motivate the co-workers to produce more. Once they increased their productivity beyond a certain point, they got a reward, but what that reward was depended on which group they had been assigned:

• Group 1 received money
• Group 2 received pizza
• Group 3 received praise from their manager

All three ways succeeded in increasing productivity, but the manager’s appreciation was the only thing that continued to work over time.

It’s hardly a coincidence that the manager’s appreciation was the only reward to be based on SDT. If one had asked the workers, they likely would have said that they would rather have money or pizza, but what ultimately affects their behavior long-term is a sense that they belong, are competent and doing a job that matters to someone.

Questions to ask oneself as manager in order to create a motivating environment

Managers trying to nudge their co-workers towards stronger motivation and better performance should ask themselves the following questions:

• What’s driving the person to do what they’re doing? Look at it from the co-worker’s perspective and try to figure out what’s driving them, both on a personal and professional level.

• Why is the desired behavior important? Try tying it to the person’s driving forces and values (and not why it’s good for the company).

• Is the person free to do their job how they see fit? If you know that the co-worker is qualified for the job (hopefully that was a basic requirement for employment) it’s more important to empower the person to do things their way than it is to micro-manage exactly how it’s done.

• Does the person feel seen? Show that sense of belonging, of relatedness. Make sure to include the co-worker in a social work context and to show appreciation for the work they’re doing.

• Is the person being given the right level of challenge? If it’s too easy, you’ll have an understimulated worker who could be contributing much more to the workplace and who will leave once the opportunity arises. If it’s too hard, you’ll have a dejected and frustrated worker who might end up miserable or burned out.

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Linus works at Nudgingbolaget, where he helps organizations like Capio, Essity and Mat.se to achieve business-critical behavioral shifts in their co-workers and customers.

If you want to get better at applying nudging principles in your work, we here at Knowly are offering the training program “Nudging for trainers” together with Linus and Nudgingbolaget. You can read more about it and sign up here →