Behaviour change is a process.
Behava offers you tools, knowledge and, most of all, energy to help you on your behaviour change journey.
Services.
Behavioural diagnosis.
I perform the Sherlock Holmes-like work to find out what are the barriers to the target behaviour and what facilitators make it more likely. No stone is left unturned.
A lot of well-meaning campaigns to change behaviours start with a premise “people just need more information”. And then, produce no results. And I know it doesn’t work for me either. I already know I shouldn’t fly. At all, really, given that, my flying is, literally, causing the Alpine glaciers to shrink like a merino wool jumper put into a washing machine. Does it mean I don’t do it? No. Because my family live “quite” far and I do not have time to travel a full day by train to and from. Because I love Japan. Because I need to meet people in Europe for work and have only 1 day to do it. Because my friends fly. Because it’s cheap and I can afford it. Because I do not actually see, feel, touch, the snow melting. What helps me to fly less (aside the magic “c” word that ground the world to an almost-halt for the last two years) is: having my family come, committing to no “flying-holidays” except to see family, focus on online meetings, seeing my friends say “no” to flying… you get the picture.
I use various tools for this step, from desk research, through interviews and focus groups, to surveys and data analysis.
Intervention development.
What really is a behavioural intervention? It’s a structured activity that aims to change a behaviour A into a Behaviour B, offered to an individual, a group, or a society (definition – NLG). It can be an app that counts and rewards steps taken to encourage exercise, it can be a poster with a car accident persuading you it’s dangerous to speed, it can be a training on composting, it can be anonymising the applications for a job to minimise recruitment bias. Intervention development works roughly like this. Take barriers and facilitators. Organise and code them. Propose the most adapted intervention types and, more importantly, decide which Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) will work to address which barrier. Then, translate the dry, slightly jargony BCTs into workable, real-life activities. Implement. Measure the results, refine if you can and feel it’s necessary.
Evaluation.
How do you know if your behavioural intervention made any difference? By measuring, of course. That’s a notoriously tricky question. Yet, it is one that is crucial and should be asked – and answered as best as possible. Did it actually work? Why? With proper thinking and planning ahead, foundations can be laid for the evaluation of an intervention from the very start. How can you measure behaviour change? For example, how, after an intervention to encourage nurses to apply sanitising gel after every patient contact, do you measure your success? You could observe nurses or administer them surveys pre and post intervention. Or you could measure the quantities of gel ordered. A dedicated evaluation plan should be woven into each intervention from the very outset.
Data analysis and report writing.
Often, behavioural research is repeating what others have done, the interventions performed or Behaviour Change Techniques, in a different context, on a different population, different problem. Only with research can we make sure we minimise the risk of repeating the errors and learning from successes. I love research and never restrict myself to a single domain. A reading on voting behaviours can bring me an important insight for employee sustainable behaviours. Understanding of the inner workings of shame from a taboo health project will help me better comprehend group identity and conformity behaviours for a project on donation-giving. What can I say. I love it.
Training.
When you understand what ingredients, you need to make a (basic) good cake: flour, eggs, butter, sugar, baking powder [behavioural influences] – you can spot what is missing [behavioural barriers] and what things that you have already will help you make a better cake. You can also think what you can do to get those ingredients: go to the shop, borrow from the neighbour, replace with another, similarly working ingredient [behaviour change techniques]. Understanding behaviour change principles and integrating them in your (and your organisation’s) everyday job will make you more effective in brining about behaviour change (making that cake happen!) and I offer tailored training sessions to get you up to speed with your (behaviour change flavoured) baking skills.
How I do it.
Desk research.
I perform desk research at each project stage. Thorough overviews of behavioural/ social sciences research, going wide and deep with my searches, help me get the broadest point of view possible.
Qualitative research.
I design and perform qualitative interviews, structured to obtain a maximum of behavioural insights.
Ethnography.
I observe people in their environments, be it physical, or online, to get around the “people say they do A but actually they do B” issue.
Data analysis.
I take the existing data and perform dedicated surveys to inform my recommendations.
Book your free 30min discovery call.
Whatever you do, you are dealing with humans - and behaviours. Let’s chat and see how I - and behavioural sciences - can help you get the outcome you want.