If you'd asked me 5 years ago, I would have said Loss Aversion was the most important behavioural principle to know.
The truth that people are more worried about what they stand to lose than gain is key.
But lately I've been thinking something else is just as critical.
Because it affects everything, including:
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How we write emails
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Create marketing campaigns
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Design and facilitate training
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Lead our teams
It's this.
The Hot-Cold Empathy Gap.
The gap between how people act in a cold, reflective, rational state and how they behave in an emotional, stressful, hot state.
Here's why I think it's so central to effective behaviour change.
Most comms and training is created by us in a cold state.
We imagine our audience will engage with it the same way β thoughtfully, deliberately, calmly.
But most need to be acted on in a hot state, when theyβre tired and distracted, under pressure, or juggling priorities.
Take workplace IT security training for example.
We create detailed policies in a calm, considered way. We explain the logic. We cover scenarios cases.
It makes perfect sense when (or more likely, if) you're reading it on a Tuesday afternoon with a coffee.
But when an employee is under deadline pressure, buried in emails, and someone sends them a suspicious link, that's when they need to act.
And in that moment, detail evaporates. They're in panic mode, operating on instinct, ease and speed.
The fix is simple.
As part of your planning, set the scene for how the information you are sharing will be acted upon.
Where will they be? In what state of mind? Time of day?
Then design backwards from that state.
Because when hot and cold temperatures don't match, it's no surprise that most of what we put out into the world gets a tepid response.
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