How Transparency, Representation, and Negativity biases impact your change efforts

Understanding how people engage with and adapt to change is crucial for the success of any project. So few of our projects are to keep things as they are today or were yesterday 😂. This week I am digging into the impact of the negativity bias, the representative heuristic, and the illusion of transparency on our change efforts.

The Negativity bias

When introducing a new technical process, stakeholders may become preoccupied with the potential risks and issues of the change instead of considering the potential rewards. It can lead to a lack of willingness to take action. How often has your team been excited about an upcoming change only to stall everything because someone points out a possible negative? I find it fascinating that the negative works to delay a change effort when there are many negative examples of staying with the status quo. It is like a double bias amplification; the negativity bias joins with the status quo bias and becomes a huge barrier. The Negativity bias is a fundamental idea in the field of behavioral economics that seeks to explain why it is that people tend to remember and concentrate more on unpleasant events than they do on happy ones. This phenomenon can substantially influence the achievement or failure of any change management undertaking. Specifically, this bias can lead to an overemphasis on potential hazards and concerns rather than on the benefits that the shift could give because the attention is on the potential dangers and issues rather than the potential benefits. Because the focus is on something other than the future benefits, the emphasis is on the potential risks and issues. It can lead to a lack of willingness to take action, which will ultimately result in the change attempt failing. It is necessary to combat the intrinsic bias within the system. Leaders of change must be proactive in highlighting the project’s positive aspects and ensuring that stakeholders understand the transition’s possible benefits to combat the system’s inherent bias. It is vital to take the appropriate steps to limit or eliminate any risks related to the project to ensure that it will be finished successfully, even though there is a strong tendency toward negativity.

The Representativeness Heuristic

The Representativeness Heuristic refers to the idea that humans frequently base their decision-making on previous experience and mental shortcuts. It leads to a bias in decision-making, as people may assume that a particular outcome is likely, based on their previous experience, even if the actual probability of the outcome is low. The casino roulette example is used to show this. Near the roulette table is a sign that displays the previous numbers that have come up. The fact that Red 27 hit or did not hit has NO bearing on the odds of its occurrence in the next spin, but casinos know people will fall for it and place bets expecting the odds to change based on what has happened in the previous spins. This can happen because people generalize their experiences rather than think about specific instances. This heuristic may have implications for change management, where it may result in a tendency to focus on the most visible aspects of a change effort and overlook the underlying dynamics that will ultimately determine the project’s success. Instead of relying on previous experience or mental shortcuts, change leaders should take the time to acquire a deep understanding of the context and dynamics at play to ensure that their decisions are based on accurate information. It is comical how often I am involved in client meetings on qualitative data. Someone in the room pushes back that the respondent’s experience is “not the norm and not representative of the population,” then, when the same findings are reinforced with quantitative data from a user survey, this finding doesn’t represent “my team/department.”

The Illusion of Transparency

The Illusion of Transparency is a concept in behavioral economics that suggests people overestimate how others can accurately understand their thoughts, feelings, and motivations. This phenomenon is driven by the assumption that our attitudes and reactions are easy to detect by those around us and leads to a need for more understanding between stakeholders. For example, when stakeholders aren’t transparent about their motivations and intentions, the team may become suspicious of the changes they are attempting to implement. This can lead to a breakdown in communication, resulting in resistance. This often comes up when a project's driver is cost-cutting, but the team does not want the users to know that and comes up with other reasons for the change. Change leaders should be open and honest about their goals and intentions to prevent this. The project team needs to recognize that their thoughts and feelings may not be immediately apparent to others and to work on building a connection with stakeholders to ensure successful change efforts. We see this all the time with analysts who have been ‘going deep’ into the data, they have been on a mental journey that is very extensive to come to their conclusions, but the broader team struggles to make the same connections. There is a balance in showing enough of the process without getting bogged down in too many details. It isn't easy to find that balance but understanding the audience - their motivations and desires for the information can go a long way.

It is beneficial to appreciate the interplay between what we can learn from behavioral economics and apply it to change management frameworks to manage effective change initiatives. Initiatives that not only bring about the desired shifts in behavior but are also welcomed by those who will be directly impacted.