Applying Stern's VBN Model to Corporate Change Management

I took this class to learn about behavior change models in the environmental psychology space such that I could compare these models to those that I used in the corporate world, as a change management consultant.

In many cases, the models used are understandably different, due to the inherent differences between the citizens being targeted for environmental interventions and the typical corporate employee. That said, through this post, I want to explore the corporate application of one model specifically, Stern’s Value-Believe-Norm model, using a case study of one of my past clients, Kraft Foods.

In 2005, Booz Allen Hamilton and the Aspen Institute conducted to survey on corporate values. Their core finding was that many large companies are explicitly adopting corporate values, representing a significant change from 10 years prior. For example, Kraft Foods adopted the following values in 2009:

•        We inspire trust.
•        We act like owners.
•        We keep it simple.
•        We are open and inclusive.
•        We tell it like it is.
•        We lead from the head and the heart.
•        We discuss. We decide. We deliver.

First, in order to leverage the values above to apply the VBN model, we would have to know that these value are truly “lived” by the employee population and the leadership team.  While it is safe to assume that not every employee embodies these values, overall I believe that Kraft employees do. And, I think that’s fairly logical, because companies lead with their values when hiring employees, so employees are opting into Kraft’s values with eyes wide open.

Second, to apply the VBN model, I think it is necessary to explore how corporate values translate to employee beliefs. For example, when considering the value “We tell it like it is,” we would expect this value to translate into the belief that employees should speak up to offer criticism or support of policies, products, leadership initiatives, etc. Again, in general, I think this holds true. Not only do Kraft leaders encourage junior employees to speak up, performance reviews are grounded in these values, so an employee would have to demonstrate this belief over time to be successful at Kraft.      

Now, I think it is worthwhile to give an example of how this could be applied. In 2014, I was engaged by the company to help with a Supply Chain process implementation. We were effectively revamping all processes related to Kraft’s supply chain. My role on the project was to facilitate the behavior change component of the project.

In many ways, we unknowingly applied the VBN model. For instance, the associated communications campaign was grounded in the value of “We keep it simple,” meaning that when we announced the changes to the broader company we explained how these changes would help Kraft to make their processes simpler. This was relatively successful, as it’s hard to argue with changes that are directly aligned to company’s values. But, we failed to carry this over into efforts like training. During training on the new processes, we could have and should have emphasized how these new skills reinforced Kraft’s values. In doing so, I believe we could have more effectively created personal norms in employees, resulting in longer lasting behavior change.

All in all, I think that this model could be a valuable tool for corporate change management efforts. First, if organizational leadership is pushing for a change that does not align to the organizations values, then this would become immediately apparent and the initiative might need to be reconsidered. Second, by aligning change to a corporation’s values, we more easily justify the change effort and create better “corporate citizens.” Third, and perhaps most importantly, when change efforts are strongly aligned to corporate values, then they inherently reinforce these values, pushing corporate values to the forefront of employee’s minds.

Finally, during our discussion with Ray yesterday, Julia asked to what extent psychologists have studied the evolution of values, and Ray commented that this research has been limited primarily due to the rigid nature of values. However, if the logic that I presented above does hold true, the corporate sector may actually be an interesting case study in the evolution of values, due to the fact that their values are well-documented and performance (i.e. behavior) is well documented through a variety of financial and operational factors.

Sources Cited:

http://www.foodbev.com/news/kraft-foods-reveals-new-company-values-and-logo/

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/05206?gko=9c265

The Power of Social Norms? (It's Not Always Easy Being Green)

One of my lingering questions about the norm-based models for this week is the distinction between personal norms and social norms, and relatedly, whether social norms are adequately accounted for in these *norm*-based models.

This question probably arises from my specific disciplinary background, but in social psychology, there is a lot of emphasis on the importance of social or even situational norms. Looking ahead in the syllabus, I see that we'll be talking about some of the classic social psychology experiments on situational norms and environmental behaviors next month, but I think that even without having read those studies we can think about the powerful influence of social norms. After all, we all know the major role that peer pressure can play in our lives; we often feel pressure to conform to actions and even attitudes that we perceive being done by or held by many other people. And I bet most of us can think of a personal example of when peer pressure caused us to do or say something that may not have entirely been in line with our personal values. There's even a famous psych experiment which showed that if you ask people to do a very easy task (i.e., judging whether two lines are the same length or not), you can peer-pressure them into giving an obviously wrong answer by asking them to respond after all the other people in the room have responded one-by-one with the wrong answer!

So, given our firsthand knowledge of the power of peer pressure, I think that it is valid to consider whether or not the Norm Activation Model and Value-Belief-Norm Model account adequately for the influence of social norms. In the Norm Activation Model, social norms must be internalized into personal norms in order to affect behavior, and (as I understand it) the personal norm must incorporate a sense of personal responsibility and strong intrinsic motivation to take action. But don't temporary, situational norms sometimes influence one-time behaviors without a corresponding internalization of personal norms? For example, even if I feel pressured in the moment to conform to others' incorrect responses on a line judgment task, that does not mean I have internalized a personal norm to give incorrect answers to easy tasks.

On the opposite extreme, the Hines et al. environmental education model we previously discussed does include a path for "situational factors" (like norms) to influence behavior directly, without involving personal norms. But, this model has the opposite problem of not allowing for situational social norms to be internalized as personal norms at all, and that seems to be a problematic omission as well! There are many instances in which we *do* indeed derive our personal norms and values from the dominant social norms set by those around us. Meanwhile, the Value-Belief-Norm Model seems to omit social norms entirely (!) by instead focusing on how our personal values and beliefs drive our personal norms, which then determine our behavior.

I think this is an important issue to think about because social norms and "unwritten rules" about acceptable social behavior in different contexts play such a big role in our day-to-day behaviors. When social norms influence our personal norms, they certainly have important implications for our environmental behavior; and even when situational norms influence our behavior without being internalized as personal norms, they may still end up having a long-term impact. In lecture, Ray has mentioned the issue of whether attitudes always determine behaviors or whether it's possible that behaviors can determine attitudes. I think the latter case definitely has the potential to drive behavioral change; if we can use situational norms to get people to perform proenvironmental behaviors, even though they haven't yet internalized a personal proenvironmental norm, it is possible that by performing the behavior they will start to think of themselves as "proenvironmental" and thus continuing behaving in ways consistent with that identity.

So, perhaps we need a norm-based model that allows norms to influence behavior both directly and indirectly via the internalization of personal norms. But I would love to hear more about what you all think about this, either in comments here on the blog or perhaps in discussion during class!

Don't Overthink It: Habit and Decision Making

As people, we face hundreds of decisions every day – what to eat for breakfast, what shoes to wear, when to go to bed, and many more. However, I don’t tend to go through piles of paper each day making pro-and-con lists, feeling morally obliged to eat yogurt over toast, or considering what friends would rate as a good writing utensil to take notes with; I just do it.

In class, we’ve discussed (or will discuss) four models to describe behavior, which include social, attitude, and logical factors. Previous experience and habit have been discussed in this context as well but are generally consider to be “accounted for” in other factors. In the process of interviewing several sources on their commutes to work, habit was identified as a major reason why they and their coworkers drive to work. This seems to suggest that the influence of habit should be accounted for more directly.

Habits consist of three-parts: a cue to engage autopilot, the routine behavior, and the reward. For example, when my alarm goes off in the morning (the trigger), the sound is annoying so I hit snooze (the behavior). This allows me to stay within the warm blankets of my bed for a few more minutes (the reward). This cycle makes the activity stick – the cue provides a reminder and opportunities to perform the action, and the reward associates it with positive emotions.

While habits may conjure up images of nail-biters, junk-food eaters, smokers, and nose-pickers, I’d argue that pro-environmental habit-creation is a goal for our behavior interventions. Changing or creating habits takes time. Once habits are formed, however, they are highly durable. Habits reduce the decision-making and mental attention required for a given activity and free up attention to be used for new behaviors. By including behavioral context (i.e. consequences of behavior, responsibility, obligation) in the reward, the positive emotions triggered could encourage additional behavior. For example, creating a habit of turning off lights in unoccupied rooms at home could encourage someone to turn off lights at work/school, to conserve resources like water, or to take the stairs rather than an elevator. Forming a habit of carpooling to work with a friend could snowball into more deliberate car trips, grocery shopping expeditions that prevent food waste, or bringing a homemade lunch to work instead of driving to get fast food.

What are the pros and cons associated with a habit-focused approach as compared to an intention-focused approach? Will something similar work for larger behavior changes, such as reducing flying for vacations? Could a behavior change be purely focused on forming a habit be successful, or are factors such as norm activation and education inherently necessary?

Sources

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/05/147192599/habits-how-they-form-and-how-to-break-them

http://jamesclear.com/habit-triggers

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/27/147296743/how-you-can-harness-the-power-of-habit

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/12/break-bad-habits_n_6438748.html