🌿🧭🌳 OD43: On deciding how to decide ∙ Simple ethics checklist for behavior change interventions
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Foreword
We want to take a moment to thank all of you, our 2000 readers.
Thank you for all the conversations & ideas, for all the suggestions and resources that you share with us 💡
We feel honored that you keep reading our newsletter, which has around 98% retention rate after 40+ editions. If you ever feel that you’re getting less and less value out of it, let us know and we’ll adjust it. We’re co-creating this curatorial journey together with you and your feedback is always valuable to us.
Feel free to reach out anytime by hitting the “Reply” button, connecting on LinkedIn or by joining the monthly #orgtalks, where we meet to tackle pressing organizational challenges together.
Lots of inspiration,
Raluca & Bülent
1. OD Goodies
Curated starters for this week’s edition:
Wikipedia: Discovered an interesting theory about the complexity of behaviors, via Mikael Seppälä from the Systems Innovation community.
Bloomberg: Subtle “co-evolution” between executives and algorithms: CEOs are adapting their language to fit the parameters of text parsing trading algorithms. Found via Azeem Azhar’s newsletter.
Society4.0: A thought provoking piece from Michael Haupt about designing a new civilization. Lots of org design insights in there (if you have 16 minutes to spare).
Postshift: A heads-up about the increased probability of burnout in teams if “management coordination activity continues to be focussed on replicating pre-existing processes, methods and rituals, but using digital tools”.
2. On deciding how to decide
How often do you find yourself in day-to-day situations when it’s not clear:
What decisions need to be made?
Who needs to make these decisions?
How these decisions need to be made?
And other similar questions around decision-making.
In org design language, these situations are usually a sign of fuzzy operational governance, a term that means determining how decisions are made and executed in an organization.
Sergio Caredda has some good points about the topic:
Too often, Governance considerations are limited to board level or C-level design. This is what is usually called Corporate Governance, which is the complex set of “means by which business corporations are directed and controlled“.
But most of the hiccups in organizations happen below those levels. We need to ensure we address decision rights, responsibility matrixes, feedback mechanisms, escalation routes, formal and informal communications channels, as early as possible in or (re)design work. This is true, particularly in all those cases where organizations become more flat and lean.
Operational governance is the process—intentionally designed or by happenstance—by which power is managed. Gregory Kesler
Especially as organizations get more and more entangled into matrixed decision making structures, reflecting on who takes decisions when is vital.
Here’s a method that might come in handy:
RAPID - The letters stand for the primary roles in any decision-making process, although these roles are not performed exactly in this order: Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, and Decide
R – Those who recommend action and create a proposal
A – Those that agree by signing off on the proposal
P – Those who perform or execute the decision
I – Those that have input or are consulted about the recommendation
D – Sole person who will make the final decision and commit the organization to action
We invite you to read the whole article. Sneak preview: it explores the connection between good operational governance and increased organizational agility.
3. A simple ethics checklist
We picked this topic because we think ethics will gain increased importance in many professions that involve behavior change interventions: marketing & sales, product development & user experience design, org design & development, change management and the list can go on.
Preeti Kotamarthi, Behavioral Science Lead at Grab, shares a 4-question checklist that can help you make better ethical decisions about behavior change interventions:
Text version (if you want to copy this as a note):
Who is the primary beneficiary? Individuals and society first OR Companies and brands first?
Does the beneficiary have a choice? Choices are reversible and alternatives are shown OR Reduces options and locks-in?
Does the beneficiary feel pressured? Gives behavioral freedom OR Puts time and monetary pressure?
Does the beneficiary desire this outcome? Approves of the nudge when informed OR Feels abused when told about the nudge?
Also, here’s a powerful call-to-action about ethics in organizations:
There will be no gatekeeper other than yourself. The one person most distressed about the misuse of dynamite in war was its inventor, Alfred Nobel himself, because as the creator he knew how harmful it was. Similarly, no one knows the side effects of the misuse of behavioral science better than behavioral scientists do. We didn’t need a Netflix documentary to understand the risks.
Instead of waiting for it to be called out, be the gatekeeper of ethics in your organization. Create an ethics charter. Socialize it. Let everyone know this is important. I have never ended a single workshop I have conducted without a slide on ethics. In tech product jargon, it is not a “nice-to-have,” it is a “must-have.”
Explore the whole article on The Decision Lab’s website here:
Thanks for reading
We hope you found something useful in this edition!
Please feel free to forward the newsletter to any colleagues who you think might benefit from these resources.
This newsletter is curated by Raluca and Bülent Duagi, the Sense & Change team.
We're using systems thinking, behavioral science and mental models to advise organizations to become more effective.