Welcome to the science of human behaviour.
Applied behavioural science for organisations, products and places.
Welcome to the study of human behaviour.
Applied behavioural science for organisations, products and places.
Welcome to the science of human behaviour.
Applied behavioural science for organisations, products and places.
Welcome to the study of human behaviour.
Applied behavioural science for organisations, products and places.
Have You Ever Experienced these….
"My team sits in the same room. We still don't collaborate."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"We built an epic product. Users don't use it the way it's intended."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"I need to check progress of my patients. They don't show up for the follow-up appointment."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"My team got the new tool. They kept using the old one."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"My policy got approved in the boardroom. It's ignored on the floor."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"Our website has many visitors. Very few contact us."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"My guests walk in once. They don't walk in again."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"My team sits in the same room. We still don't collaborate."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"My policy got approved in the boardroom. It's ignored on the floor."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"We built an epic product. Users don't use it the way it's intended."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"Our website has many visitors. Very few contact us."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"I need to check progress of my patients. They don't show up for the follow-up appointment."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"My guests walk in once. They don't walk in again."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
"My team got the new tool. They kept using the old one."
**Context:** Proximity was supposed to solve collaboration. It didn't. Co-location removes physical distance, but collaboration is not a mere seating arrangement - it is a behaviour. Whether people speak up, ask for help, or build on a colleague's half-formed idea depends on the team's environment, not the floor plan. **Consequence:** The cost is invisible: duplicated work, siloed decisions, and the best ideas dying in people's heads. Google discovered this in Project Aristotle, where after studying 180+ teams, the strongest predictor of effectiveness was not talent, seniority, or even who sat where - it was psychological safety: the *shared belief that taking an interpersonal risk is safe.* **What ABS can do?** We treat collaboration as a behaviour to be engineered, not wished for. Starting with a behavioural diagnosis of what's actually suppressing speak-up moments on this specific team, we then redesign team norms, meeting structures, rituals in an organization, and leader behaviours. From there, we redesign across the levers that actually shift feelings of safety. - **Leader behaviour:** In hierarchy, leaders behaviour carries disproportionate weight as a signal of what’s actually safe. People learn what's permissible by watching what gets rewarded or punished in others, especially those with power. Hence, coaching leaders to respond to mistakes with curiosity instead of blame, and to model their own uncertainty openly, is an important step to send a message of psychological safety. - **Communication norms:** Left unstructured, meetings get dominated by the same few voices. You have to build in turn-taking and ask for disagreement on purpose, or quieter people just stay quiet. This draws on procedural justice which means people trust a process more when it's visibly fair in its mechanics, not just fair in its intent. - **Team rituals:** introducing small, repeated practices (structured check-ins, rotating who speaks first) that build inclusion safety over time, rather than one-off offsites that fade in a month. - **Consistency:** ensuring norms, commitments, and how people are treated hold steady over time, because a team's nervous system trusts repetition, not a single well-intentioned initiative. **Impact:** Teams that feel safe enough to be honest harness diverse ideas, admit mistakes faster, and outperform teams of individually stronger people. The room doesn't create collaboration. The environment does.
Don't see your problem statement? Share it here.
Applied BeSci · Live webinar
The Fine Line Between Being Nudged and Shoved
20 min • Live
15 OCT 2026. 5PM IST
The decisions and choices we make are rarely as logical as we think.
An emotional appeal can make us buy on impulse, or the extra effort required to find a ‘cancel’ button doesn’t nudge you toward a decision; it shoves you against your own will.
This is by design.
If you’ve noticed this and felt this, maybe your customers have as well.
Spend 20 minutes with me and dive deep into how decisions are really shaped, and walk away with a practical framework.
The decisions and choices we make are rarely as logical as we think.
An emotional appeal can make us buy on impulse, or the extra effort required to find a ‘cancel’ button doesn’t nudge you toward a decision; it shoves you against your own will.
This is by design.
If you’ve noticed this and felt this, maybe your customers have as well.
Spend 20 minutes with me and dive deep into how decisions are really shaped, and walk away with a practical framework.
Register →
Register →
Register →
You think these are operational, design, process or product issues. We believe that...
"All problems are behavioural problems."
Remember the button you pressed (or didn't).
See how we work
See how we work
See how we work
Welcome to the WHY Behaviour Lab
|
|
|
This Is How We Change Behaviour
This Is How We Change
Behaviour
Explore our Methodology
Explore our Methodology
Explore our Methodology
A
Assessments
These feelings need evidence. It needs perspective and actionable insights.
That’s exactly what our assessments do!
Why Behaviour Lab’s Assessments turn feelings into something you can point to - a score, a pattern, a gap between what people say and what they actually do.
Assessments provide rational evidence to balance the emotional brain.
It creates a common ground by allowing you to see yourself in relation to other people around you by using the same tool.
Explore the world’s most practical assessments today!
You can take it alone, as a team, or across your whole organisation.
A
Assessments
These feelings need evidence. It needs perspective and actionable insights.
That’s exactly what our assessments do!
Why Behaviour Lab’s Assessments turn feelings into something you can point to - a score, a pattern, a gap between what people say and what they actually do.
Assessments provide rational evidence to balance the emotional brain.
It creates a common ground by allowing you to see yourself in relation to other people around you by using the same tool.
Explore the world’s most practical assessments today!
You can take it alone, as a team, or across your whole organisation.
A
Assessments
These feelings need evidence. It needs perspective and actionable insights.
That’s exactly what our assessments do!
Why Behaviour Lab’s Assessments turn feelings into something you can point to - a score, a pattern, a gap between what people say and what they actually do.
Assessments provide rational evidence to balance the emotional brain.
It creates a common ground by allowing you to see yourself in relation to other people around you by using the same tool.
Explore the world’s most practical assessments today!
You can take it alone, as a team, or across your whole organisation.
I
Intervention
You design for yourself and then expect behaviour from others. Shouldn’t it be the other way round? We help you design your system (product, website, customer, leadership) for behaviour through the following stages
Start: Study of the current system
→ Behaviour mapping of actors and influences
→ Design of the intervention
End: Rebuild the system around the behaviour
I
Intervention
You design for yourself and then expect behaviour from others. Shouldn’t it be the other way round? We help you design your system (product, website, customer, leadership) for behaviour through the following stages
Start: Study of the current system
→ Behaviour mapping of actors and influences
→ Design of the intervention
End: Rebuild the system around the behaviour
R
Research
To act with confidence, one needs to learn with humility.
Learning about the system is the first step to any change process. It is important to see what is currently enabling and disabling the system to change.
Start: Purpose of the inquiry
→ Visualising the End
→ Behaviour Science Based Research using observations, experiments, interviews, focus group discussions and surveys.
→ Hypothesis and Testing
End: Insights and Recommendations
R
Research
To act with confidence, one needs to learn with humility.
Learning about the system is the first step to any change process. It is important to see what is currently enabling and disabling the system to change.
Start: Purpose of the inquiry
→ Visualising the End
→ Behaviour Science Based Research using observations, experiments, interviews, focus group discussions and surveys.
→ Hypothesis and Testing
End: Insights and Recommendations
What is a behaviour that keeps happening or not happening when you wish it would?
We'll tell you what's really underneath it.
Tell us!
Tell us!
Tell us!
