rotmanmagazine.ca / 5AT ITS CORE, EVERY ORGANIZATION is in the same business: be-
haviour change. Whether it’s a bank encouraging consumers
to switch to their product, a government agency trying to get
citizens to pay taxes on time or a health agency interested in im-
proving medication compliance, behaviour-change challenges
abound. As a result, leadership itself is also about change.
In addition to facing external behaviour-change challeng-
es, today’s leaders are also tasked with ensuring that change is
embraced internally. For example, if human capital is to be opti-
mized, biases must be tackled proactively. The problem is, most
people resist change. What is a leader to do?
As indicated in this issue, wherever human behaviour is in-
volved, there are opportunities for behavioural insights to influ-
ence outcomes. In this issue we look at some of the key areas
that demand behaviour change and present some of the tools
and mindsets required to achieve it.
Some of the smartest organizations are moving behav-
ioural insights up the value chain and embedding them deeply
into their design and delivery processes, as Rotman Professor
Dilip Soman and his co-authors show in Harnessing Behav-
ioural Insights: A Playbook on page 6.
Last fall, two of the Rotman School’s research institutes
— the Institute for Gender and the Economy (GATE) and Be-
havioural Economics in Action at Rotman (BEAR) — convened
some of the world’s leading thinkers to present the Behavioural
Approaches to Diversity Conference. The goal was to develop
sustainable solutions for increasing diversity and inclusion by
applying insights from behavioural science. Highlights from the
day appear on page 26.
Elsewhere in this issue, we feature GATE’s founder Sarah
Kaplan in our Thought Leader Interview on page 14; UC Berke-
ley Professor Charlan Nemeth describes the power of dissent
on page 20; and Michael Hallsworth and his colleagues from
the UK-based Behavioural Insights Team show how to mitigate
common decision making biases on page 50.
In our Idea Exchange, Dunkin’ Brands Chairman Nigel
Travis argues that the best organizations run on pushback; Rot-
man Vice Dean Brian Golden talks about the art of persuasion
on page 92; Laura Methot describes how to deal with Citizens
Against Virtually Everything (i.e. ‘CAVE people’) on page 96;
tech entrepreneur Maayan Ziv shows that we have a ways to go
in making the world inclusive on page 111; and George E. Con-
nell Chair in Organizations and Society Anita M. McGahan
shows how to become part of the solution on page 123.
As indicated in this issue, shaping an organization — and
the world itself — for the better is a never-ending journey that
is filled with hard work. For each of us, there will always be a
choice between the comfort of the old and the uncertainty of
the new. But in an age of emergent change, we must all make
embracing change — and enabling it — part of both our personal
and organizational DNA.FROM THE EDITOR Karen ChristensenThe Art
of Change
Karen Christensen, Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]
Twitter: @RotmanMgmtMag