Adopting a behavioural science approach to managing change means leveraging scientific research about human behaviours and using this to better manage change. A lot of the common practices in change management are not always based on scientific research. What is assumed as common change approaches may in fact not be substantiated by research and data.

We talk to an industry veteran of behavioural science, Tony Salvador. Tony has 30+ years of research background behind him and a long-time ex-Inteller and Senior Fellow. At Intel, Tony travelled around the globe researching human factors and how people behave with technology.

There are many valuable takeaways for the change practitioner.

Some of these include:

• Engineering psychology and human centric design
• Analogy of pickaxe and the change approach
• Principle of aversion to loss
• People involvement and transactional change
• Determining the nature of leadership relationship with employees
• Story telling and insight into change culture
• Example of Brazilian translator and people’s stories
• Power of observation and listening
• The nature of relationships and how they determine change 
• Change rationale in weaving in multiple changes
• Involving people in reporting to achieve authenticity
• Building the case and involving employees to derive case for change