How do you apply this idea? Make it social

Make it social is probably one of the most straightforward of the ideas and one that’s most regularly applied in business. When psychologists talk about making it social they’re not talking about social media; this isn’t about Facebook or Twitter. It’s about a long-standing idea called social proof.

That’s the idea that when people make decisions about how to behave, wherever that might be, they often look at what others are doing first rather than behave as individuals. And it’s not just an idea: there’s lots of evidence to back it up.

For example, in 2008 a study was conducted by Kees Keizer from the university of Greningen in the Netherlands. He found an alley where lots of people parked their bicycles; he put flyers onto the bicycles’ handlebars with elastic bands and sprayed graffiti onto the walls. He threw litter on the ground.

Keizer hid around the corner and monitored the number of people who threw the flyers from their bikes onto the ground. 69% of people coming back to their bikes did exactly that. On another occasion, Keizer covered the graffiti and picked up the litter then again monitored the number of flyers thrown on the ground. When he did this, creating the impression that most people didn’t litter, only 33% of people coming back to their bikes threw the flyer on the ground.

The amount of littering doubled, depending on whether people thought it was a common or rare behaviour.

This is the idea of social proof. We are a herd species. We are a social animal. We are deeply influenced by what we think others are doing.

If you can make a behaviour appear like it’s commonplace, it will become more appealing and more people are likely to do it.

Think about the behaviours you want to encourage in your team, then make them look as if they already frequently occur. Draw attention to the positives, rather than the negatives.

If you emphasise that lots of people are behaving in the wrong way (perhaps they’re not filling in their timesheets or expenses on time) you’ll remove the sense of transgression and make that behaviour more likely to occur.

Make sure the behaviours you want to encourage seem commonplace and the behaviours you want to discourage seem rare.