September 17, 2024 • 42 mins
“So it's about being able to marry the two, so quant and qual, and to be able to use either one to more deeply explore whatever pattern of behaviour you're trying to unpack...so I think bringing the two together is super powerful.”
- Angela Bliss
This week
Angela Bliss, a seasoned behavioural scientist and designer, shares her unique insights into how decisions are often made subconsciously, long before we’re aware of them. Angela has worked with top-tier companies and government bodies, seamlessly blending behavioural insights with creative execution.
In this episode, Angela dives deep into the fascinating world where behavioural science meets data science, exploring how this powerful combination can transform the way organisations approach user experience (UX) research. She reveals how understanding subconscious decision-making can be the key to designing truly impactful products and services. Angela shares insights from her experience working with a major bank, where AI and behavioural science are reshaping internal and external campaigns. Angela discusses how organisations are shifting their risk appetite, driven by the need to innovate with AI.
Tune in to this episode and discover how to harness the subconscious mind's power to drive better decisions.
In this episode you’ll hear about
- What is the importance of quantitative data in design?
- How can designers overcome biases and improve their work?
- How can one check their own biases?
- What are the implications of making decisions before being consciously aware of them?
- What is the best way to understand a person’s point of view or decision-making?
- How can we design for cognitive ability, including cognitive decline?
Key links
- Angela Bliss LinkedIn
- London School of Economics (LSE)
- National Australia Bank
- Telstra
- Nissan
- Department of Health (Victoria)
- Department of Transport (Victoria)
- "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness" by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
- "Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions" by Dan Ariely
- "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman
About our guest
Angela Bliss is a behavioural scientist and designer with over 20 years of experience working with Australia’s largest businesses and government departments including NAB, The Reece Group, Wesfarmers Health, Department of Health, Victoria, Department of Transport, Victoria, Telstra, MYOB, Bunnings, Coles and Nissan. Angela works in the field of applied behavioural science, combining behavioural insights with creative execution across service, product and communication design. Angela is a member of the Global Association of Applied Behavioural Scientists (GAABS) and holds degrees in economics and marketing, and
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Hudson (00:05):
Hello and welcome back to the company road
podcast, where we explore whatit takes to change a company and
to talk to the people that haveand will continue to set
organizations on fire in a goodway with their passion and
expertise.
And by doing so, we're going tobe looking to help you, the
intrapreneurs find your feet andmake seismic waves with the work
that you do today.
And I'm Chris, your host.
And today we're going to have atruly exceptional guest who's at
(00:27):
the forefront of drivingorganizational change through
the lens of behavioral science.
And this is someone who I'veworked with recently and who I
hold in really high regard thewonderful Angela Bliss.
Angela, welcome to the show.
Angela Bliss (00:37):
Thanks so much, Chris.
Chris Hudson (00:39):
Thanks.
And Angela, you're a seasonedbehavioral scientist and
designer with over two decadesof experience.
You've worked with a number ofAustralia's largest businesses
and government departments, andyour impressive client list
includes a number of householdnames like Nab, Telstra,
Bunnings, Coles, Nissan, and keygovernment bodies such as the
Department of Health, Departmentof Transport in Victoria.
And from what I see, from whatsets you apart is your unique
(01:00):
approach to organizationalchange.
And you work in the field ofapplied behavioral science, And
you expertly blend thatbehavioral insight with creative
execution across a number ofareas, but service products and
communication design mainly, andit's an innovative methodology
and it's helped a number oforganizations that you've worked
with, obviously implement thoseeffective changes, both big and
(01:20):
small.
And you've got a number of othercredentials that are as
impressive as your experience.
So you've got degrees ineconomics, marketing, and art
history, and you've got amultidisciplinary background
there.
And you also earned an MSc inbehavioral science with
distinction from the prestigiousLondon school of economics,
which is an amazing place.
I was in London the other weekand I walked past that.
I thought of you.
Yeah.
(01:41):
So lovely listeners, whetheryou're an intrapreneur, a
leader, or someone working inpeople, culture, ops, product
transformation, change, design,anywhere ready Ange's insights
today are sure to provide youwith some highly valuable
perspectives on drivingmeaningful change within your
company.
Yeah, let's uncover some of thesecrets to successful
organizational transformationand talk about the power of
behavioral science a little bit.
(02:01):
Maybe we start with an easy one.
What is behavioral science?
Angela Bliss (02:04):
It's a good question.
Thanks so much for the lovelyintro, Chris.
So behavioral science is amultidisciplinary field in
itself.
So it combines neuroscience,psychology, economics, and
behavioural economics tounderstand how people make
decisions, understand whatbarriers and biases might be in
play when they're trying to makedecisions, and then how do you
(02:26):
intervene in a way that helpspeople make the best decisions
for them, as opposed to imposingdecisions on them.
decisions on them.
So you can use behavioralscience for good and for bad.
And a sense check for myself asalways, am I helping the
customer or the employee or thepatient make the best decision
for them?
Chris Hudson (02:47):
Okay.
That's a concise definition.
That's good.
So essentially it's helpful fordecisioning by the sounds of it.
Let's maybe take a step back andthink about you and your career
and some of the things thatyou've done.
What's been your journey?
And maybe describe yourself tothose that don't know you as
much.
Angela Bliss (03:03):
Yeah, sure.
So, I started life as aneconomist, so I did an
international business degree,um, majoring in economics and
marketing.
I did a very short stint at theAustralian Trade Commission and
then went to Japan, fell in lovewith art and design, and that
was a segue into doing amaster's in an archaeology of
Asia at a time that I wasdetermined to become
(03:24):
unemployable, and then I was.
And so I got into digitaldesign.
And so that was, And, but I'vealways been a kind of economist
at heart.
And then when behavioraleconomics started to be an
evolving, emerging discipline, Iwas fascinated by the premise
that we are not rational, thatwe are highly irrational, that
(03:44):
we make impulsive decisions andif you studied economics when I
did, which was the Keynesianmodel, which is all predicated
on the rational, considereddecision making process.
It was quite revolutionary.
And at that time I was workingwithin the UX field, which is,
as you know, the intersection ofpsychology and design.
be able to frame that withinthis, the model of behavioural
(04:09):
economics was just another layerthat I found to be super
powerful when you're thinkingabout interface design.
Chris Hudson (04:16):
Amazing.
That's taking you on a littlebit of a journey, obviously,
away from Japan and things thatwere maybe less employable, as
you were organisations out thereare needing to consider not only
the psychology behind the designand deliver that through the
user experience, obviously, butit just feels like it's often
straight to design and out thedoor, right! There's no kind of
(04:37):
way around saying that politely,but it's like, let's ship it and
go.
So what have been some of yourchallenges along the way, do you
think?
Angela Bliss (04:43):
Oh, look, that's the knee jerk reaction to de
scope research and deep inquiry.
You do data science as part ofbehavioral science, and I feel
like the kind of going inthrough the data avenue is a bit
of a Trojan horse.
They've got a, in a way, data.
And that whole world has alicense to deeply inquire into
(05:05):
behavior rather than the designteams.
I often find an avenue in andoften I will pair with data
scientists now as much asdesigners because I feel like
they do have the license toexplore deeply.
Chris Hudson (05:19):
And what's been your experience with designers?
Because obviously, some arequite tuned into the user needs
and customer behavior, othersare probably more into the
aesthetic, and sometimes you getthe hybrid.
But what's your view of theworld when it comes to working
with designers?
And how do you get the best outof them from a behavioral
science point of view, do youthink?
Angela Bliss (05:35):
Look, it is challenging.
It's one of the reasons why Ikind of couple almost more
comfortably with data scientiststhese days than often designers
because of the designer's lackof quantitative experience, good
UXs, good service designers arepretty fluent with regards to
qualitative methods, but they'reoften lack experience with
(05:57):
regards to rigorous quantitativesurvey based exploration of
behavior.
Chris Hudson (06:03):
Can you tell us a little bit more about that
quantitative side and some ofthe things that you helped to
maybe unpack the discussionsthat I had on the quantitative
side that would lead to animproved design in some sort of
way?
Angela Bliss (06:13):
Yeah, sure.
So it's about being able tomarry the two, so quant and
qual, and to be able to useeither one to more deeply
explore whatever pattern ofbehavior you're trying to
unpack.
So with quantitative, you do getthe extra rigor that
statistically significantfindings deliver and to be able
(06:34):
to talk very confidently tostatistical significance when
you're engaging withstakeholders is very, very
impactful.
Whereas Qual often feels a bitfluffy when you're trying to get
budget to do somethinginnovative.
So I think bringing the twotogether is super powerful.
Chris Hudson (06:52):
Yeah, I definitely agree.
I've seen that work really welland often the qualitative side
seems that the kind of comfyside for it.
A lot of design conversationswhere it can be interpreted in
one way or another.
But you're right, businesses,and I think decisioning is
probably more, particularly nowanyway, the board level, that
people are expecting results tobe quite quantified and measures
to be quite specific.
And so if you've got researchand data, basically, to back up
(07:16):
your design or to show thatit'll, Deliver XYZ and you can
frame that up in some way andput a number against it, then
that's well received usually,but it's quite hard to do.
Right.
It's not easy to just come upwith the numbers.
And I think a lot of people,particularly intrapreneurs that
I talk to find it a little bitdaunting.
I want to say the confidencewith numbers that you either
feel like you're going to backyourself and your team to do it,
(07:37):
or you feel like.
You know, actually I could put astretch target down of triple
the sales next year or whateverit is, or it's conversions or
whatever the metric is.
It doesn't matter.
I think there's a lot of feararound numbers.
What do you think?
Angela Bliss (07:49):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Within the design community, alot of people become designers
because they weren't good atmaths.
That's tends to be the generaltrajectory.
But if designers want a seat atthe table, which often that they
rightly ask for, then theability to articulate results.
Quantitatively, I think isreally powerful and something
(08:11):
that designers to think aboutupskilling and go and do the
data science courses that youcan find online.
It gives you very powerfullanguage to be able to justify
your design decisions.
Chris Hudson (08:23):
There's probably a benefit.
You're not just talking aboutyour end user or customer, but
you're talking about yourinternal customer.
your audience within theorganization.
So I was saying we recordanother podcast previously where
we were talking about the extentto which you have to listen to
your internal stakeholder,listen to the language they use
and what they're passionateabout and what they're angry
about and all those things.
I mean, all of that is in yourtoolbox ready to be able to
(08:45):
reframe your work in relation totheir world and then take things
forward from there.
So from a behavioral sciencepoint of view, is there anything
to build on that that you thinkwould be helpful?
Angela Bliss (08:54):
Yeah.
I think that when we're dealingwith.
stakeholders, we're also dealingwith their entrenched biases and
barriers to adoption.
And I think that being able tospeak very confidently to the
numbers allows you to confrontthose biases.
Sometimes it doesn't work, andsometimes, as we know, sometimes
it does.
Stakeholders will continue on aparticular path, and that's
(09:16):
fine.
It does also give you anelevated, I don't want to say
status, but sometimes it's hardto break away from the notion
that design is about makingthings pretty.
And so, to be taken seriously,which is what we're trying A lot
of designers are angling forsometimes being able to
weaponize numbers in your favorto be persuasive and to get cut
(09:40):
through is really worthwhile.
Chris Hudson (09:41):
I think that design is the word is polarizing
a lot of people within theorganization.
It's unfortunate, but that isthe case.
It's not understood anddesigners have the best intent,
but obviously their positioning.
Isn't always fitting with thatof the stakeholders that are
making decisions.
Sometimes.
I think that's probably whyproduct is becoming such a big
word instead.
And that's why a lot of rolesare kind of gearing up more
(10:03):
towards that, because it's allthen in the language of, okay,
we've got a thing, we've got IP,we've got results, we've got
targets that we can attach to itand designs.
It's a different type of work.
It's more to do with thepractice than the output.
Perhaps that seems to behelping.
What are the biases you sayingcoming up?
You mentioned biases there.
What are some of the big thingsthat you see day to day?
Angela Bliss (10:22):
highest paid person.
Sunflower effect, where everyoneturns to the highest paid person
in the room for decision making.
At the LSE, where I studied, wedo a whole unit on decision
architecture.
So how do you create not only aforum within which the best
possible decisions are made, buthow do you create spaces that.
(10:45):
scaffold and support gooddecision making, and often it's
to break through that groupthink.
When skilled designers areequipped with these tools as
well, it's not just behaviouralscientists, it's about good
facilitation of ideas.
Just certainly having toconfront biases.
I often will take a behavioralscience based approach to
(11:07):
stakeholder engagement where Istand back and I really think
about the biases and thebarriers that I might be
confronting when I'm dealingwith a stakeholder and I'm
trying to persuade them to go acertain way or take a, a risk
and so I'll design my approachto stakeholder engagement very
purposefully as I wouldbehavioral mapping exercise to
(11:30):
design the best outcome for aproduct or service or
communication tool.
Chris Hudson (11:35):
Yeah, I mean stakeholder mapping I think is
an underlooked way of runningthings because often you just
turn up the meeting like peoplethink we're just going to turn
up and see what happens butactually there can be a bit of
planning involved in getting tothe right outcome for the team
and for yourself obviously andfor the stakeholder and it's a
mutually beneficial one ideallyas well.
Yeah but it takes a bit ofpreparation a bit of foresight
right?
It does.
(11:56):
You've got to check your
Angela Bliss (11:56):
own biases too, going into these
Chris Hudson (11:59):
situations.
How do you do that?
Because I've been throughmindfulness and I know about
body check and all that sort ofstuff.
From checking your own biasespoint of view, is there anything
that you find to workparticularly well?
Angela Bliss (12:09):
Oh, look, it's pretty hard.
Yeah.
Ask other people what yourbiases are.
Chris Hudson (12:12):
Ask other people.
Angela Bliss (12:14):
That's a good way to start.
It's just being aware that youtake, that you carry a very
specific lens into things.
I mean, that's the power of codesign and lived experience.
Co design is being able to checkyour biases by actually
introducing diverse voices intothe room when you're trying to
solve a problem, because it isvery hard to identify our own
(12:36):
biases.
biases.
Most of our decisions, 95percent of our decisions are
made in the system.
One brain, they're impulsive,they're subconscious, they're on
gut instinct.
I was looking at this reallyinteresting neuro marketing.
I dabble in a bit of neuromarketing as well.
Yeah.
Chris Hudson (12:51):
As you do.
Angela Bliss (12:53):
The brain, they run these MRIs on the brains
looking at decision makingprocesses and often the decision
was being made 12 seconds beforethe person was conscious of
making the decision.
I mean, that's incrediblyinteresting with regards to
engagement with advertising,engagement with marketing,
engagement with product.
Chris Hudson (13:13):
How does that work?
So you've made a decision beforeyou think you have.
Angela Bliss (13:16):
Yes, before you know you have parts of the brain
that are actually triggered whenyou make a decision of firing
off before the parts of thebrain that are conscious that
you have made a decision.
So we think we're makingdecisions rationally and we
spend a lot of time asking oneof my kind of key takeaways or
one of my key lessons for mydesign friends is.
(13:39):
there's only so much that we canglean from reported behavior.
So when we follow thesequalitative methodologies, we're
asking people, why did you makethat decision?
How did you make that decision?
And the assumption is that weare very aware of how and why we
(14:00):
made decisions and that we'rerational.
And in fact, the latest researchwill tell us that we don't know
why we make decisions.
We often make decisions in asplit second.
They're based on all sorts ofbiases that we're unaware of.
So when we're relying on solelyqualitative methodologies to
(14:20):
make huge investment decisionson, do you build this feature?
Do you build this?
product.
I would really suggest that youneed other ways of unpacking
behavior and often that isobserved behavior.
Behaviors, so how peopleactually interact with your
products or service orcommunication tools rather than
how they're telling you theybehave.
Chris Hudson (14:41):
I think that ethnographic side in research is
particularly powerful when youdo it right.
It's often considered a luxuryagain in the business discussion
and the things that come upbecause obviously it's a bit
like a smoke and mirrors.
Some people don't understand howyou could do that, but you can
observe obviously how people areinteracting with products and
you can glean a lot from that.
I also think from an innovationand a new product.
(15:02):
Point of view, or if you'rethinking about service design,
then that can be really powerfulfor just understanding the
context with which your productor service will sit within the
context of their lives.
Because if you don't reallyunderstand that, then you can't
really understand as a productdesigner or as an innovation
leader in one way or another.
How your products and servicesgonna fit in separately and
meaningfully?
(15:22):
Is it something they value?
Are they really gonna cherishit?
Is it just gonna sit on the sideof the table in the house, you
know, for two weeks?
You just don't know.
Angela Bliss (15:30):
And Chris, that's a really, really good call out.
Another key lesson frombehavioral science is context is
everything.
So we might say, we make adecision this way.
But actually we'll change ourdecisions and our preferences
and our attitudes as our contextchanges.
So something that often thoughtabout and that's where that
(15:50):
behavioral mapping of context isa really nice supplementary
methodology to the traditionalkind of UX or service design
approaches.
Chris Hudson (16:00):
What you were saying before, it's an
oversimplified understanding ofhow decisioning works.
Really?
And how thinking and cognitiveprocessing of what it is you
like and don't like works.
Angela Bliss (16:10):
Absolutely.
Preferences are not fixed.
Chris Hudson (16:13):
Yeah.
Angela Bliss (16:13):
Attitudes are not fixed.
So think about that from asegmentation perspective,
lumping people together, but ata Particular time in a
particular day we feel this waybut tomorrow we might feel or
prefer something different and Ithink there's some rigidity in
the methodologies that wetypically use as service or
(16:34):
product designers that needs tobe challenged alongside the
evolution and how in the scienceof decision making.
Chris Hudson (16:41):
I mean, as a proxy, then what's the nearest
best way of getting to anunderstanding of person's point
of view or decisioning thatmaybe.
looks at some of those things.
I know you mentioned observedbehaviors as one way.
How do we know whether people,yeah, that's the best way.
Angela Bliss (16:58):
It is the best way, you know, so there's a lot
of value of getting the productout in market fast as possible,
seeing how people react andtesting and learning
accordingly.
I'm not dismissing qualitativeresearch methodologies as being
invaluable.
Absolutely not.
There is interesting patternsthat you glean from them that
are worth exploring potentially.
(17:19):
through quantitative methods,but if you want to see how
people actually behave, then youneed to ship your product.
I
Chris Hudson (17:26):
think that's why that innovation anyway, there's
a real shift towards pretotypingand lean startup methodologies
where essentially you're puttingthings out and see how people
respond.
And I, for a lot of people,that's really high risk and
they'd never do it.
It feels like that's the wayit's going.
And you, you test with more andlearn from that and then refine.
and reduce and craft after that.
Angela Bliss (17:48):
We can't predict behavior.
It's incredibly difficult forall these reasons.
I mean, if we can't evenarticulate why we make
decisions, how would we expect aproduct designer to be able to
preempt that?
Chris Hudson (18:01):
I think so.
And I also see that there's amassive amount of clutter,
right?
I feel like that the decisioninglandscape now is It's probably
harder, much, much harder thanit was ever before.
If you're thinking about whattriggers the brain and the
neuroscience and the impulsesbehind all of the signals that
everyone's receiving now everyday because of technology, it
just feels like that's notsimple anymore.
You can't just say, I'm going tobuy this toothpaste or that
(18:23):
toothpaste and we're Proctor andGamble in the 1950s.
It's very different, right?
Angela Bliss (18:28):
That's exactly right.
And it's that cognitiveoverload.
I'm doing some interesting workin banking with vulnerable
communities.
And really the design challengeis how do you design for
cognitive impairment fromcognitive overload all the way
through to cognitive decline.
And I think that cognitivecontext of our user groups
(18:53):
isn't.
being considered enough.
I mean, we talk aboutaccessibility, but we don't
really talk about cognitiveability when we're designing our
interfaces and designing ourcomms tools, etc.
So I think that's another layerthat certainly behavioral
science introduces intoconsideration sets around
(19:14):
innovation of products andservices.
Yeah.
Chris Hudson (19:16):
Yeah.
So for cognitive ability, Imean, how do we best take a look
at that and how do we understandit better, do you think?
Angela Bliss (19:22):
Look, it's really tricky.
I'm hoping that AI might play arole here.
I think the ability of, to trainAI models to detect cognitive
ability has potential.
I think I'd just version themachines on this one at scale
because it's very hard toconsistently train humans to be
(19:43):
able to detect levels of kind ofcognitive decline consistently
and sensitively.
So yeah, perhaps this is therole for the AI models.
Chris Hudson (19:55):
I mean, now that you mentioned it, I hadn't
thought of this before, butessentially your browser
history, anything that you'redoing on your phone, all of that
could be processed as anassessment of your cognitive
ability.
Absolutely.
It's not like you're sittingdown to do your Myers Briggs or
your, your psychometric testing.
You could actually be assessedon how you've been working for
the last 20 years.
Angela Bliss (20:14):
This is my hypothesis yet to be tested, but
I think we leave a cognitivefootprint when we interact
digitally and on the phone thatcould be used by businesses to
more sensitively engage withtheir vulnerable customers.
Chris Hudson (20:29):
So I think in that sense the role for behavioral
science, it feels like willcontinue to evolve, because
you're looking for that way toget to purest version of the
truth when it comes to, whatcustomers need and want, tools
are becoming richer.
Are you excited about what liesahead?
Angela Bliss (20:44):
Oh, completely.
I did my thesis on thebehavioral design of a bot.
And I think that there's hugepotential in pairing up with AI,
actually, as a researcher and asa scientist and as a designer,
in order to explore at scale,these really tricky questions
that we're facing.
So yeah, I'm really excited bythe potential of working in
(21:08):
partnership with AI to unpacksome of these issues.
Chris Hudson (21:12):
What we're left with in the meantime, I feel
like there's been a realstruggle to get organizations to
even understand the value ofsome of the things that are used
in design thinking aboutpersonas, how the customer voice
is represented within yourorganization and how people best
empathize with that and use thatto create an ideate and come up
with new propositions, things totake to market.
(21:33):
It just feels like it's all beena bit stuck, right?
But, yeah.
I don't know if it's because theinsights side of things has been
harder for people to really workwith and grapple with.
There are established researchmethodologies and practices.
It just feels like it's always apush to get people to really
align upon what customersactually need in a strange way,
because it should be a loteasier than that.
Angela Bliss (21:55):
Yeah.
What do
Chris Hudson (21:56):
you think?
Has that been your experience?
Angela Bliss (21:57):
Oh, completely, completely.
I think that design is a costcenter.
We're not often seen as arevenue driver.
We're often seen as a cost andtime in position on the business
and to reduce cost and time.
It's often research that's descoped.
I think that's probably thepotential of moving to these
product models is that you'reand the observed behavior
(22:19):
approaches is that there is afocus on delivery.
And then if you move research toalign more with delivery, which
is not ideal, but is probablyexpedient politically and
economically, and to be able tolearn post delivery, that's
probably more aligned to wherebusinesses want to spend their
time and money.
Chris Hudson (22:39):
And it's aligned to the hippo or the sunflower
effect that you describedbefore, because the senior
stakeholders that gets to go tomarket.
with whatever it is they thinkthey want to go to market with.
And then the rest of the teamcan then get behind it and say,
great, we'll learn a lot throughthat.
And let's see what happens.
We'll work with the team tounderstand how people are
responding to the product, tothe service.
So yeah, that can work prettywell.
Angela Bliss (23:00):
Yeah.
And it's a practical approach.
I see a lot of designers reallygetting upset when scoped.
And of course that'sfrustrating.
And of course that's not ideal.
But.
You have to work within theconstraints of the business
environment within which you'reworking and very much with an
eye on bottom line efficiencies.
And we need to work within thatmodel.
Chris Hudson (23:21):
Should we talk a little bit about attitudes to
risk in that respect and anappetite for risk?
Like what's been your experienceof that and how have you seen it
changing in the last.
little while, last few years.
Is anything changing there?
Angela Bliss (23:32):
Look, it's interesting.
I'm working with a big bank atthe moment that is doing some
really interesting work with AIand behavioral science, which is
why I'm there.
Four, five years ago, when I wastrying to suggest that it could
use behavioral sciencemethodologies and control and to
(23:52):
really look at the effectivenessof certain internal campaigns or
external campaigns that just gotshut down.
There was absolutely no appetitewhatsoever.
The evolution that I've seen nowin terms of risk and innovation
is probably Off the back of AI,actually, businesses know they
(24:14):
have to innovate.
They know they need to takerisks with this new tool.
So they're making space withinBAU, alongside BAU, within
businesses to play around withAI.
responsibly, experiment and playaround with AI in order to test
what kind of value they canextract from these tools.
(24:37):
And so I think that has openedup an appetite for a little bit
more risk.
It's imposing change onorganizations that they just
have to kind of suck up and dealwith, or else they'll be left
behind.
So Chris, I think that, Thatwas, yes, we still kind of butt
heads with conservative riskadverse parts of the business.
I think the cultural shift thatis happening as a result of AI
(25:01):
is going to work in our favor.
Chris Hudson (25:03):
Yeah.
So it's kind of like a toleranceor immunity.
It's about immunity to changeand being okay with that.
And feeling comfortable, all ofa sudden things changed.
And obviously COVID is one, AIis the next wave.
There's basically ways tointroduce uncertainty, which can
result in propelling a lot oforganizations forward.
So if you're the intrapreneurand you can associate yourself
(25:25):
with some of those waves ofchange, then probably a good
thing, right?
And you've probably seen this inthe organizations that you're
working within whereintrapreneurs or people within
teams have got the opportunityto take some of those
initiatives forward.
And some people gravitatetowards it.
And obviously some people don't.
What are some of the positivebehaviors you see within
organizations?
If we're thinking aboutintrapreneurs, what catches your
eye when you look at people andthink, okay, well, they're on
the right track with this,what's good behavior in how it's
(25:47):
demonstrated,
Angela Bliss (25:48):
it's being able to promote innovation and promote
new ways of thinking within theconstraints of practical
business operations.
So I think there's no point.
trying to be a battering ramwith regards to getting your
ideas across the line.
(26:09):
I think it takes a level ofpolitical savviness and
sophistication to work withstakeholders and within
operating models and understandhow to get the most innovative,
best results whilst not breakingthe models within which we all
have to work.
I think people who demonstratenot only innovativeness and risk
(26:31):
taking and an appetite forchange but can do so in a
politically expedient way.
That always catches my eye.
Chris Hudson (26:38):
No, it's good to know.
I mean, some of the things thatwe often talk about here are
strategies for embeddingyourself within culture, and
obviously a lot of people changefrom one role to another.
In that respect, what's been abig learning for you in your
career so far, in terms ofembedding yourself within
projects or initiatives thatCould be high risk, maybe not,
but anything that you could sayabout how you typically go about
(26:59):
doing that typifies yourapproach to it.
Angela Bliss (27:01):
This is a several years ago that you need to pay
as much attention to thepolitics as you do the problem.
That was a big learning for me.
I had a very consultant mindset,especially when I started to
work in house client side whereI'd be generously trying to fix
all the problems without anyattention to the political
landscape.
So I think that's one.
(27:21):
lesson learned is that you needto step back.
You need to understand howdecisions are made, who holds
the soft and hard power withinan organization and work within
the system, like following themomentum or following the flow.
It's easier to swim with thecurrent than against it.
And that's the same inorganizations.
(27:42):
So.
To try and drive innovationinternally, speak their
language, use the numbers, alignto the stakeholders, key
metrics, speak to the benefitsin their terms, not yours.
Those kinds of fundamentalsreally help and find the kind of
change advocates.
Again, work with the system, notagainst it.
(28:02):
Find the people who have moreappetite for change and for risk
and for innovation.
They're always organizations.
If they're as high up aspossible in the organization,
they're even better.
Chris Hudson (28:12):
Yeah, quite a lot to figure out then a lot of
people just say go for coffeesand that sort of thing.
Is anything in that practicalsense been helpful to you?
Angela Bliss (28:20):
Turn up face to face.
If you want to embed yourself ina culture, if you want to learn
about an organization, if youwant to build those strong
relationships needed to be aninfluencer within an
organization, call me oldschool.
But I do think going intooffices and working face to face
with key stakeholders is reallypowerful.
Chris Hudson (28:40):
Yeah.
I mean, behavior change.
in the way that hybrid work isnow set up is doing other
things.
What are you seeing there asbeing helpful or less helpful
behaviors?
Angela Bliss (28:49):
Look, I think we've lost a lot of that.
Groupthink can be good and canbe bad, but that kind of
groupthink in the old war roomswith all the artifacts on the
walls and a group of reallyfocused multidisciplinary teams
trying to work through problems,I don't find Miro or Figma
(29:11):
anywhere near as effective askind of collaboration tools
compared to actually being inthe room with the team.
Chris Hudson (29:18):
One of the big gaps is around facilitation and
obviously to sharpen your ownskill set and approach to
facilitation.
It's not often taught withinorganizations specifically, but.
I feel like that is the oneconflict management or if you're
looking for visioning or how doyou align people in one way or
another?
It just feels like that's amissing skill.
Does that appear to you?
Angela Bliss (29:38):
Look, I think facilitation is super difficult.
I think it takes a long time andprobably a level of experience
and dare I say seniority to bereally effective at it.
It also requires anunderstanding of decision making
processes and human behavior andgroupthink and biases.
to do it well.
The best facilitators I see giveeveryone a voice in the room.
(30:01):
Actually, a technique that welearned at the LSE was asking
the most junior people first andalso as a leader, not answering
first ever.
So not leading the discussion.
So letting more junior people inyour team answer first, hold the
floor before you.
(30:23):
impose your view because it'smore likely that the team will
align behind the most seniorperson.
So all those techniques comeinto play.
It's a really difficult skill.
Chris Hudson (30:33):
Oh, it's a hard balance, isn't it?
Because I've been in thesituation where the most senior
person does go first and thenbasically ask everyone else for
their opinion, and they'reeither terrified or basically
undermined by what's alreadybeen said.
That's
Angela Bliss (30:47):
right.
Chris Hudson (30:47):
But the other way around, I remember this was said
in Paris years ago, but there'sa Big, big, big presentation,
right?
And it was like four differentconsultancies presenting their
stuff and all of that.
And then four or five differentbusiness units all around this
kind of massive hall.
It was a huge place andpresentations went up and
everyone gave theirpresentations.
And the format after eachpresentation was for the client
(31:07):
to give the feedback on thatwork.
And it did work like you said.
But the leader at the top,everyone was terrified of.
So there were five or six ineach of those teams and they
went from the junior all the waythrough to the senior.
But then the senior guybasically just squashed
everything that had been saidinitially in his own point of
view.
So I think there were respectfulways of doing it without it
still feeling like adictatorship.
Angela Bliss (31:28):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
There's a lot that behavioralscience, decision architecture,
choice architecture, can provideto facilitators in terms of how
to deal with the group dynamics.
So I'd encourage facilitators totake a look at the science
behind behavior next time.
Chris Hudson (31:44):
And I think to understand the decisioning flows
within the organization, youalmost got to see that play out
quite a few times.
And that's why, you know,Probably why you mentioned
seniority has been quiteimportant there because you have
to see how it works.
Angela Bliss (31:57):
Also being able to hold the floor, just to have the
gravitas to be able to hold thefloor.
And I think that probably a bitmore experience and a bit of
seniority helps, especially as awoman to, to be complete.
Yeah, of course.
Chris Hudson (32:10):
Maybe relating to other people.
Parts of your career and some ofthe things that maybe you found
to be a little bit moreuncomfortable.
What were some of those and howdid you get around, did you get
past some of those situations?
Did you have any other copingmechanisms?
Angela Bliss (32:22):
I can remember my very first presentation.
So I was straight out of uni andhalfway through the guy who was
a senior man in the room said,Just stop a minute, your face is
perfectly symmetrical.
So that's what it felt likebeing post grad when I came out
of uni.
I mean, thank gosh, work forceshave evolved since then.
(32:44):
I've always coped, and maybethis is not particularly
healthy, but working harder thanmost other people.
That was always been my fallbackplan, is to strive to be really,
really good at what I do.
That silences the critics, Ifind.
Chris Hudson (32:59):
In that moment, I feel like there are situations
we can get caught off guard.
We just need to take a moment.
And it doesn't feel like time isalmost on your side, but you can
obviously afford yourself thattime.
If you postpone, you can defer adecision, or if you haven't done
that work in that moment, andyou haven't got a point of view,
you can make time if you needto.
But I think a lot of peoplestill feel pressure,
particularly in a face to facemeeting environment, to just
(33:21):
kind of come up and telleverything there during that
allotted time slot.
Some pressures are still there.
Maybe it's getting easier.
I don't know.
What do you think?
Angela Bliss (33:30):
I think it's getting easier.
Look, I think there is more saycontrols around behaviors in the
workplace that I think havebenefited everyone.
And I think that's a really goodthing.
There are still biases out thereand that's something that we all
have to navigate.
Chris Hudson (33:45):
There's a question as well around diversity and
particularly in relation toculture because representation.
It feels like it's never been ashigh on the agenda in a way, but
have you found from a culturalpoint of view anything in
working particularly well fromthat sense that brings in the
different perspectives but alsocontributes a sense of shared
purpose?
Angela Bliss (34:03):
Look, I really value co design methodologies
for this reason and also livedexperience participants.
engagement, no matter what thecontext.
So I think those methodologiesgo a long way, Chris, in
ensuring that diverse voices arein the room.
When I work, hold workshops, Idon't like to mix senior and
(34:27):
junior people.
If I can avoid it, I'd ratherrun two separate sessions where
I engage with more junior,especially if it's anything
related to the employeeexperience.
I'd rather separate themanagement layer from the more
junior layer to ensure that theyhave a voice.
I think there's a lot of reallypositive moves afoot with
(34:47):
regards to ensuring diverse andinclusive voices are heard.
And look, there is a subdiscipline within behavioral
science focused on diversity andinclusion and ensuring that
decisions are made with thosevoices.
Chris Hudson (35:02):
I feel like we're now in a world of many, many
organizations and many culturesrepresented.
There's some level of uniformityto the way in which
organizations are now run, butalso there's a competing aspect,
which is the personal brand andthe individual and the people
that sit within the teams, andit's not just that individuals
associated with the team and theteam is delivering on the vision
of the organization, butactually, you've got this
(35:24):
potentially competing personalbrand, which does represent a
voice of diversity.
But obviously, there's kind of aneed for uniformity as well.
So I think it's always hard tobalance some of those
personalities and personalitieshave always been around in the
world of work.
What have you found works wellin that respect?
Angela Bliss (35:39):
That's a really good insight, actually, is the
conflict between what's best forthe group and what's best for
me.
That's always going to be thecase.
I think people, they're equippednow with a level of emotional
intelligence to understand wheresomeone is trying to push their
own agenda rather than do what'sbest for the group.
(35:59):
I think that work forces andworkplaces are tolerating less
the people who are just therefor themselves and their own
personal brand.
So I'm quite positive about theadaptive nature and the ability
to identify.
The people who just aren't therefor the team more quickly and to
provide support for them tofocus less on the personal brand
(36:20):
and more on what they're doingfor their teams and their
customers.
Chris Hudson (36:24):
Yeah, so celebrating the point of
deference, admiring that aspect,but in the context of what it's
doing for the team rather than.
Angela Bliss (36:30):
That's right, as opposed to what it's doing for
you.
And I think those behaviors arevery transparent.
It takes five seconds to reallywork out if someone's on the bus
or doing their own thing.
Chris Hudson (36:41):
Can be a little bit hard to manage when I want
to say like four or fivedifferent stakeholders have all
got their own goals and youbring them together and actually
there's problems with that andit's already been written down
on a piece of paper somewhereand that's what they're aiming
at.
So it feels like they areserving their own personal
agenda but actually you stillneed to find a way through to
get them to agree on a sharedpurpose in a way.
(37:01):
in a way that doesn't feel likecompromise.
And I think facilitating thatconversation can be quite hard.
Angela Bliss (37:05):
I think that's where metrics come into their
own.
The very kind of tangible,immutable power of numbers.
I think that becomes a way ofdealing with those conflicts
between stakeholders.
I think if you get them to alignon the metrics and focus back on
the metrics and not thepolitical agenda, that's a
really effective way of dealingwith that.
Chris Hudson (37:27):
That feels like a really helpful distancing
technique from any heated topicor debate, because you can say,
okay, well, let's just bring itall together and we'll agree on
some good old metrics.
I mean, that feels like a morerational kind of sidestep.
I reckon that would work prettywell.
Angela Bliss (37:43):
And so does framing the problem, getting
alignment on the problemstatement, that's where I always
start and sometimes that takeslonger than you think it should
because everyone's got adifferent view of the problem.
But if you can get an alignmentacross divisions on what you're
trying to solve and then themetrics then to support what
success looks like, that goes along way to, to break down those
(38:04):
barriers between siloed agendas.
Chris Hudson (38:07):
And then taking that from your department
outside, spreading the good wordabout this metric that you,
jumping for joy when you leavethe workshop, got the metrics.
Like, have you found good waysof engaging other teams that
kind of need to know about it,but don't need to know about it,
but it's good for the general.
Perception of what your team isdoing.
If you found anything thereworks.
Angela Bliss (38:25):
Oh, look, I think the dashboard, like I think just
the simple communication, onepage, two page.
I mean, you're talking aboutcognitive overload.
You've got to think you'retrying to get the same mental
availability in yourstakeholders mind as you are in
your consumers mind.
And I think really simple toolsof communication, one page kind
of dashboards that you circulateto relevant departments in the
(38:48):
organization is reallyeffective.
Chris Hudson (38:50):
This is why it's always asked for in one, two,
three slides or whatever
Angela Bliss (38:53):
it's called.
Yeah, exactly.
I don't know
Chris Hudson (38:55):
if PowerPoint's helpful or not, but for certain
things.
Angela Bliss (38:57):
It's the language and the tool that most of our
stakeholders default to.
So again, you've got to swimwith the current and you've got
to do things that append to thesystem instead of trying to
fight it.
Chris Hudson (39:09):
Well, both in them understanding the information,
but also being able to maybeclaim it as their own and pass
it on and share it with otherpeople too, so that can help.
So
Angela Bliss (39:18):
yeah, exactly.
It's their preferred tool.
Chris Hudson (39:20):
Yeah.
Just in terms of behavioralscience and for listeners out
there that still after the chatreally want to find out a bit
more about it, would yourecommend any resources and
anywhere to start exploring itfurther?
Where would be a good startingpoint?
Angela Bliss (39:31):
Look, I think the books, many people probably have
read at least one or two, butNudge, Predictably Irrational,
thinking, fast.
and slow, all the classic texts.
They're slightly out of date.
Some of them are over 10 yearsold, but they're always a really
good place to start.
Chris Hudson (39:47):
Maybe we'll just finish with a bit about you
personally and what drives youand energizes you and how do you
describe to people what's in theengine room and how does it, how
does it drive you forward?
Angela Bliss (39:57):
really interested in humans.
I find it absolutely fascinatingto learn about how we work, how
we make decisions.
Science is always evolving, soyou're never up to date, which
really drives me.
I think I'm kind of an academicstudent at heart.
And then to apply it practicallyto help people, to help them
(40:19):
have better experiences and makebetter choices.
To me, Chris is the key driver.
I always say I chase.
Big problems to, and work withgood people.
That's the engine room.
Chris Hudson (40:29):
No, I love it.
And what you're saying, theacademic side of things can
really jet propel businessesforward as well.
Because I often reckon that 95percent of day to day meetings
are just based on common senseand what people would talk about
otherwise, but if you can bringin some level of rigor, Then
that can just take to acompletely different tangent.
It can start other thoughtprocesses.
It can be incredibly inspiringfor people to hear about.
(40:51):
So if you're out there andobviously you've got sources of
information and things that youcan reference from what's been
written out there in the widerworld, outside of your
boardroom, then, yeah.
We
Angela Bliss (41:02):
use the same methodologies as medical
scientists.
So we run random controlledtrials.
So not only are they new ideas,but they've been rigorously
tested and it's a good studyreplicated in other contexts.
So it's bringing those insightsinto corporates and into
businesses and then applyingthose to real life practical
(41:26):
scenarios has a huge amount ofvalue.
Chris Hudson (41:29):
Oh, I've had a good chat with you today.
I'm going to leave feelinginspired and I need to look up
some more things as well off theback of our chat.
But, uh, thanks so much forcoming on and having the
conversation with us today.
Yeah.
If people want to get in touchwith you, do you want to leave
any contact details or where canpeople find you if they've got a
question or if they just want toconnect?
Angela Bliss (41:44):
Yeah, sure.
Look, I think the best channelis LinkedIn.
So Angela Bliss, LinkedIn, I'mbased in Melbourne.
Feel free to ping me throughthat channel.
Chris Hudson (41:53):
Yeah.
Amazing.
All right.
And yeah, I'll leave you to geton with your exciting work for
the day.
And uh, yeah.
Thanks again.
Angela Bliss (41:59):
Thanks Chris.
It's been a delight.
Hello and welcome back to the company road
podcast, where we explore whatit takes to change a company and
to talk to the people that haveand will continue to set
organizations on fire in a goodway with their passion and
expertise.
And by doing so, we're going tobe looking to help you, the
intrapreneurs find your feet andmake seismic waves with the work
that you do today.
And I'm Chris, your host.
And today we're going to have atruly exceptional guest who's at
(00:27):
the forefront of drivingorganizational change through
the lens of behavioral science.
And this is someone who I'veworked with recently and who I
hold in really high regard thewonderful Angela Bliss.
Angela, welcome to the show.
Angela Bliss (00:37):
Thanks so much, Chris.
Chris Hudson (00:39):
Thanks.
And Angela, you're a seasonedbehavioral scientist and
designer with over two decadesof experience.
You've worked with a number ofAustralia's largest businesses
and government departments, andyour impressive client list
includes a number of householdnames like Nab, Telstra,
Bunnings, Coles, Nissan, and keygovernment bodies such as the
Department of Health, Departmentof Transport in Victoria.
And from what I see, from whatsets you apart is your unique
(01:00):
approach to organizationalchange.
And you work in the field ofapplied behavioral science, And
you expertly blend thatbehavioral insight with creative
execution across a number ofareas, but service products and
communication design mainly, andit's an innovative methodology
and it's helped a number oforganizations that you've worked
with, obviously implement thoseeffective changes, both big and
(01:20):
small.
And you've got a number of othercredentials that are as
impressive as your experience.
So you've got degrees ineconomics, marketing, and art
history, and you've got amultidisciplinary background
there.
And you also earned an MSc inbehavioral science with
distinction from the prestigiousLondon school of economics,
which is an amazing place.
I was in London the other weekand I walked past that.
I thought of you.
Yeah.
(01:41):
So lovely listeners, whetheryou're an intrapreneur, a
leader, or someone working inpeople, culture, ops, product
transformation, change, design,anywhere ready Ange's insights
today are sure to provide youwith some highly valuable
perspectives on drivingmeaningful change within your
company.
Yeah, let's uncover some of thesecrets to successful
organizational transformationand talk about the power of
behavioral science a little bit.
(02:01):
Maybe we start with an easy one.
What is behavioral science?
Angela Bliss (02:04):
It's a good question.
Thanks so much for the lovelyintro, Chris.
So behavioral science is amultidisciplinary field in
itself.
So it combines neuroscience,psychology, economics, and
behavioural economics tounderstand how people make
decisions, understand whatbarriers and biases might be in
play when they're trying to makedecisions, and then how do you
(02:26):
intervene in a way that helpspeople make the best decisions
for them, as opposed to imposingdecisions on them.
decisions on them.
So you can use behavioralscience for good and for bad.
And a sense check for myself asalways, am I helping the
customer or the employee or thepatient make the best decision
for them?
Chris Hudson (02:47):
Okay.
That's a concise definition.
That's good.
So essentially it's helpful fordecisioning by the sounds of it.
Let's maybe take a step back andthink about you and your career
and some of the things thatyou've done.
What's been your journey?
And maybe describe yourself tothose that don't know you as
much.
Angela Bliss (03:03):
Yeah, sure.
So, I started life as aneconomist, so I did an
international business degree,um, majoring in economics and
marketing.
I did a very short stint at theAustralian Trade Commission and
then went to Japan, fell in lovewith art and design, and that
was a segue into doing amaster's in an archaeology of
Asia at a time that I wasdetermined to become
(03:24):
unemployable, and then I was.
And so I got into digitaldesign.
And so that was, And, but I'vealways been a kind of economist
at heart.
And then when behavioraleconomics started to be an
evolving, emerging discipline, Iwas fascinated by the premise
that we are not rational, thatwe are highly irrational, that
(03:44):
we make impulsive decisions andif you studied economics when I
did, which was the Keynesianmodel, which is all predicated
on the rational, considereddecision making process.
It was quite revolutionary.
And at that time I was workingwithin the UX field, which is,
as you know, the intersection ofpsychology and design.
be able to frame that withinthis, the model of behavioural
(04:09):
economics was just another layerthat I found to be super
powerful when you're thinkingabout interface design.
Chris Hudson (04:16):
Amazing.
That's taking you on a littlebit of a journey, obviously,
away from Japan and things thatwere maybe less employable, as
you were organisations out thereare needing to consider not only
the psychology behind the designand deliver that through the
user experience, obviously, butit just feels like it's often
straight to design and out thedoor, right! There's no kind of
(04:37):
way around saying that politely,but it's like, let's ship it and
go.
So what have been some of yourchallenges along the way, do you
think?
Angela Bliss (04:43):
Oh, look, that's the knee jerk reaction to de
scope research and deep inquiry.
You do data science as part ofbehavioral science, and I feel
like the kind of going inthrough the data avenue is a bit
of a Trojan horse.
They've got a, in a way, data.
And that whole world has alicense to deeply inquire into
(05:05):
behavior rather than the designteams.
I often find an avenue in andoften I will pair with data
scientists now as much asdesigners because I feel like
they do have the license toexplore deeply.
Chris Hudson (05:19):
And what's been your experience with designers?
Because obviously, some arequite tuned into the user needs
and customer behavior, othersare probably more into the
aesthetic, and sometimes you getthe hybrid.
But what's your view of theworld when it comes to working
with designers?
And how do you get the best outof them from a behavioral
science point of view, do youthink?
Angela Bliss (05:35):
Look, it is challenging.
It's one of the reasons why Ikind of couple almost more
comfortably with data scientiststhese days than often designers
because of the designer's lackof quantitative experience, good
UXs, good service designers arepretty fluent with regards to
qualitative methods, but they'reoften lack experience with
(05:57):
regards to rigorous quantitativesurvey based exploration of
behavior.
Chris Hudson (06:03):
Can you tell us a little bit more about that
quantitative side and some ofthe things that you helped to
maybe unpack the discussionsthat I had on the quantitative
side that would lead to animproved design in some sort of
way?
Angela Bliss (06:13):
Yeah, sure.
So it's about being able tomarry the two, so quant and
qual, and to be able to useeither one to more deeply
explore whatever pattern ofbehavior you're trying to
unpack.
So with quantitative, you do getthe extra rigor that
statistically significantfindings deliver and to be able
(06:34):
to talk very confidently tostatistical significance when
you're engaging withstakeholders is very, very
impactful.
Whereas Qual often feels a bitfluffy when you're trying to get
budget to do somethinginnovative.
So I think bringing the twotogether is super powerful.
Chris Hudson (06:52):
Yeah, I definitely agree.
I've seen that work really welland often the qualitative side
seems that the kind of comfyside for it.
A lot of design conversationswhere it can be interpreted in
one way or another.
But you're right, businesses,and I think decisioning is
probably more, particularly nowanyway, the board level, that
people are expecting results tobe quite quantified and measures
to be quite specific.
And so if you've got researchand data, basically, to back up
(07:16):
your design or to show thatit'll, Deliver XYZ and you can
frame that up in some way andput a number against it, then
that's well received usually,but it's quite hard to do.
Right.
It's not easy to just come upwith the numbers.
And I think a lot of people,particularly intrapreneurs that
I talk to find it a little bitdaunting.
I want to say the confidencewith numbers that you either
feel like you're going to backyourself and your team to do it,
(07:37):
or you feel like.
You know, actually I could put astretch target down of triple
the sales next year or whateverit is, or it's conversions or
whatever the metric is.
It doesn't matter.
I think there's a lot of feararound numbers.
What do you think?
Angela Bliss (07:49):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Within the design community, alot of people become designers
because they weren't good atmaths.
That's tends to be the generaltrajectory.
But if designers want a seat atthe table, which often that they
rightly ask for, then theability to articulate results.
Quantitatively, I think isreally powerful and something
(08:11):
that designers to think aboutupskilling and go and do the
data science courses that youcan find online.
It gives you very powerfullanguage to be able to justify
your design decisions.
Chris Hudson (08:23):
There's probably a benefit.
You're not just talking aboutyour end user or customer, but
you're talking about yourinternal customer.
your audience within theorganization.
So I was saying we recordanother podcast previously where
we were talking about the extentto which you have to listen to
your internal stakeholder,listen to the language they use
and what they're passionateabout and what they're angry
about and all those things.
I mean, all of that is in yourtoolbox ready to be able to
(08:45):
reframe your work in relation totheir world and then take things
forward from there.
So from a behavioral sciencepoint of view, is there anything
to build on that that you thinkwould be helpful?
Angela Bliss (08:54):
Yeah.
I think that when we're dealingwith.
stakeholders, we're also dealingwith their entrenched biases and
barriers to adoption.
And I think that being able tospeak very confidently to the
numbers allows you to confrontthose biases.
Sometimes it doesn't work, andsometimes, as we know, sometimes
it does.
Stakeholders will continue on aparticular path, and that's
(09:16):
fine.
It does also give you anelevated, I don't want to say
status, but sometimes it's hardto break away from the notion
that design is about makingthings pretty.
And so, to be taken seriously,which is what we're trying A lot
of designers are angling forsometimes being able to
weaponize numbers in your favorto be persuasive and to get cut
(09:40):
through is really worthwhile.
Chris Hudson (09:41):
I think that design is the word is polarizing
a lot of people within theorganization.
It's unfortunate, but that isthe case.
It's not understood anddesigners have the best intent,
but obviously their positioning.
Isn't always fitting with thatof the stakeholders that are
making decisions.
Sometimes.
I think that's probably whyproduct is becoming such a big
word instead.
And that's why a lot of rolesare kind of gearing up more
(10:03):
towards that, because it's allthen in the language of, okay,
we've got a thing, we've got IP,we've got results, we've got
targets that we can attach to itand designs.
It's a different type of work.
It's more to do with thepractice than the output.
Perhaps that seems to behelping.
What are the biases you sayingcoming up?
You mentioned biases there.
What are some of the big thingsthat you see day to day?
Angela Bliss (10:22):
highest paid person.
Sunflower effect, where everyoneturns to the highest paid person
in the room for decision making.
At the LSE, where I studied, wedo a whole unit on decision
architecture.
So how do you create not only aforum within which the best
possible decisions are made, buthow do you create spaces that.
(10:45):
scaffold and support gooddecision making, and often it's
to break through that groupthink.
When skilled designers areequipped with these tools as
well, it's not just behaviouralscientists, it's about good
facilitation of ideas.
Just certainly having toconfront biases.
I often will take a behavioralscience based approach to
(11:07):
stakeholder engagement where Istand back and I really think
about the biases and thebarriers that I might be
confronting when I'm dealingwith a stakeholder and I'm
trying to persuade them to go acertain way or take a, a risk
and so I'll design my approachto stakeholder engagement very
purposefully as I wouldbehavioral mapping exercise to
(11:30):
design the best outcome for aproduct or service or
communication tool.
Chris Hudson (11:35):
Yeah, I mean stakeholder mapping I think is
an underlooked way of runningthings because often you just
turn up the meeting like peoplethink we're just going to turn
up and see what happens butactually there can be a bit of
planning involved in getting tothe right outcome for the team
and for yourself obviously andfor the stakeholder and it's a
mutually beneficial one ideallyas well.
Yeah but it takes a bit ofpreparation a bit of foresight
right?
It does.
(11:56):
You've got to check your
Angela Bliss (11:56):
own biases too, going into these
Chris Hudson (11:59):
situations.
How do you do that?
Because I've been throughmindfulness and I know about
body check and all that sort ofstuff.
From checking your own biasespoint of view, is there anything
that you find to workparticularly well?
Angela Bliss (12:09):
Oh, look, it's pretty hard.
Yeah.
Ask other people what yourbiases are.
Chris Hudson (12:12):
Ask other people.
Angela Bliss (12:14):
That's a good way to start.
It's just being aware that youtake, that you carry a very
specific lens into things.
I mean, that's the power of codesign and lived experience.
Co design is being able to checkyour biases by actually
introducing diverse voices intothe room when you're trying to
solve a problem, because it isvery hard to identify our own
(12:36):
biases.
biases.
Most of our decisions, 95percent of our decisions are
made in the system.
One brain, they're impulsive,they're subconscious, they're on
gut instinct.
I was looking at this reallyinteresting neuro marketing.
I dabble in a bit of neuromarketing as well.
Yeah.
Chris Hudson (12:51):
As you do.
Angela Bliss (12:53):
The brain, they run these MRIs on the brains
looking at decision makingprocesses and often the decision
was being made 12 seconds beforethe person was conscious of
making the decision.
I mean, that's incrediblyinteresting with regards to
engagement with advertising,engagement with marketing,
engagement with product.
Chris Hudson (13:13):
How does that work?
So you've made a decision beforeyou think you have.
Angela Bliss (13:16):
Yes, before you know you have parts of the brain
that are actually triggered whenyou make a decision of firing
off before the parts of thebrain that are conscious that
you have made a decision.
So we think we're makingdecisions rationally and we
spend a lot of time asking oneof my kind of key takeaways or
one of my key lessons for mydesign friends is.
(13:39):
there's only so much that we canglean from reported behavior.
So when we follow thesequalitative methodologies, we're
asking people, why did you makethat decision?
How did you make that decision?
And the assumption is that weare very aware of how and why we
(14:00):
made decisions and that we'rerational.
And in fact, the latest researchwill tell us that we don't know
why we make decisions.
We often make decisions in asplit second.
They're based on all sorts ofbiases that we're unaware of.
So when we're relying on solelyqualitative methodologies to
(14:20):
make huge investment decisionson, do you build this feature?
Do you build this?
product.
I would really suggest that youneed other ways of unpacking
behavior and often that isobserved behavior.
Behaviors, so how peopleactually interact with your
products or service orcommunication tools rather than
how they're telling you theybehave.
Chris Hudson (14:41):
I think that ethnographic side in research is
particularly powerful when youdo it right.
It's often considered a luxuryagain in the business discussion
and the things that come upbecause obviously it's a bit
like a smoke and mirrors.
Some people don't understand howyou could do that, but you can
observe obviously how people areinteracting with products and
you can glean a lot from that.
I also think from an innovationand a new product.
(15:02):
Point of view, or if you'rethinking about service design,
then that can be really powerfulfor just understanding the
context with which your productor service will sit within the
context of their lives.
Because if you don't reallyunderstand that, then you can't
really understand as a productdesigner or as an innovation
leader in one way or another.
How your products and servicesgonna fit in separately and
meaningfully?
(15:22):
Is it something they value?
Are they really gonna cherishit?
Is it just gonna sit on the sideof the table in the house, you
know, for two weeks?
You just don't know.
Angela Bliss (15:30):
And Chris, that's a really, really good call out.
Another key lesson frombehavioral science is context is
everything.
So we might say, we make adecision this way.
But actually we'll change ourdecisions and our preferences
and our attitudes as our contextchanges.
So something that often thoughtabout and that's where that
(15:50):
behavioral mapping of context isa really nice supplementary
methodology to the traditionalkind of UX or service design
approaches.
Chris Hudson (16:00):
What you were saying before, it's an
oversimplified understanding ofhow decisioning works.
Really?
And how thinking and cognitiveprocessing of what it is you
like and don't like works.
Angela Bliss (16:10):
Absolutely.
Preferences are not fixed.
Chris Hudson (16:13):
Yeah.
Angela Bliss (16:13):
Attitudes are not fixed.
So think about that from asegmentation perspective,
lumping people together, but ata Particular time in a
particular day we feel this waybut tomorrow we might feel or
prefer something different and Ithink there's some rigidity in
the methodologies that wetypically use as service or
(16:34):
product designers that needs tobe challenged alongside the
evolution and how in the scienceof decision making.
Chris Hudson (16:41):
I mean, as a proxy, then what's the nearest
best way of getting to anunderstanding of person's point
of view or decisioning thatmaybe.
looks at some of those things.
I know you mentioned observedbehaviors as one way.
How do we know whether people,yeah, that's the best way.
Angela Bliss (16:58):
It is the best way, you know, so there's a lot
of value of getting the productout in market fast as possible,
seeing how people react andtesting and learning
accordingly.
I'm not dismissing qualitativeresearch methodologies as being
invaluable.
Absolutely not.
There is interesting patternsthat you glean from them that
are worth exploring potentially.
(17:19):
through quantitative methods,but if you want to see how
people actually behave, then youneed to ship your product.
I
Chris Hudson (17:26):
think that's why that innovation anyway, there's
a real shift towards pretotypingand lean startup methodologies
where essentially you're puttingthings out and see how people
respond.
And I, for a lot of people,that's really high risk and
they'd never do it.
It feels like that's the wayit's going.
And you, you test with more andlearn from that and then refine.
and reduce and craft after that.
Angela Bliss (17:48):
We can't predict behavior.
It's incredibly difficult forall these reasons.
I mean, if we can't evenarticulate why we make
decisions, how would we expect aproduct designer to be able to
preempt that?
Chris Hudson (18:01):
I think so.
And I also see that there's amassive amount of clutter,
right?
I feel like that the decisioninglandscape now is It's probably
harder, much, much harder thanit was ever before.
If you're thinking about whattriggers the brain and the
neuroscience and the impulsesbehind all of the signals that
everyone's receiving now everyday because of technology, it
just feels like that's notsimple anymore.
You can't just say, I'm going tobuy this toothpaste or that
(18:23):
toothpaste and we're Proctor andGamble in the 1950s.
It's very different, right?
Angela Bliss (18:28):
That's exactly right.
And it's that cognitiveoverload.
I'm doing some interesting workin banking with vulnerable
communities.
And really the design challengeis how do you design for
cognitive impairment fromcognitive overload all the way
through to cognitive decline.
And I think that cognitivecontext of our user groups
(18:53):
isn't.
being considered enough.
I mean, we talk aboutaccessibility, but we don't
really talk about cognitiveability when we're designing our
interfaces and designing ourcomms tools, etc.
So I think that's another layerthat certainly behavioral
science introduces intoconsideration sets around
(19:14):
innovation of products andservices.
Yeah.
Chris Hudson (19:16):
Yeah.
So for cognitive ability, Imean, how do we best take a look
at that and how do we understandit better, do you think?
Angela Bliss (19:22):
Look, it's really tricky.
I'm hoping that AI might play arole here.
I think the ability of, to trainAI models to detect cognitive
ability has potential.
I think I'd just version themachines on this one at scale
because it's very hard toconsistently train humans to be
(19:43):
able to detect levels of kind ofcognitive decline consistently
and sensitively.
So yeah, perhaps this is therole for the AI models.
Chris Hudson (19:55):
I mean, now that you mentioned it, I hadn't
thought of this before, butessentially your browser
history, anything that you'redoing on your phone, all of that
could be processed as anassessment of your cognitive
ability.
Absolutely.
It's not like you're sittingdown to do your Myers Briggs or
your, your psychometric testing.
You could actually be assessedon how you've been working for
the last 20 years.
Angela Bliss (20:14):
This is my hypothesis yet to be tested, but
I think we leave a cognitivefootprint when we interact
digitally and on the phone thatcould be used by businesses to
more sensitively engage withtheir vulnerable customers.
Chris Hudson (20:29):
So I think in that sense the role for behavioral
science, it feels like willcontinue to evolve, because
you're looking for that way toget to purest version of the
truth when it comes to, whatcustomers need and want, tools
are becoming richer.
Are you excited about what liesahead?
Angela Bliss (20:44):
Oh, completely.
I did my thesis on thebehavioral design of a bot.
And I think that there's hugepotential in pairing up with AI,
actually, as a researcher and asa scientist and as a designer,
in order to explore at scale,these really tricky questions
that we're facing.
So yeah, I'm really excited bythe potential of working in
(21:08):
partnership with AI to unpacksome of these issues.
Chris Hudson (21:12):
What we're left with in the meantime, I feel
like there's been a realstruggle to get organizations to
even understand the value ofsome of the things that are used
in design thinking aboutpersonas, how the customer voice
is represented within yourorganization and how people best
empathize with that and use thatto create an ideate and come up
with new propositions, things totake to market.
(21:33):
It just feels like it's all beena bit stuck, right?
But, yeah.
I don't know if it's because theinsights side of things has been
harder for people to really workwith and grapple with.
There are established researchmethodologies and practices.
It just feels like it's always apush to get people to really
align upon what customersactually need in a strange way,
because it should be a loteasier than that.
Angela Bliss (21:55):
Yeah.
What do
Chris Hudson (21:56):
you think?
Has that been your experience?
Angela Bliss (21:57):
Oh, completely, completely.
I think that design is a costcenter.
We're not often seen as arevenue driver.
We're often seen as a cost andtime in position on the business
and to reduce cost and time.
It's often research that's descoped.
I think that's probably thepotential of moving to these
product models is that you'reand the observed behavior
(22:19):
approaches is that there is afocus on delivery.
And then if you move research toalign more with delivery, which
is not ideal, but is probablyexpedient politically and
economically, and to be able tolearn post delivery, that's
probably more aligned to wherebusinesses want to spend their
time and money.
Chris Hudson (22:39):
And it's aligned to the hippo or the sunflower
effect that you describedbefore, because the senior
stakeholders that gets to go tomarket.
with whatever it is they thinkthey want to go to market with.
And then the rest of the teamcan then get behind it and say,
great, we'll learn a lot throughthat.
And let's see what happens.
We'll work with the team tounderstand how people are
responding to the product, tothe service.
So yeah, that can work prettywell.
Angela Bliss (23:00):
Yeah.
And it's a practical approach.
I see a lot of designers reallygetting upset when scoped.
And of course that'sfrustrating.
And of course that's not ideal.
But.
You have to work within theconstraints of the business
environment within which you'reworking and very much with an
eye on bottom line efficiencies.
And we need to work within thatmodel.
Chris Hudson (23:21):
Should we talk a little bit about attitudes to
risk in that respect and anappetite for risk?
Like what's been your experienceof that and how have you seen it
changing in the last.
little while, last few years.
Is anything changing there?
Angela Bliss (23:32):
Look, it's interesting.
I'm working with a big bank atthe moment that is doing some
really interesting work with AIand behavioral science, which is
why I'm there.
Four, five years ago, when I wastrying to suggest that it could
use behavioral sciencemethodologies and control and to
(23:52):
really look at the effectivenessof certain internal campaigns or
external campaigns that just gotshut down.
There was absolutely no appetitewhatsoever.
The evolution that I've seen nowin terms of risk and innovation
is probably Off the back of AI,actually, businesses know they
(24:14):
have to innovate.
They know they need to takerisks with this new tool.
So they're making space withinBAU, alongside BAU, within
businesses to play around withAI.
responsibly, experiment and playaround with AI in order to test
what kind of value they canextract from these tools.
(24:37):
And so I think that has openedup an appetite for a little bit
more risk.
It's imposing change onorganizations that they just
have to kind of suck up and dealwith, or else they'll be left
behind.
So Chris, I think that, Thatwas, yes, we still kind of butt
heads with conservative riskadverse parts of the business.
I think the cultural shift thatis happening as a result of AI
(25:01):
is going to work in our favor.
Chris Hudson (25:03):
Yeah.
So it's kind of like a toleranceor immunity.
It's about immunity to changeand being okay with that.
And feeling comfortable, all ofa sudden things changed.
And obviously COVID is one, AIis the next wave.
There's basically ways tointroduce uncertainty, which can
result in propelling a lot oforganizations forward.
So if you're the intrapreneurand you can associate yourself
(25:25):
with some of those waves ofchange, then probably a good
thing, right?
And you've probably seen this inthe organizations that you're
working within whereintrapreneurs or people within
teams have got the opportunityto take some of those
initiatives forward.
And some people gravitatetowards it.
And obviously some people don't.
What are some of the positivebehaviors you see within
organizations?
If we're thinking aboutintrapreneurs, what catches your
eye when you look at people andthink, okay, well, they're on
the right track with this,what's good behavior in how it's
(25:47):
demonstrated,
Angela Bliss (25:48):
it's being able to promote innovation and promote
new ways of thinking within theconstraints of practical
business operations.
So I think there's no point.
trying to be a battering ramwith regards to getting your
ideas across the line.
(26:09):
I think it takes a level ofpolitical savviness and
sophistication to work withstakeholders and within
operating models and understandhow to get the most innovative,
best results whilst not breakingthe models within which we all
have to work.
I think people who demonstratenot only innovativeness and risk
(26:31):
taking and an appetite forchange but can do so in a
politically expedient way.
That always catches my eye.
Chris Hudson (26:38):
No, it's good to know.
I mean, some of the things thatwe often talk about here are
strategies for embeddingyourself within culture, and
obviously a lot of people changefrom one role to another.
In that respect, what's been abig learning for you in your
career so far, in terms ofembedding yourself within
projects or initiatives thatCould be high risk, maybe not,
but anything that you could sayabout how you typically go about
(26:59):
doing that typifies yourapproach to it.
Angela Bliss (27:01):
This is a several years ago that you need to pay
as much attention to thepolitics as you do the problem.
That was a big learning for me.
I had a very consultant mindset,especially when I started to
work in house client side whereI'd be generously trying to fix
all the problems without anyattention to the political
landscape.
So I think that's one.
(27:21):
lesson learned is that you needto step back.
You need to understand howdecisions are made, who holds
the soft and hard power withinan organization and work within
the system, like following themomentum or following the flow.
It's easier to swim with thecurrent than against it.
And that's the same inorganizations.
(27:42):
So.
To try and drive innovationinternally, speak their
language, use the numbers, alignto the stakeholders, key
metrics, speak to the benefitsin their terms, not yours.
Those kinds of fundamentalsreally help and find the kind of
change advocates.
Again, work with the system, notagainst it.
(28:02):
Find the people who have moreappetite for change and for risk
and for innovation.
They're always organizations.
If they're as high up aspossible in the organization,
they're even better.
Chris Hudson (28:12):
Yeah, quite a lot to figure out then a lot of
people just say go for coffeesand that sort of thing.
Is anything in that practicalsense been helpful to you?
Angela Bliss (28:20):
Turn up face to face.
If you want to embed yourself ina culture, if you want to learn
about an organization, if youwant to build those strong
relationships needed to be aninfluencer within an
organization, call me oldschool.
But I do think going intooffices and working face to face
with key stakeholders is reallypowerful.
Chris Hudson (28:40):
Yeah.
I mean, behavior change.
in the way that hybrid work isnow set up is doing other
things.
What are you seeing there asbeing helpful or less helpful
behaviors?
Angela Bliss (28:49):
Look, I think we've lost a lot of that.
Groupthink can be good and canbe bad, but that kind of
groupthink in the old war roomswith all the artifacts on the
walls and a group of reallyfocused multidisciplinary teams
trying to work through problems,I don't find Miro or Figma
(29:11):
anywhere near as effective askind of collaboration tools
compared to actually being inthe room with the team.
Chris Hudson (29:18):
One of the big gaps is around facilitation and
obviously to sharpen your ownskill set and approach to
facilitation.
It's not often taught withinorganizations specifically, but.
I feel like that is the oneconflict management or if you're
looking for visioning or how doyou align people in one way or
another?
It just feels like that's amissing skill.
Does that appear to you?
Angela Bliss (29:38):
Look, I think facilitation is super difficult.
I think it takes a long time andprobably a level of experience
and dare I say seniority to bereally effective at it.
It also requires anunderstanding of decision making
processes and human behavior andgroupthink and biases.
to do it well.
The best facilitators I see giveeveryone a voice in the room.
(30:01):
Actually, a technique that welearned at the LSE was asking
the most junior people first andalso as a leader, not answering
first ever.
So not leading the discussion.
So letting more junior people inyour team answer first, hold the
floor before you.
(30:23):
impose your view because it'smore likely that the team will
align behind the most seniorperson.
So all those techniques comeinto play.
It's a really difficult skill.
Chris Hudson (30:33):
Oh, it's a hard balance, isn't it?
Because I've been in thesituation where the most senior
person does go first and thenbasically ask everyone else for
their opinion, and they'reeither terrified or basically
undermined by what's alreadybeen said.
That's
Angela Bliss (30:47):
right.
Chris Hudson (30:47):
But the other way around, I remember this was said
in Paris years ago, but there'sa Big, big, big presentation,
right?
And it was like four differentconsultancies presenting their
stuff and all of that.
And then four or five differentbusiness units all around this
kind of massive hall.
It was a huge place andpresentations went up and
everyone gave theirpresentations.
And the format after eachpresentation was for the client
(31:07):
to give the feedback on thatwork.
And it did work like you said.
But the leader at the top,everyone was terrified of.
So there were five or six ineach of those teams and they
went from the junior all the waythrough to the senior.
But then the senior guybasically just squashed
everything that had been saidinitially in his own point of
view.
So I think there were respectfulways of doing it without it
still feeling like adictatorship.
Angela Bliss (31:28):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
There's a lot that behavioralscience, decision architecture,
choice architecture, can provideto facilitators in terms of how
to deal with the group dynamics.
So I'd encourage facilitators totake a look at the science
behind behavior next time.
Chris Hudson (31:44):
And I think to understand the decisioning flows
within the organization, youalmost got to see that play out
quite a few times.
And that's why, you know,Probably why you mentioned
seniority has been quiteimportant there because you have
to see how it works.
Angela Bliss (31:57):
Also being able to hold the floor, just to have the
gravitas to be able to hold thefloor.
And I think that probably a bitmore experience and a bit of
seniority helps, especially as awoman to, to be complete.
Yeah, of course.
Chris Hudson (32:10):
Maybe relating to other people.
Parts of your career and some ofthe things that maybe you found
to be a little bit moreuncomfortable.
What were some of those and howdid you get around, did you get
past some of those situations?
Did you have any other copingmechanisms?
Angela Bliss (32:22):
I can remember my very first presentation.
So I was straight out of uni andhalfway through the guy who was
a senior man in the room said,Just stop a minute, your face is
perfectly symmetrical.
So that's what it felt likebeing post grad when I came out
of uni.
I mean, thank gosh, work forceshave evolved since then.
(32:44):
I've always coped, and maybethis is not particularly
healthy, but working harder thanmost other people.
That was always been my fallbackplan, is to strive to be really,
really good at what I do.
That silences the critics, Ifind.
Chris Hudson (32:59):
In that moment, I feel like there are situations
we can get caught off guard.
We just need to take a moment.
And it doesn't feel like time isalmost on your side, but you can
obviously afford yourself thattime.
If you postpone, you can defer adecision, or if you haven't done
that work in that moment, andyou haven't got a point of view,
you can make time if you needto.
But I think a lot of peoplestill feel pressure,
particularly in a face to facemeeting environment, to just
(33:21):
kind of come up and telleverything there during that
allotted time slot.
Some pressures are still there.
Maybe it's getting easier.
I don't know.
What do you think?
Angela Bliss (33:30):
I think it's getting easier.
Look, I think there is more saycontrols around behaviors in the
workplace that I think havebenefited everyone.
And I think that's a really goodthing.
There are still biases out thereand that's something that we all
have to navigate.
Chris Hudson (33:45):
There's a question as well around diversity and
particularly in relation toculture because representation.
It feels like it's never been ashigh on the agenda in a way, but
have you found from a culturalpoint of view anything in
working particularly well fromthat sense that brings in the
different perspectives but alsocontributes a sense of shared
purpose?
Angela Bliss (34:03):
Look, I really value co design methodologies
for this reason and also livedexperience participants.
engagement, no matter what thecontext.
So I think those methodologiesgo a long way, Chris, in
ensuring that diverse voices arein the room.
When I work, hold workshops, Idon't like to mix senior and
(34:27):
junior people.
If I can avoid it, I'd ratherrun two separate sessions where
I engage with more junior,especially if it's anything
related to the employeeexperience.
I'd rather separate themanagement layer from the more
junior layer to ensure that theyhave a voice.
I think there's a lot of reallypositive moves afoot with
(34:47):
regards to ensuring diverse andinclusive voices are heard.
And look, there is a subdiscipline within behavioral
science focused on diversity andinclusion and ensuring that
decisions are made with thosevoices.
Chris Hudson (35:02):
I feel like we're now in a world of many, many
organizations and many culturesrepresented.
There's some level of uniformityto the way in which
organizations are now run, butalso there's a competing aspect,
which is the personal brand andthe individual and the people
that sit within the teams, andit's not just that individuals
associated with the team and theteam is delivering on the vision
of the organization, butactually, you've got this
(35:24):
potentially competing personalbrand, which does represent a
voice of diversity.
But obviously, there's kind of aneed for uniformity as well.
So I think it's always hard tobalance some of those
personalities and personalitieshave always been around in the
world of work.
What have you found works wellin that respect?
Angela Bliss (35:39):
That's a really good insight, actually, is the
conflict between what's best forthe group and what's best for
me.
That's always going to be thecase.
I think people, they're equippednow with a level of emotional
intelligence to understand wheresomeone is trying to push their
own agenda rather than do what'sbest for the group.
(35:59):
I think that work forces andworkplaces are tolerating less
the people who are just therefor themselves and their own
personal brand.
So I'm quite positive about theadaptive nature and the ability
to identify.
The people who just aren't therefor the team more quickly and to
provide support for them tofocus less on the personal brand
(36:20):
and more on what they're doingfor their teams and their
customers.
Chris Hudson (36:24):
Yeah, so celebrating the point of
deference, admiring that aspect,but in the context of what it's
doing for the team rather than.
Angela Bliss (36:30):
That's right, as opposed to what it's doing for
you.
And I think those behaviors arevery transparent.
It takes five seconds to reallywork out if someone's on the bus
or doing their own thing.
Chris Hudson (36:41):
Can be a little bit hard to manage when I want
to say like four or fivedifferent stakeholders have all
got their own goals and youbring them together and actually
there's problems with that andit's already been written down
on a piece of paper somewhereand that's what they're aiming
at.
So it feels like they areserving their own personal
agenda but actually you stillneed to find a way through to
get them to agree on a sharedpurpose in a way.
(37:01):
in a way that doesn't feel likecompromise.
And I think facilitating thatconversation can be quite hard.
Angela Bliss (37:05):
I think that's where metrics come into their
own.
The very kind of tangible,immutable power of numbers.
I think that becomes a way ofdealing with those conflicts
between stakeholders.
I think if you get them to alignon the metrics and focus back on
the metrics and not thepolitical agenda, that's a
really effective way of dealingwith that.
Chris Hudson (37:27):
That feels like a really helpful distancing
technique from any heated topicor debate, because you can say,
okay, well, let's just bring itall together and we'll agree on
some good old metrics.
I mean, that feels like a morerational kind of sidestep.
I reckon that would work prettywell.
Angela Bliss (37:43):
And so does framing the problem, getting
alignment on the problemstatement, that's where I always
start and sometimes that takeslonger than you think it should
because everyone's got adifferent view of the problem.
But if you can get an alignmentacross divisions on what you're
trying to solve and then themetrics then to support what
success looks like, that goes along way to, to break down those
(38:04):
barriers between siloed agendas.
Chris Hudson (38:07):
And then taking that from your department
outside, spreading the good wordabout this metric that you,
jumping for joy when you leavethe workshop, got the metrics.
Like, have you found good waysof engaging other teams that
kind of need to know about it,but don't need to know about it,
but it's good for the general.
Perception of what your team isdoing.
If you found anything thereworks.
Angela Bliss (38:25):
Oh, look, I think the dashboard, like I think just
the simple communication, onepage, two page.
I mean, you're talking aboutcognitive overload.
You've got to think you'retrying to get the same mental
availability in yourstakeholders mind as you are in
your consumers mind.
And I think really simple toolsof communication, one page kind
of dashboards that you circulateto relevant departments in the
(38:48):
organization is reallyeffective.
Chris Hudson (38:50):
This is why it's always asked for in one, two,
three slides or whatever
Angela Bliss (38:53):
it's called.
Yeah, exactly.
I don't know
Chris Hudson (38:55):
if PowerPoint's helpful or not, but for certain
things.
Angela Bliss (38:57):
It's the language and the tool that most of our
stakeholders default to.
So again, you've got to swimwith the current and you've got
to do things that append to thesystem instead of trying to
fight it.
Chris Hudson (39:09):
Well, both in them understanding the information,
but also being able to maybeclaim it as their own and pass
it on and share it with otherpeople too, so that can help.
So
Angela Bliss (39:18):
yeah, exactly.
It's their preferred tool.
Chris Hudson (39:20):
Yeah.
Just in terms of behavioralscience and for listeners out
there that still after the chatreally want to find out a bit
more about it, would yourecommend any resources and
anywhere to start exploring itfurther?
Where would be a good startingpoint?
Angela Bliss (39:31):
Look, I think the books, many people probably have
read at least one or two, butNudge, Predictably Irrational,
thinking, fast.
and slow, all the classic texts.
They're slightly out of date.
Some of them are over 10 yearsold, but they're always a really
good place to start.
Chris Hudson (39:47):
Maybe we'll just finish with a bit about you
personally and what drives youand energizes you and how do you
describe to people what's in theengine room and how does it, how
does it drive you forward?
Angela Bliss (39:57):
really interested in humans.
I find it absolutely fascinatingto learn about how we work, how
we make decisions.
Science is always evolving, soyou're never up to date, which
really drives me.
I think I'm kind of an academicstudent at heart.
And then to apply it practicallyto help people, to help them
(40:19):
have better experiences and makebetter choices.
To me, Chris is the key driver.
I always say I chase.
Big problems to, and work withgood people.
That's the engine room.
Chris Hudson (40:29):
No, I love it.
And what you're saying, theacademic side of things can
really jet propel businessesforward as well.
Because I often reckon that 95percent of day to day meetings
are just based on common senseand what people would talk about
otherwise, but if you can bringin some level of rigor, Then
that can just take to acompletely different tangent.
It can start other thoughtprocesses.
It can be incredibly inspiringfor people to hear about.
(40:51):
So if you're out there andobviously you've got sources of
information and things that youcan reference from what's been
written out there in the widerworld, outside of your
boardroom, then, yeah.
We
Angela Bliss (41:02):
use the same methodologies as medical
scientists.
So we run random controlledtrials.
So not only are they new ideas,but they've been rigorously
tested and it's a good studyreplicated in other contexts.
So it's bringing those insightsinto corporates and into
businesses and then applyingthose to real life practical
(41:26):
scenarios has a huge amount ofvalue.
Chris Hudson (41:29):
Oh, I've had a good chat with you today.
I'm going to leave feelinginspired and I need to look up
some more things as well off theback of our chat.
But, uh, thanks so much forcoming on and having the
conversation with us today.
Yeah.
If people want to get in touchwith you, do you want to leave
any contact details or where canpeople find you if they've got a
question or if they just want toconnect?
Angela Bliss (41:44):
Yeah, sure.
Look, I think the best channelis LinkedIn.
So Angela Bliss, LinkedIn, I'mbased in Melbourne.
Feel free to ping me throughthat channel.
Chris Hudson (41:53):
Yeah.
Amazing.
All right.
And yeah, I'll leave you to geton with your exciting work for
the day.
And uh, yeah.
Thanks again.
Angela Bliss (41:59):
Thanks Chris.
It's been a delight.
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