WiD Event: Mapping out Behavior Change

During a recent Women in Design (WiD) event, Payette Principal and Director of Building Science Andrea Love led an interactive session using simple behavior mapping tools that can be applied to big and small challenges we face in our everyday personal and professional lives.

Using BJ Fogg’s Ted Talk, Forget Big Change, Start with a Tiny Habit, as a reference, we discussed how only three things will change behavior in the term:

Option A: Have an epiphany

Option B: Change your environment

Option C: Take baby steps.

Creating an epiphany is difficult, instead we focused on option B and C.

Option B: Change your Environment
In small groups, we discussed what behaviors could benefit from change within our workplace and mapped out a plan to change our environment by using the simple equation: B=MAT (Behavior = Motivation, Ability, Trigger).

We identified several behaviors that I think would resonate in a lot of workplace environments;  reduce, or even eliminate, the amount of times you eat lunch at your desk, conference room etiquette and double bookings and keeping our communal work stations tidier.

My group mapped out  the lunch break behavior. What’s our motivation to change our behavior? For one, we’ll have a cleaner desk! Other motivation included studies that prove if you take a break during the day, you are actually more creative and have more stamina.  

To enhance our ability, we thought it could help to have more comfortable seating in our office for the winter months or office catered lunches. To keep us in check, our trigger can be as simple as a calendar alert to notify you to take your break.

Option C: Take Baby Steps
Another tool we learned about was mapping out our goal with baby steps and identifying what steps were most effective and harder to complete using the below chart:

After identifying our goal, we wrote our individual baby steps on post-it notes, first placing the notes on the vertical line showing what steps are more or less effective. And finally shifting the steps based on the level of difficulty to complete. This tool was helpful to visually see your steps and map out a strategy of which steps you want to tackle first.

In addition to learning the behavior mapping tools, this event was a great way to discuss what relatable and similar challenges we have been facing, and gave us all action items to help improve our workplace.