How to change group behaviour

..in the 1970s, people lit up almost anywhere, smoking away in other people’s houses, in pubs and on buses. Today, smokers congregate outside. In the 1980s, drink driving was common. It was regarded as a bit iffy but we did it.

Today, for nearly everybody it is a complete no no. Some older drivers are still at it, but socially, drink driving is completely unacceptable. Had you told my late father – a lifelong dog lover, owner and walker – that he’d be expected to pick up his own dog’s droppings in a bag, he would have laughed you out of the park.

Yet all these behavioural changes have come about and are now accepted to such an extent that people can’t imagine going back to the old ways. This is what societal change looks like. Something that was once accepted as normal becomes an affront to respectable folk.

David McWilliams, introducing the idea of free public transport in Dublin

I’ve worked in well over 30 countries and my natural curiosity around two particular areas, societal behaviours and economics, have always meant that any time I go somewhere I tend to ask questions as to why certain things are the way they are. Often the first answer is what I call the “six most dangerous words in business”:

“we’ve always done things this way”

So, what does it take to make major changes in group behaviour, whether it be a shift in what is societally acceptable (such as smoking in indoor public spaces), or perhaps for a company introducing a new product to a market when customers are rooted in using the old and established offerings?

Today I’ll look at my home country of Cayman as an example of seeing opportunity and what it could take to effect such change.

Climate Crisis and Cayman

I’m a Caymanian and, as I am doing this week, often come back for a week or so at a time to visit family, friends, clients, mentees and generally stay connected to home.

In addition to my travel to different places for work and more, I’ve now been living in London for a few years, so I do feel I can bring an outside perspective when in Cayman.

One area that has the potential to shift both Government and business behaviours radically and quickly in the next few years is the Climate Crisis.

So many major changes in behaviours are needed at a societal level, yet there is so much inertia at the moment at different levels and different ways.

In Cayman, I see a big focus on going “plastic-free” with water bottles, eliminating plastic straws in restaurants and other visible moves. Admirable, and yet as you can see from the chart above, in terms of the impact any individual or collection of individuals in a society can have, this is a fraction of the impact they can have by making less convenient changes. In any crisis, change needs to be radical, but who among us wants to or can:

• Fly less
• Live in a smaller house
• Do without a car
• Switch to renewable energy

Each of these choices makes far more difference than cutting out on plastic bottles etc. Yes, every little helps, but it won’t be enough. To add to that for Cayman, in particular, it is so much more difficult to cut one’s impact as an individual:

• Fly less. Well, to go literally anywhere from Cayman the only option is flying.
• Live in a smaller house. That one can be done for sure, but it is not socially acceptable yet. New Cayman apartments and houses seem to have more bathrooms than bedrooms, something that visitors from cities like London or New York (where space is at a premium) find surreal. In addition, water is both incredibly expensive in Cayman and particularly wasteful to the planet (as it is made through power-intensive desalination via reverse osmosis), yet I rarely see things like low flow showerheads or any real attempt to use less water, and let us not even consider the cost of having one’s own swimming pool and the evaporation effect of that in the dry season.
• Do without a car. Public transport in Cayman is virtually non-existent, yet with economic growth, traffic is worse and worse. The government answer so far is simply to build more roads. Why? Years ago I literally heard a government minister say that having as many cars as they want for their family is a Caymanian’s birthright! So, politically, there does not yet seem to be the will to drive change of group behaviour that would see people get onto a fully invested and well run public transport system (eg large buses with AC and WiFi running to central hubs and switching to smaller shuttles around the two or three main business districts).
• Switch to renewable energy. In Cayman, a lot has been done, with open co-operation with the monopoly power company, yet more will need to be done if radical change is to come. Yes, that may mean radical investment in green power sources and also major compensation for the shareholders of that power company, but change has to come. Until such a change happens, options will remain limited.

Now, all of the above paints a tough picture for Cayman, but in Economics terms, Cayman has only a 9% Debt to GDP ratio. Any Economist reading this would read that and say “Wow!”, as that is a tiny level of national debt. In short, if the political will is there, there is huge scope to invest in such societal change.

Steps to change

So, we can consider Cayman and that it will take major shifts at multiple levels to create change. This also applies to business, for example where people buy the cheapest product even if it damages the planet.

As a small example, Cayman is now leading in the Caribbean region at eliminating the use of sunscreen that damages coral reefs. At the moment the alternative products that do not cause such damage are more expensive, so in order to really create change, one element has to be to eliminate the damaging products from sale. Another is that visitors may already have bought their suncream before they arrive, so they need to be educated to change.

So, not always in order, often overlapping, here are steps I see that are necessary for any real change in group behaviour

• Awareness and Education
• Economics
• Acceptability and Acceptance

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change”

From my wonderful coaching mentor, Suki Smith

Awareness and Education

These go hand in hand and must be continuing and iterative. This takes time and patience to build momentum. Going back to the idea of introducing a new product into a market, it is often calculated that it can take at least two years of education before market momentum takes hold, so be patient with the iterative process of building awareness and providing education.

Economics

Often societal change needs government intervention to create shifts that the private sector can then drive to scale. An example in Cayman is that households, stunningly, don’t pay in any shape or form for garbage collection (nor is there any property or council tax), added to which there is no limit on how much garbage they can put out each week, nor any separation of garbage at source for recycling. Yes, Caymanians can take their recyling to points across the island, but this is preaching to the converted, many will keep doing what they’ve always done and just put out everything at their front gate without separating for recycling.

What if, however, a) there was an annual household charge for garbage collection, b) limits were put on how much garbage you could put out, c) you were fined if you didn’t separate your recycling? One could imagine an uproar from some and fear from politicians to do this, but sometimes we have to be bold to shift behaviours.

Cayman could also readily be 100% renewable energy due to the power of the sun, but this will take massive investment as well as fundamental alignment of interests of those with a financial stake, including the power company who have perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars invested in oil-powered generation and transmission infrastructure. Again, this takes bravery to change, plus a focus on both short and long term economics.

Acceptability and Acceptance

This is the behavioural element of group behaviour change and what makes things really scale. Yes, we need to build Awareness through Education, then use Economic levers to drive change. What really makes it fly, though, is when it is no longer Acceptable to behave as we used to behave.

In Cayman, I see households with two adults and three or more cars. I see couples who both take separate cars to work even though they work in the same office building. Why? At an individual level, all can be rationalised, but what if it starts to be socially unacceptable to not accept the inconvenience of using public transport (where available), what if people stop buying huge and costly SUVs to transport their kids and instead use more modest vehicles and they do this as they realise it is unacceptable to flaunt income and wealth this way and instead choose to be more modest in their behaviours?

As Malcolm Gladwell would note, the link between Acceptability and Acceptance involves a “tipping point”, where “the way we do things” changes from “we’ve always done it this way”.

As David McWilliams noted, smoking indoors, drink driving, taking your dog for a walk without picking up after them. All of these are societal changes that we won’t change to go back to the way we always did it before.

Radical change is never easy, it does require a multi-step and patient process. It also takes brave and committed leadership.

So, how to change group behaviour? Brave and Committed Leadership, then patient investment in focussing on:

• Awareness and Education
• Economics
• Acceptability and Acceptance