change

During the First World War, the Army replaced all the soldiers’ cloth caps with tin helmets.  The injury rate of those soldiers actually went up by quite a long way…  What was the reason?

What we measure

Statistics may be one of our most effective and efficient vehicles for communicating information.  It is natural for people to trust numbers over words, because statistics present numbers in an attractive format that everyone can follow.  In addition, numbers represent a wide variety of information – including election poll numbers, service level agreements & KPIs, net promoter scores, football results, engagement surveys, the retail price index …or of course profit.

This perception of reliability in the data is risky.  Looking at our children’s school grades to the cost of the Tokyo Olympics to the percentage of trains that run on time - what that data doesn’t tell us is how much our children are learning, how good the Olympics will be, or the quality of the customer's journey on those trains!

The problem with the numbers

The problems come when the data used to represent the outcome, becomes the outcome.  The numbers are not the means to the end.  Happy customers are the means to the end – the customer feedback scores are a representation of that means!  It drives me nuts that organisations focus so much time and effort on getting good feedback scores, rather than focusing that effort on just making them happy.

Another story is that of our old favourites – traffic wardens. For many years now, local press around the UK has been reporting that traffic wardens have been giving out bogus tickets because they have to fulfil a certain quota of tickets per hour.  Anything from buses, police cars and even tow trucks have been ticketed – but I don’t believe that it’s the traffic warden’s fault… If you were working in a culture that actually defined your success in your job by the amount of tickets you gave (and docked your wages if you didn’t meet that target), what would you do? 

What difference would it make to the traffic wardens if their success was defined as the lowest number of disputes?  What if success was defined by the greatest number of people re-educated with not having to give a ticket?  What if a traffic warden was rewarded for having to give out the least number of tickets (because people in their 'patch' parked properly?) How would that change their approach?

The trouble with focussing on the numbers is not the numbers. It’s the focus. In the gym you can focus on the number of calories you burn, or you can focus on your quality of health.  On Twitter, you can focus on the number of followers you have, or on the quality of those relationships.  At work, you can focus on your call abandon rate, meeting room utilisation, profitability or KPI adherence.  Or you can focus on delivering an awesome service for each and every person and let the numbers take care of themselves!

And the solution to my riddle? The number of injuries of those soldiers did indeed go up – but the number of deaths from head injuries went right down, saving thousands of lives. The piece of shrapnel would have previously killed them outright.

This has resulted in most of the Kubler-Ross stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression – everything bar acceptance. Their reasoning, according to the behavioural science department of the London School of Economics, was that escalators of over 18.5m tend to have fewer people walking up on the left, as it’s too much effort. The result is a vacant left side and a crowded right.

But it seems that the number-crunchers have forgotten a few key facts.

One rule for everyone doesn’t work

Just because fewer people will want to walk up long escalators, it doesn’t mean that no-one will. There will arguably now be even more angry, suited businesspeople who are blocked by left-standers.

This creates mixed messages

Only four London stations are above this 18.5m height ‘threshold’; namely Angel, Holborn, Green Park and Tottenham Court Road. If we have to stand on both sides at one of these, why not all of the stations? How will we know which ones to walk at, and where to stand?

They’ve underestimated our London-ness.

And by this, I mean our engrained mind-set. Us Londoners are happy not having to talk to anyone while travelling, wrapped up in our ‘social norm’ of civility and autopilot commuting. The shock of having this comfort zone unpicked in in such a blatant way is disturbing to the status quo. This is London, not Paris. 

Instruction doesn’t work

It’s one thing to be told with a range of methods (by a person, a robot-lady, over the tannoy and with some yellow stickers) what to do. It’s another to be told why. If people don’t know why, they are very likely to return to their original behavioural patterns as soon as they can. 

Above all, there are lessons for the world of business. Large-scale behavioural change does not come about overnight, nor does it react well to being told what to do. People need a range of factors to come into play, in order for the underlying culture and mind-set to shift. This often includes (but is certainly not limited to) communication methods, leadership and peer role-modelling, reward & recognition and purpose.

For me, it illustrates an interesting point. No matter what the numbers may say or how "good for us" it may appear to be, there’s just one group of people that might derail the whole programme… The very people whose behaviour you’re looking to change.