Onboarding the Next Rookie of the Year

As you can see from my portfolio, I spent quite a bit of time reading about and learning about Mager, Kirkpatrick, Bloom, ADDIE and all the classical familiar names in our field. But I like to keep an open mind and seek out other sources of inspiration. In the case, I listened to an episode of a podcast called Hidden Brain on NPR. This episode covered the concept of habit.

I won’t spoil the episode, but the psychology professor interviewed in the podcast, Wendy Wood discussed how incredibly powerful unconscious decision-making is. She also covered a couple of important concepts of habits.

• Friction: The idea of friction is that doing the right things should be as easy as possible and doing the wrong thing should be made as difficult as possible. One example is inconveniencing smokers until they quit.

• Association: The idea that people just mentally link a behavior with a context. The striking example mentioned in the podcast is people eating stale popcorn at a movie. The people eating the stale popcorn know they got inferior popcorn but kept eating it anyway because that’s just what they do at the movies.

Sports: Automating Performance

I think at this point in 2020, most my fellow sports fans understand that how well an athlete prepares off the field is the best indicator of how long a player performs. Do these players wake up every morning determined to win every minute of every game? Probably not. We all know going to the gym isn’t very fun. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is powerful but can be hard to sustain.

What do the great athletes (even the good ones who last a long time in their chosen leagues) do? They set a routine. NBA Sharpshooter, J.J. Reddick plans everything from his naps to his workouts. Future NFL Hall of Famer, Peyton Manning adhered to a strict study schedule of the opposing team (fun fact: this Denver Post article was written three years before he joined the team). NBA players even automate their pre-game snacks.

What these athletes have learned at an early on is that it is easier to do the things you need to do when you don’t have to think about it. It isn’t the burning desire for success or steely discipline (that player is such a hard worker!) that gets them to practice or the film room, they just do it because it’s a habit. They’ve mentally conditioned themselves to do the necessary work.

Relevance to Performance Improvement

As a learning designer, I found this Ms Wood’s research into habits compelling. We’re in the business of addressing performance gaps. More often than not, our clients think of gaps in terms of lack of knowledge. This is especially the case with onboarding. I’ve worked on several projects where my work is designed to get new employees up to speed on how an organization does things.

But what if we can use onboarding to not only get people caught up, but subconsciously do the nonmandatory aspects of their job that allow them to thrive?

Implementing Unconscious Decision Making in the Workplace

Using what we know about friction, we could use job aids as they are one of the most convenient training artifacts out there. Taken a step further, if the content is essential to a job, the aid could set as a desktop wallpaper on their computer or even painted on the wall in a shared workspace.

For association, we could stick things people should be doing in a workflow they are already doing on a daily basis. In my daily life, I floss before brushing my teeth. I’ve conditioned myself to believe that flossing is just part of the toothbrushing process. We can apply association to various administrative tasks or anything where there is a workflow.

I believe onboarding is the best opportunity to engineer these experiences and incorporate company best practices into daily routines. It’s easier to instill good habits early rather than have the audience unlearn old habits. This makes sense, since I just discussed how powerful old habits can be.

In conclusion, while there is an element of deviousness to using unconscious decision making in performance improvement (it is, after a form of conditioning) I do think it is a tool that is too powerful to ignore.