I guess the answer is a firm NO. Well, let me get the basics straight first. For a rocket ship to fly through space, it needs to not only bypass atmospheric friction, but also consume fuel to propel itself up & out of the atmosphere.
Too much friction, and it won’t fly. Not enough fuel, and it wont fly either.
Ok, you get the metaphor. How do these two forces, friction and fuel, play out in healthcare? Well.
Frictions
Frictions are anything that get in the way of performing the positive healthy behavior. Technology can go a long way to decrease friction, removing steps like filling out forms by hand, or bringing the doctor to you through your smartphone instead of having to make an appointment, repositioning the beds in the hospital roms to see the window, installing digital boards so the patients know how long they are going to wait in a waiting room and so on.
If we return to the rocketship example, we can think about gravity as an important type of friction. The gravity of our lives — the thing that is always there and keeping us steady and stable — that’s the status quo - habits, norms, written & unwritten rules. We can move against the status quo, but it takes some effort. Just like gravity, the status quo may be an invisible force, but it’s very powerful. One way to combat the status quo is to add fuel.
Fuel
Fuel is anything that makes a positive health behaviour more appealing. It doesn’t have to come in the form of tangible reward. Quite opposite, you can use gamification, for instance.The joy of playing a game - the activity itself - can be even more motivating than winning an actual prize - result. For example, one study used a guessing game to incentivize diabetic children to better manage their condition. The gamification was simple, yet efficient - “try and predict your next blood glucose measurement!”. But I am digressing here. Back to our topic. Persuading someone to do something is incredibly complex, but the reality is that it’s possible to use these two simple concepts of friction and fuel. Just decrease friction and add fuel to make desired behaviors simple and appealing — and, importantly, more likely to actually happen. Why is this imortant?Well, think of this.
Hope Soap
Do you know about a little trick that makes children (and adults) tick? As Coronavirus is sweeping through Europe internet is full of handwashing and tips on how to do it right. It won‘t work until it takes into account 2 major players which influence our behavior. Motivation and friction. Making children wash their hands is particularly tricky but adding motivation or removing friction can be applied and work. The team at Y&R Johannesburg developed a simple, yet behavioral robust intervention. Hope Soap - a bar of soap with a small toy hidden inside, inaccessible until the majority of the soap had been washed away. Kids might not think that hygiene is a good enough reason for washing their hands, but the prospect of receiving a toy can sweeten the deal. This is called a nudge, the key tool of a Behavioral Science. As children try to get to the toy they wash their hands more vigorously and frequently. Without focusing on the benefits of washing hands, adding a strong motivator did the trick.
Chalk Sticks
Here is another example. The team at Savlon and ad agency Ogilvy in Mumbai took advantage of the simple tool children already used. Chalk sticks. They incorporated soap granules into the formula so when kids put their hands under the tap the chalk powder turned to soap. Rather than making hand washing more motivating, they made the outcome of clean hands automatic and seamless by reducing friction. The little-known campaign that created “soap chalk” to help schoolchildren in India wash their hands has won one of the most prestigious awards at the Cannes Lions Festival for Creativity
PS. Have you noticed? It is creativity, the ability to look at the problem from different perspective & design thinking that can help you solve the problems of the modern world.
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Thanks to Matej Sucha
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