When you understand that business decisions are humans making judgements about products and brands made and consumed by other humans, it becomes clear why behavioral science is very relevant to consciously improving those decisions, made individually and in groups.
Specifically, it has two moments where it can be strategically important:
1) Right before we ideate business opportunities that involve creating value for another human being.
Having a clear understanding of your client is essential to increasing your odds of success in a brainstorming session. having a shared set of data about what your customers are doing, thinking and interacting with as they choose and experience your product, service or brand, helps spur innovation and steer the conversation towards ideas that have a better chance of succeeding.
Your efforts to improve will be centered around a less biased set of data. More focused. The resulting ideas that an internal business team create will come closer to hitting the map.
2) When we make decisions about what idea to prioritize over another.
Once ideas have been thought, talked about, written and considered, comes another point where behavioral science comes in handy. When we start thinking about which ideas to prioritize over others. And why.
Decisions are tough. Uncertainty is part of reality.
Time is of the essence.
Taking a moment to question our assumptions, consider whether we have better data to decide on, and trying to keep our biases out of decisions.
Easy to do? Not in the least.
But behavioral economics can help.
