The Environment Is Running the Show
The Change Signal with Kristen Berman
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Kristen Berman brings a behavioural scientist’s lens to change, and she makes a simple but unsettling point: most organizations try to shift beliefs when they should be redesigning environments. We dig into how tiny details — distance, defaults, visibility, timing — shape decisions far more reliably than persuasion or mindset work.
Kristen also explains why so many change efforts stall at the first step. Leaders define ambitions like “increase engagement” or “coach more” without getting uncomfortably specific about the exact behaviours they want people to do, when, and how often. The magic, she argues, is in that specificity.
We explore agency, too, and why you can’t create it with encouragement or slogans. People feel agency only when structures change — meeting norms, workflows, approvals, and habits that shape day-to-day experience.
If you’re leading transformation or behaviour change in a large organization, this episode offers practical tools and a sharper way of seeing how change actually happens.
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Kristen Berman:
What if your environment matters more than your intentions?
How specific are your behaviours — really?
And what structures in your system quietly cancel the autonomy you think you’re giving people?
ABOUT KRISTEN:
Kristen Berman is the Co-founder of Irrational Labs and a leading voice in applied behavioural science. She helps organizations design environments, workflows, and systems that reliably shift behaviour — internally and externally — without relying on persuasion or willpower.
Music Credits: Rest in the Garden - SackJo22 ft Duckett & The Stubble Field Break (Mana Mixed) - Mana Junkie ft Apoxode
