Good morning!

This week's featured article lays the base for the next few weeks by introducing the Theory of Planned Behaviour (ToPB), a central model for predicting the likelihood of premeditated behaviour.

The findings

🧠 Behaviour is predicted by someone’s intention to behave, with some influence arising from how easy the behaviour is thought to be.

🧠 Intentions are predicted by a suite of beliefs about the behaviour, including attitude toward the behaviour, social pressure and norms, and perceived ease or difficulty to perform the behaviour.

You can find a visual representation of the model below 👇🏻

Why it matters for you

• An organization’s resilience and adaptability against an increasingly uncertain market is bound to the first principles in which strategic decisions are made. Weaving the ToPB into foundational decision frameworks prevents strategy drift, strengthens revenue and risk forecasts, clarifies anticipation of obstacles for growth, and calibrates expectations of change.

• Many big players already rely on the theory to aid their strategic decision making, and are doing so with stunning results—Microsoft saw a 30% rise in new technology adoption, Google enhanced employee engagement with strategic initiatives by 25%, and Unilever’s ‘Real Beauty’ campaign to tackle subjective norms drove a 700% boost in sales.

What you can do about it

• Get your data, product, strategy and change teams comfortable with the ToPB, and ask them to use it as a foundational framework for their next strategic initiative. Over time, their comfort with (and evolution of) the model to meet the organization’s needs will grow.

• Evolve your gap-assessment frameworks and prioritization metrics to include core factors within the ToPB model—it will heighten focus on vectors for growth and quiet the noise.

Explore the Theory of Planned Behaviour further using these prompts on favourite generative AI platform

• Investigate how the Theory of Planned Behaviour can significantly influence strategic thinking and decision making for leaders, including detailed case studies and examples of where the model has been used effectively to drive business outcomes.

• I would like my ### team to get more comfortable with the Theory of Planned Behaviour and have them use it when planning their next strategic initiative. Outline an approach for how the team can use the theory within their workflows, with expected metrics of success that will change as a result of using the theory.

One quick question before you go: Do you find the Gen AI prompts included in the newsletter useful?

Thanks in advance for your feedback—have a great week!

M

👋🏻 for those of you who are new here, you can find our previous posts in the Behavioural Strategy Briefing Archive here.

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Reference Material
1. Visual model for the Theory of Planned Behaviour