Workplace Wellness that Works: 10 Steps to Infuse Well-Being and Vitality into Any Organization

Step 8Design Nudges and Cues(The “Make It Easy” and “Make It Normal” Imperative)

In the opening chapters of Alice in Wonderland, our heroine falls prey to the power of nudges. First, in response to the prompt “DRINK ME” and a view onto a garden that looks delightfully appealing—but through a door that's too small to enter—Alice drinks a magic potion and shrinks. She then comes across another prompt, “EAT ME.” She, of course, obliges.

What We Can Learn from Alice

Alice does what most of us do: We eat or drink whatever is put in front of us, especially if there is some sort of temptation involved. This is the power of nudges. A nudge, as defined by Nudge authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, is “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people's behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.”¹ It is fair to say that Alice's behavior is predictably altered by these tiny little nudges. It is also fair to say that this is an all-too-human tendency that we all share. The good news is that you can leverage this tendency in the design of your wellness movement.

In the last chapter, we talked about how you can take steps to create the conditions in which employees are more likely to feel motivated to make a change. In this chapter, we'll discuss how to use the power of nudges and cues to help sidestep the ...