The Behavioral Playbook: How to Design Change That Actually Works
A leaders guide for identifying and eliminating the hidden friction in behavior change
Introduction: Strategy Doesn’t Fail on Paper
Most leaders assume that execution problems come from communication gaps, weak leadership, or a lack of buy-in. But even the best strategies, backed by leadership, dedicated teams, and strong operational plans can fail to live up to their potential.
You’ve seen it, I’ve seen it:
Months into a rollout, the adoption starts to look like a faded memory.
Change programs delivering workshops, but in practice things stay the same.
New digital tools start collecting “digital dust” and excel is back with a vengeance.
What’s happening is Behavioral friction.
The invisible forces deeply ingrained into your systems, processes, norms and beliefs that make the desired behavior harder than the default one.
This playbook gives you a system to map, diagnose, and eliminate those forces, so your change work actually changes works.
Inside this playbook, you’ll get:
-> A 4-step framework for identifying what’s blocking adoption
-> How to score and map behavioral friction
-> What most change models miss (and how to fix it)
-> Real-world strategies to turn insight into implementationWhy Traditional Change Models Aren’t Cutting it
Traditional change models tend to:
Focus on individual mindsets
Overemphasise communication, training, and leadership vision.
Ignore how workflows, tools, and incentives constrain behavior.
We need a new way, one that I call Behavioral Systems Architecture™ which shifts the focus from solely “changing people” to redesigning the conditions in which people operate.
In this model, resistance is a diagnostic tool, not a problem to solve.
Why Smart Strategies Fail at the Behavioral Level
Let me tell you about Ross, a transformation director I worked with. The company spent eighteen months implementing a unified digital platform to improve coordination across different sites. The conditions were there, there was buy in from leadership, the business case was clear and the training was thorough.
Nine months post-launch, I walked down to the finance department and saw that the team was still using the old spreadsheet system "just for this one project." I scratched my head and asked the team lead - Why? Once she explained that the new platform required fourteen clicks to do what took four in Excel, I got it. During the implementation no one thought to take the time to map the processes between sites and departments to understand how each team worked and how the journey was connected.
The technology wasn't failing because the people resisted change, on the contrary, it was failing because the behavioral system, tools, processes, social dynamics and beliefs, made the old way easier than the new and “improved” way.
This was a classic case of behavioral friction, and trust me, once you see it you can't unsee it - in fact, it made such an impression on me, that it made me shift my whole focus into learning more about it and seeing how we could account and solve for it.
We need to move on from the traditional change approaches, which assume people resist change because they don't understand how to or don't want to.
The Behavioral Systems Architecture™ Approach by Aim For Behavior
Rather than guessing where resistance comes from, you can use a systematic approach that combines three perspectives:
Behavioral Science gives you frameworks to understand what actually drives behavior. No more hoping and guessing, you can systematically identify what's preventing people from doing what the strategy requires.
Human-Centered Design ensures you’re designing around how people actually work, not how organizations think they should work. If someone has to do seventeen extra steps to use your new system, that's a design problem, not a people problem.
Systems Thinking helps you see how changing one thing affects everything else. Behaviors don't exist in isolation, they're part of interconnected systems where your solution in one area can create problems somewhere else.
Here's what makes this different from traditional change approaches:
Old Way: Focus on changing minds through communication. Treat resistance as individual problem to overcome. Assume people will change once they understand rationale. Address culture, process, and technology separately.New Way: Focus on changing systems to enable desired behaviors. Treat resistance as data about what's not working. Assume context shapes behavior more than individual characteristics. Address people, systems, and environment together. Align with the organization on the levers they have and what they can and can’t change.Understanding What Really Drives Behavior
After years of working to understand why people do what they do, both as an employee and now an owner of a consultancy, I've learned that behavior gets shaped by way more factors than most change efforts consider.
The environmental dynamics.
How they make decisions.
What they're capable of doing.
Their motivations and needs.
Personal beliefs and attitudes.
How they evaluate risk and value.
Unconscious motives they don't even realize.
What they see others doing.
What they think others expect them to do.
These drivers interact in complex ways. It's what we call a web of change, where you move one thing and five other things shift. That's why simple solutions usually don't work. (and what most consultants don’t want to tell you).
When you diagnose behavioral friction, you should pay extra attention to three levels where things can go wrong:
Level 1: People Can't Do It (Even When They Want To)Tools that create more work instead of less.
Information scattered across systems that don't talk to each other.
Processes that require workarounds to be effective.
Skills training that doesn't transfer to real work situations.
Imagine working with a healthcare system that implemented electronic health records to improve patient care coordination. Sounds great, right? Except doctors end up spending an extra 90 minutes per day on documentation because the system wasn't designed around how clinical work actually flows. Despite wanting better patient outcomes, the friction makes compliance nearly impossible.
Level 2: The Environment Punishes New BehaviorsYou hear leaders say they want more openness, more collaboration, more experimentation..but….
The real praise still goes to those who play it safe.
Meetings stay quiet because no one wants to go first and early adopters get eye-rolls.
If you are the one who challenge the status quo you get labeled difficult.
I saw this at company wanting to shift from individual excellence to collaborative innovation. Socially it was still risky to share unfinished work or ask for help because the more senior stakeholders subtly reinforced the old model by spotlighting solo wins and brushing off collective efforts.
Level 3: The Belief Feels Too True to QuestionSome behaviors don’t change because the belief behind them feels too solid to doubt.
These beliefs aren’t based on training slides or campaigns. They come from experience, what’s worked, what’s been rewarded, what’s kept people safe or respected.
So when a new behavior pushes against one of those, people hesitate. They are not resisting for the sake of it. It’s that the change doesn’t make sense inside the logic they’ve relied on for years.
They may agree in meetings and may try for a while, but under pressure, they’ll return to what feels right - because it’s familiar, and familiar still feels correct.
You can’t shift that with reminders or incentives. You have to name the belief, understand how strong or weak it is and apply the right approach to it.
The Behavioral Playbook
The Four Step Methodology
Here's how you systematically identify and eliminate behavioral friction:
Step 1: Focus
In this phase you want to get specific about what opportunity or challenges you can wok on and the capabilities needed to execute them.
Start by Defining Your Opportunity (or Challenge)
You should validate opportunities/challenges with a more systematic approach, so you can keep them more realistic and aligned to both value and complexity.
This is one possible scoring method you could use or adapt to your organizations needed.
Make Sure to Map Actors and Stakeholders
Mapping actors and stakeholders help you understand the most important groups in respect to the behavior and influence they have on the opportunities or challenges you are working on. Place important actors in the middle, less important ones more to the outside.
Define Your Desired Outcomes
Use this template:
Outcome: What business result do you want?
Assumptions: What has to be true for this outcome to happen?
Measurement: How will you know you're making progress?
Example from a health app project:
Outcome: Increase employee wellbeing.
Assumptions: Users are motivated to improve their health. The app provides accurate and actionable information. Users will download and use the app regularly.
Measurement: App analytics (usage, time spent), wellbeing surveys, engagement metrics.
Build Your Behavioral Portfolio
Your Focus phase will give you many potential behaviors to work with. Don't try to change everything at once. Score them systematically:
Impact of Behavior Change: How much business value if this becomes widespread (1-3 scale)
Ease of Change: How difficult given current constraints (1-3 scale)
Ease of Measurement: How clearly you can track progress (1-3 scale)
Start with behaviors scoring highest on total points (but make sure you discuss with your team to get context).
Strategic Behavior Definition
Get really specific about the behavior you chose, and use these context questions to help you:
Who are we targeting directly?
What do they need to do?
When do they need to do it?
Where does it need to happen?
How often?
With whom?
Example: "Colleagues engage in 10 minutes of mindfulness exercises from the health and wellbeing app 3 days a week during their wellbeing break in the park, or the wellbeing space, either alone or with colleagues who also use the app."
Other examples for you can use and add more context to if needed:
Sales managers conduct weekly pipeline reviews using the new CRM data views.
Product teams run user testing sessions before feature development sprints.
Supply chain coordinators update inventory status in real-time across all systems.
Note: You should also make sure that you are accounting for the needs and not only the behaviors.
Build Your Logic Model (Roadmap)
Start building your logic model to track how your opportuntiy/challenge connects to your desired outcome through specific behaviors. This becomes your roadmap and evaluation framework.
The logic model can flow like this:
OVERCOME (address the challenge) → MAKE (create the solution) → EVALUATE (target the right drivers) → DO (achieve the target behavior) → GET (reach the outcome).
Step 2: Diagnose
In this step you want to figure out what's actually preventing the behavior your strategy wants to achieve.
The goal of working in this way is to avoid guessing. You can use many different models to understand behavior, and really as a leader, this knowledge will help you build a better mental model of why behavior occurs (or does not).
Map the System
Behaviors don't occur in isolation. Map how different actors, behaviors, and drivers interact in your system.
Start with your target behavior and work outward:
What other behaviors does this connect to?
Who else is involved in this system?
What drives those people's behaviors?
How do these relationships reinforce or conflict with your target behavior?
Use simple notation:
+ relationships: "the more of this, the more of that"
- relationships: "the more of this, the less of that"
This helps you see where ripple effects might occur.
Diagnose the Friction: The Three Things That Make or Break Any Behavior Change
In this playbook I am using the COM-B model, because it is straightforward and is used by many practitioners. (It’s simple, but it does not mean you should use it simplistically)
1. Can They Actually Do It?
Before anything else, check if people have what they need to succeed.
Do they understand what's expected? Have the right skills? Access to the information they need? Can they make good decisions quickly, even when things get stressful?
If people don't feel equipped to succeed, they won't even try. It's like asking someone to cook dinner but not telling them what's in the kitchen.
This is about Capability in the COM-B Model
2. Does the Environment Help or Hurt?
Even capable, motivated people will give up if the environment works against them.
Is there actually time to do this new behavior? Are the tools easy to use or a nightmare? Do the processes make sense? Are leaders doing it themselves, or just talking about it? Does the reward system encourage the old way or the new way?
If your environment makes the right thing hard and the wrong thing easy, guess what people will choose.
This is about Opportunity in COM-B
3. Do They Actually Want To?
Finally, does this behavior feel worth it to them personally?
Does it align with how they see their job and themselves? Does it feel meaningful or just like more work? Is it emotionally satisfying or draining?
People sustain behaviors that feel like "who they are," not just "what they have to do."
This is about Motivation in COM-B
The key insight: All three have to work together. Fix capability without addressing opportunity, and the system will defeat you. Fix opportunity without addressing motivation, and people will find ways around it. Address motivation without fixing capability, and you'll just frustrate people.
Map Your Drivers - Find Your Friction
From your insights, classify identified friction according to COM-B. Here's an example from a mindfulness app project:
Physical Capability: "The breathing exercises in the app aren't too strenuous for me." (enabler)
Psychological Capability: "I attended a mindfulness workshop once. It looked useful, however I didn't understand the techniques." (friction)
Physical Opportunity: "The app is available on my phone, and it's free." (friction)
Social Opportunity: "I've seen a few colleagues mocking these kinds of apps during lunch." (friction)
Automatic Motivation: "When the app sends me reminders, I feel annoyed and tend to ignore them." (friction)
Reflective Motivation: "I've tried so many stress management methods and none have worked; why would this be any different?" (friction)
Score Your Drivers
Use evidence from literature or your own data to score each driver:
Evidence: Strength of research supporting this barrier (1-3)
Frequency: How often this barrier appears (1-3)
Impact: Degree to which this prevents target behavior (1-3)
Influence: How changeable this barrier is with your resources (1-3)
Focus on drivers with the highest scores for conversations and decision making.
Create Journey Maps with Behavioral Lens
Map your current user journey and add behavioral layers:
Stages: What phases do people go through?
Steps/Actions: What do they actually do?
Touchpoints: Where do they interact with systems/people?
Emotional Journey: How do they feel at each stage?
Capability: Can they accomplish the behavior at each stage?
Opportunity: Does the environment support the behavior?
Motivation: Do they want to do the behavior?
This shows you exactly where friction occurs in the real experience.
Step 3: Drive
Intervention Strategy Design
Design strategies that address the actual friction you found. There are many ways to do this, including the ways you already design strategies. What you should take away from this section is possible new approaches to design that are more scientific and systematic.
Behavior Change Techniques Selection
The BCT taxonomy gives you 93 specific techniques organized into 16 categories. Don't try to use them all—select 3-5 techniques that directly address your highest-scoring drivers.
Choose specific techniques based on:
Behavioral friction identified
Evidence of effectiveness for your context
Practical constraints and capabilities
Turn Techniques Into Real Features
Insight:
“We’re being asked to do this, but honestly, I don’t know if it’s making any difference. It feels like extra effort without any visible payoff.”
Diagnosed Friction:
Motivation –> Reflective
(Beliefs about Consequences)
People are unconvinced the behavior delivers tangible results. Without visible progress or outcome signals, effort feels wasted leading to disengagement.
Technique:
2.7 – Feedback on Outcome(s) of Behavior
Real Features:
Wearable Feedback Loop
Smartwatches that monitor health indicators (e.g., heart rate, sleep, glucose) and provide real-time feedback on how specific behaviors like taking medication, are impacting those metrics.
→ Bridges the gap between effort and outcome. Especially effective in healthcare adherence, where payoff isn’t always felt.Integrated Wearables in Occupational Health
In high-stress or physically demanding jobs, wearable devices track health metrics (e.g., stress, sleep, heart rate) and correlate them with new routines like structured breaks or ergonomic practices.
→ Employees receive feedback like:“After implementing the new break routine, your heart rate variability and sleep scores have improved.”
Design for Engagement
If you want to ensure long lasting engagement, make sure your strategies and designs support:
Autonomy - Let people make meaningful choices about how they engage
At work, autonomy isn't about doing whatever you want—it's about having genuine input into how you accomplish what needs to be done. This means control over your methods, timing, and approach within clear boundaries. When people feel their preferences and expertise shape how work gets done, they invest more deeply in outcomes. During organizational change, autonomy becomes crucial because it's the difference between feeling like change is happening to you versus feeling like you're actively participating in creating something better.
Progress - Help people feel they're mastering new challenges
Progress at work is about building competence and seeing tangible advancement in your capabilities. It's not just completing tasks—it's the satisfaction of getting better at something that matters. People need to feel they're developing skills, solving increasingly complex problems, and contributing in ways that stretch their abilities. During change initiatives, this becomes essential because learning new systems or processes can initially make competent people feel incompetent. Progress indicators help people see they're moving forward, not just struggling.
Connection - Foster connection and shared purpose
Connection in workplace contexts means feeling part of something larger than individual tasks. It's about understanding how your work contributes to collective goals and feeling genuine relationships with colleagues based on shared challenges and successes. This isn't forced team-building—it's organic bonds that form when people work together toward meaningful outcomes. During organizational change, connection becomes a stabilizing force when everything else feels uncertain. People need to feel they're navigating the transition together, not isolated in their own confusion or resistance.
Validate Your Strategies
Score each on:
Reach: How many people will this affect?
Business Impact: How much will this move business metrics?
Business Value: What's the strategic value?
Internal Capabilities: Can we build this?
External Support: Do we have the right partners/vendors?
Use 1-3 scale for each dimension.
Keep It Simple
Use EAST as a checklist:
Easy: Reduce effort, steps, choices
Attractive: Make it noticeable and appealing
Social: Show others are doing this too
Timely: Prompt action when people are most receptive
Step 4: Validate
Measure what actually happened and prepare for scaling.
Testing Framework
Use systematic testing rather than hoping for the best:
Test Card - Document your hypothesis, test method, success criteria, measurement approach
Learning Card - Capture observations, insights, decisions for next steps
Confidence Level - Rate evidence quality, data points, strength of conclusions
This Test Card, Learning Card and Confidence Level Card are adapted from strategyzer.
Pilot Smart
Phase 1: Controlled Pilots
Select 2-3 pilot groups representing different contexts
Implement with clear success metrics
Build in rapid feedback loops
Phase 2: Refined Testing
Iterate based on pilot results
Test scalability requirements
Measure intended and unintended consequences
Behavioral Impact Measurement
Track three things:
Behavior Frequency: Are people doing the target behaviors more often?
Behavior Quality: Are they doing them well and consistently?
Behavior Sustainability: Do changes persist without ongoing intervention?
Business Outcomes Assessment
Measure business results linked to behavioral changes, but remember business outcomes lag behavioral changes by weeks or months.
Scalability Assessment
Which interventions are ready for broader deployment?
What organizational capabilities are required?
What would need to change to implement across the organization?
The Career Impact of Behavioral Friction
What happens when change is not happening? who gets blamed?
It is usually the change leader.
You're the one explaining to your stakeholders why adoption is low after so many months. You're the one defending budget requests for "more change initiatives." You're the one whose performance review includes "struggled to drive change and adoption of strategic initiatives."
You hold certain truths: The strategy is sound, the technology works, the people aren't lazy. But still, you can't articulate why this smart group of people keep doing things the old way.
Behavioral friction makes leaders look ineffective because they're fighting the wrong battle with the wrong tools.
What Change Leaders Actually Need
Diagnostic clarity. Instead of guessing why adoption is not working, you need systematic ways to identify the specific friction preventing strategic behaviors.
Tactical confidence. Rather than trying random change tactics, you need evidence-based approaches that address root causes of behavioral friction.
Implementation support. Beyond frameworks and theory, you need practical guidance for navigating the messy reality of behavior change.
Measurement systems. You need ways to track behavioral change that give you early warning signs and course-correction opportunities before you're explaining failures to leadership.
Getting Started: Your Toolkit
Immediate Actions
1. Rapid Friction Assessment
Take one behavior critical to your current change challenge or opportunity. Use this 15-minute assessment based on COM-B: (adapt for your context, be it pharma, digital products, policies etc…)
Capability
Do people have what’s required to perform this behavior effectively?
What knowledge or skills are people missing?
What aspects of the behavior are mentally demanding, confusing, or error-prone?
Are there physical requirements (e.g., stamina, dexterity, coordination) that create friction?
Opportunity
Does the environment support or block the behavior?
What in the work environment (time, systems, tools) makes this behavior harder than necessary?
Are there competing priorities, metrics, or incentives that undermine it?
What unspoken norms, leadership behaviors, or team dynamics create resistance?
Motivation
Do people see this behavior as valuable and worth their effort?
How does this behavior align (or clash) with how people see themselves professionally?
What emotions are triggered by this behavior—positive or negative?
Do people believe the outcomes are worth the effort or risk?
2. Create Your Behavior Portfolio
List all behaviors your change requires and score them:
Impact of Behavior Change (1-3)
Ease of Change (1-3)
Ease of Measurement (1-3)
Start with behaviors scoring highest on total points.
3. Define Your Target Behavior
Use the systematic questions to get specific about your priority behavior:
Who is the target actor?
What do they need to do?
When do they need to do it?
Where does it need to happen?
How often do they need to do it?
With whom do they need to do it?
Building Momentum
4. Run a Behavioral Systems Pilot
Choose one area where change is not working as expected and apply the four-step process:
Week 1-3: Focus
Select 1-2 specific behaviors for immediate testing
Complete behavior portfolio analysis
Define target behavior with full context
Week 4-6: Diagnose
Conduct COM-B interviews with 8-12 pilot participants or do surveys (or use existing data)
Observe behaviors in natural work contexts
Map and score identified drivers
Week 7-10: Drive
Select intervention strategies
Choose specific techniques and turn into real features
Implement with pilot groups using test cards
Week 11-12: Validate
Measure behavioral changes using learning cards
Assess business outcomes and scalability readiness
Update roadmap with validated approach
5. Build Internal Capability
Train your transformation team on systematic friction identification:
Essential Skills:
COM-B diagnostic interview techniques
Behavioral observation and pattern recognition
Evidence-based intervention design
Behavioral measurement and tracking
Training Approach:
Workshop on COM-B framework application
Practice diagnostic interviews with real change challenges
Create standardized assessment tools based on the templates
Establish behavioral metrics dashboard
6. Redesign Transformation Metrics
Add behavioral indicators to your transformation dashboard:
Leading Indicators (What People Do):
Frequency of target behaviors by role and context
Quality of target behaviors (not just frequency)
Driver resolution tracking using the scoring system
Lagging Indicators (Business Results):
Outcomes driven by target behaviors
Sustained behavior change over time
Unintended consequences of interventions
Scaling the Approach
7. Integrate into Change Process
Make behavioral friction assessment standard practice:
Require COM-B analysis before major transformation initiatives
Include behavioral success criteria in project planning using the logic model
Train change managers in the systematic diagnostic approach
8. Develop Change Learning System
Create capability to capture and apply behavioral insights:
Friction Pattern Library: Common friction and proven solutions
Intervention Effectiveness Database: What techniques work in which contexts
Behavioral Success Stories: Scaling case studies and best practices
Predictive Indicators: Early warning signs for transformation success/failure
The Strategic Advantage
Organizations that master how to remove systematic friction gain four sustainable competitive advantages:
Execution Excellence: They implement strategies faster than competitors relying on traditional change approaches.
Adaptation Capability: They respond to market changes more quickly because their systems are optimized for behavioral flexibility rather than behavioral control.
Innovation Enablement: They adopt new technologies and processes more successfully because they systematically address the behavioral barriers that cause innovation initiatives to stall.
Talent Attraction and Retention: High performers choose organizations where their work is enabled rather than hindered by systematic friction. They stay longer and perform better.
Your Next Move
The reality is clear: behavioral friction is hurting your change efforts. The question is whether you'll address it systematically or continue trying to overcome it through un-targeted communication, training, and willpower.
Most organizations are still approaching change like it's the early 2000. They're using change techniques designed for simpler challenges. Meanwhile, those who are thriving have developed systematic approaches for identifying and removing the friction that make good strategies fail.
You have three choices:
Keep doing what you're doing and accept that most of your transformation initiatives will not live up to their potential
Try behavioral approaches randomly and get inconsistent results
Build systematic behavioral friction removal capability and join the growing group of organizations that consistently execute strategic change
If you choose option three, start with the toolkit in this guide. Pick one change that's really worth focusing on.
Apply our four-step Behavioral Systems Architecture™ process. Measure the results.
The methodology is there
The tools are proven and available
The competitive advantage is waiting
What change will you work on first?
I work with change leaders who are tired of explaining why smart people won't adopt strategic changes. If you're facing behavioral friction in your change work, I'd be interested to hear what patterns you're seeing.
Robert Meza
so much value here Robert - loads to digest.