The 5 habits of experimentation

For as long as I can remember, my partner, team, and I have always loved the challenge of helping brands, organizations, and teams adopt a culture of experimentation. Yet, the ongoing challenge has been culture.

We had no problems showing clients the value and impact experimentation could have on their business, but we could never get them to change the way they worked to truly embrace what it means to have a culture of experimentation.

We did everything: training programs, on-the-tools training, etc. No matter what we did, clients stuck to their ways of working but wanted the benefits of an experimentation culture. Don’t get me wrong; clients would adopt the process of running a test. However, we couldn’t get them to go beyond testing to a mindset and organizational change to adopt the true meaning of experimentation.

Having recently sold, integrated, and left our agency, I have had much time to consume books, something most business owners don’t get time to do. Over the past few months, I have been inhaling books. One that really resonated was Atomic Habits by James Clear, a fascinating read about the formation and maintenance of habits.

What struck me when reading this phenomenal book was the parallels of habit formation and cultural shifts. Could it be that what we were missing when teaching people experimentation was that we failed to install the habits that they needed to bring on experimentation properly?

As I read the book, I thought, “wouldn’t it be great to create a thought piece that connects experimentation and habit formation?” And for all the people who wanted to read it but have not had time, well here is a summary for you… you’re welcome.

Short of rewriting the book, I thought I would share 5 key takeouts that connect habit formation with building cultures of experimentation.

1. Focus on what you want to become, not the goal.?

In the book, Clear makes a fantastic point that it’s important to focus on the person you want to become rather than the outcome you want to achieve. “The goal is not to run a marathon; the goal is to become a runner.”

Most practitioners of experimentation focus on cadence, velocity, or the action of running tests. Perhaps we are better off focusing on what it would mean to be an experimentation business. How would we define ourselves, what would our measures of success look like?

I think when clients engage agencies, the focus is on the outputs of the agencies and the impact of tests. We forget to look at what it means to be an experimentation-oriented business.

2. Understand the habit loop

Habits follow a distinct feedback pattern Cue > Craving > Response > Reward. Without realising, many of us follow these patterns in our day-to-day work. We call these BAU, a set of standard work we do to keep the business humming.

Why I think this is interesting is that many organisations that introduce experimentation don’t realise the importance of recognising the habit loops that exist and how these might impact the introduction of a new habit, experimentation.

We need to ask ourselves, do the existing Habits adversely impact a culture of experimentation to be formed? Too often, programs are started without a view identifying and analysing these habits. Having launched many programs, I’m guilty of this myself. I now realise that inducting a brand into experimentation, we need to not only train teams about experimentation but also understand what habits we need to refine or create.

3. 4 laws of behaviour change.

Effectively, when you are bringing a new practice into a business, you are effectively changing the behaviours of the teams and organisation. Clear provides a simple framework for behaviour change / habit formation:

• Make it obvious
• Make it attractive
• Make it easy
• Make it satisfying

These 4 simple structures hold in formulating an experimentation framework. In many ways, we use these frameworks in experimentation. However, this framework can be used when thinking about how we can change the behaviour of teams.

4. Habit stacking?

Most would agree forming a habit is very difficult, especially as you get older (well, maybe it’s just me). Clear suggests that wedging a new habit inside an existing habit makes the process of adoption far simpler. For example, if you want to drink more water, maybe have a glass of water near the keys to your car so that as you are leaving the house, you will remember to have a drink.

I love this idea, and it’s something we never did when setting up programs. We had a way of working and were strict in our processes. Perhaps if we looked at integrating our processes into existing processes, we may have made adoption of the program far simpler and easier for brands.

Habit stacking gives me a new way of looking at not only introducing experimentation into a business but making adoption far more likely.

5. New habits in new environments.?

Finally, new environments. Clear suggested that to formulate a new habit, you need to use a different space to ensure the adoption is maintained. This is interesting, as I have recently had this experience.

I recently tried to take on daily meditation. I thought it would be great to end my day (before bed) by meditating and calming my mind of the day's activities. And where better to do this than in bed… Bad idea! I found myself falling asleep rather than meditating. Lesson learned. I now sit outside and start my day with meditation.

This idea of a new habit in a new environment is so true. Too often, we roll out a program with the context of current existing environments. Perhaps more programs would have more success if we reallocated teams into new spaces and created spaces in which they can display and share their findings.

We used to do this in our programs, and I can certainly testify that creating visual spaces does affect how people feel and see the program.

In conclusion, the idea of habits and experimentation program formation have many parallels. As a veteran of experimentation, I feel so energised by what I have learned. No longer is my job to create a culture of experimentation; my immediate job at any brand, organisation, or company is to help formulate the habits needed for a culture of experimentation to have the best chance of success.

Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks!