(Behavioural Economics cont. 8)

Irrational Decision-making
The social, cognitive and emotional biases that can form the basis for irrational decisions are better understood in the field of behavioural economics than in change management. In the change context, you need to understand human irrationality and how to work with it constructively.

Some ways to handle this include:
- creating a sense of belonging by building ownership or buy-in as early as possible in the change initiative by the different key stakeholders who are going to be impacted
- paying as much attention as possible to what is working well (including trying to get more of it) as to finding and fixing challenges
- explaining the 'why' of change
- tapping into the sources of motivation
- focus on long-term, reciprocal relationships with staff rather than transactional ones
(for more details, see other parts of the Knowledge Base)