The North Wind or the Sun – which would you choose?

The North Wind and the Sun had a quarrel about which of them was the stronger. While they were disputing with much heat and bluster, a Traveller passed along the road, wrapped up in a cloak.

“Let us agree,” said the Sun, “that he is the stronger who can strip that Traveller of his cloak.”

“Very well,” growled the North Wind, and at once sent a cold, howling blast against the Traveller.

“Disruption” has been a bit of a buzzer over the past few years, and it’s still buzzing hard across various industries. Disruptive tech, disruptive marketing — even “disruptive learning”.

And it sort of makes sense, this idea of “disruptive learning”. When thinking about the kinds of events powerful enough to prompt behavioural change, it would be natural to assume that the more disruptive the event, the bigger the behavioural change that follows — or the more effective the learning.

And yet, only last week we posted a blog about the effectiveness of “learning in the flow of work” — learning subtly embedded into a person’s environment, learning that feels seamless and experiential. Learning that doesn’t feel like “learning” at all. This certainly doesn’t feel as though it disrupts.

So… must we appeal to the dramatic if we wish to drive behavioural change that lasts? Or are there other options we can explore to achieve long-lasting results?

Traditionally it was thought that the more emotionally charged an event was, the more memorable it would be. As early as 1890, philosopher William James famously theorised that emotional events leave “a scar upon the cerebral tissues”. At first glance this makes sense — we remember things that are out of the ordinary more clearly than we remember repeated, everyday events — or so it seems.

Modern research tells a different story. In fact, it tells us that the relationship between memory confidence and memory accuracy is negatively skewed by the event’s scale. When it comes to dramatic, disruptive events, our brains are designed to pay special attention to core details in high definition — but this often comes at the expense of smaller peripheral details. What’s more, disruptive or large-scale experiences can retroactively alter previous related memories. For example, someone scratched by a cat is likely to experience a more negative perception of other cats — even if their previous experiences were neutral.

So when it comes to learning, disruptive events aren’t necessarily the answer for long-term recall of detail, and they can bias our experience of other events too.

Of course, learning isn’t necessarily about recalling finer details. It’s about outcomes. So perhaps we can look to smaller, more subtle events and influences to change people’s behaviours instead. For a moment, let’s consider habits:

1. They’re subtly born within our everyday environments.
2. They happen without us knowing — no big dramas.
3. They’re notoriously difficult to change or get rid of.

Think about some of the things you do every day. Locking your front door. Brushing your teeth. How about biting your nails? Can you remember when you first learned how to do these things? And how you learned? (hint: it wasn’t an eLearning sesh)

Habits are learned naturally “in the flow of work”, within our environment. And they’re very hard to forget. Take nail-biting, for example. Even disruptive interventions — such as applying a strong, bitter-tasting solution to discourage biting — struggle to stop this habit long term.

So… what’s the point here? The point is — perhaps disruptive learning (“wow” events, memorable one-offs, innovative new platforms) aren’t our only options to achieve behavioural change. Another extremely valid option is to capitalise on gradual, environmentally formed, habitual interventions (learning in the flow of work; learning that doesn’t feel like learning) when we design our solutions. This way, we’re more likely to see long-lasting results and behavioural changes that are harder to shift.

Which did you choose? The North Wind or the Sun?