Jason Hreha | Transformational Leadership: Building High-Performance Teams with Behavioral Science

Dallas Burnett: 00:00:16

Hey everybody.

Dallas Burnett: 00:00:17

We're talking to Jason R today.

Dallas Burnett: 00:00:19

What an amazing guy.

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He is a behavioral scientist and entrepreneur who's cracked a code

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on habits, talents, and innovation.

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From Stanford's lab to leading Walmart's first behavioral science team, he has

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some incredible stories about transforming businesses with psychology and building

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top performing teams at Persona.

Dallas Burnett: 00:00:39

he's a great new friend of mine.

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You don't want to miss this incredible conversation.

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Welcome to the last 10%.

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Your host, Dallas Burnett, dives into incredible conversations that will

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inspire you to finish well finish strong.

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Listen as guests share their journeys in valuable advice on living in the last 10%.

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If you are a leader, a coach, a business owner, or someone looking to

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level up, you are in the right place.

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Remember, you can give 90% effort and make it a long way, but it's finding

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out how to unlock the last 10%.

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That makes all the difference in your life, your relationships, and your work.

Dallas Burnett: 00:01:25

Now here's Dallas.

Dallas Burnett: 00:01:27

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Dallas Burnett: 00:01:30

I am Dallas Burnett, sitting in my 1905 Koch brothers

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barber chair in Thrive Studios.

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But more importantly, we have a great guest today.

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Jason Aya is a behavioral scientist.

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He's the author of a book called Real Change.

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He's the CEO of persona, where he uses some real cutting edge

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psychometric tools to connect companies with exceptional talent.

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He pioneered Walmart's behavioral science team.

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He's been advising tech startups.

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Man, he's all over the place.

Dallas Burnett: 00:02:00

We're excited to have him on the last 10% today, So welcome to the show, Jason.

Jason Hreha: 00:02:05

Hey, thanks for having me.

Dallas Burnett: 00:02:06

Yeah, man.

Dallas Burnett: 00:02:07

So just tell our listeners, like what's your background?

Dallas Burnett: 00:02:10

You've got into all this behavioral you've done all this work with Walmart, written

Dallas Burnett: 00:02:13

the book, but what was your background?

Dallas Burnett: 00:02:15

How did you get started?

Jason Hreha: 00:02:16

Oh, it's a great question and I, I don't even

Jason Hreha: 00:02:18

know where to begin actually.

Jason Hreha: 00:02:19

so I got interested in human psychology, human behavior in high school.

Jason Hreha: 00:02:22

I was just living my life doing my thing.

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And I went to an interesting high school where we actually could choose our English

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class, our junior year of high school.

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And I chose, to take a course or, yeah, on, it's called Ancient Eastern Thought.

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And we read, like Buddhist texts, Hindu texts, like all these just interesting,

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ancient, texts, from different religious, religious philosophies.

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And at that time there was a guy at the University of Wisconsin named Richard

Jason Hreha: 00:02:47

Davidson, who was doing these MRI studies on monks where he would put experienced

Jason Hreha: 00:02:52

meditators, monks in MRI machines.

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And he would look at their brains and see is there a functional difference here?

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Is there, is the structure different?

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And he noticed that there were significant differences between experienced meditators

Jason Hreha: 00:03:04

and non-experienced meditators in the prefrontal cortex of the brain.

Dallas Burnett: 00:03:07

Yes.

Jason Hreha: 00:03:07

at that time, national Geographic had a,

Jason Hreha: 00:03:10

an issue on this research.

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And there's a picture of a monk on the cover with electrodes all over,

Jason Hreha: 00:03:14

his head and my teacher brought that into class and showed it to us.

Jason Hreha: 00:03:20

And I just was fascinated by it.

Jason Hreha: 00:03:22

And I knew at that moment I said, okay, this is what I wanna study.

Jason Hreha: 00:03:24

I wanna study the brain.

Jason Hreha: 00:03:25

And so I read, I borrowed that issue, I read it, and then I just bought every book

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I could on the brain and I said, Okay.

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this is what I wanna go to college for.

Jason Hreha: 00:03:32

This is what I wanna study.

Jason Hreha: 00:03:33

And then I went off to Stanford and studied neuroscience.

Dallas Burnett: 00:03:37

Neuroscience at Stanford.

Dallas Burnett: 00:03:38

That's incredible.

Dallas Burnett: 00:03:39

And I, that is fascinating 'cause I actually have seen those studies as well

Jason Hreha: 00:03:43

yeah,

Dallas Burnett: 00:03:43

fascinating that you could, that meditation

Dallas Burnett: 00:03:46

actually change your brain just

Jason Hreha: 00:03:49

totally.

Dallas Burnett: 00:03:49

this process.

Dallas Burnett: 00:03:50

So it's just that, that also was very impactful to me.

Dallas Burnett: 00:03:52

I thought that was just fascinating.

Dallas Burnett: 00:03:53

So you may get to Stanford, you're in, you're studying neuroscience.

Dallas Burnett: 00:03:58

next, what happens at Stanford?

Jason Hreha: 00:04:00

Yeah, that's a good question.

Jason Hreha: 00:04:01

like any college student, I didn't, I knew what I wanted to study going

Jason Hreha: 00:04:03

in, but I had really had no idea about what I wanted to do with it.

Jason Hreha: 00:04:06

So I was just, I just knew that I wanted to learn about what makes

Jason Hreha: 00:04:09

us tick, why do, like how do we think, why do we do what we do?

Jason Hreha: 00:04:12

I was just interested in these sort of philosophical questions.

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but I always wanted to do something applied or, impactful with this knowledge.

Dallas Burnett: 00:04:18

I.

Jason Hreha: 00:04:19

And so when I was in college, I.

Jason Hreha: 00:04:20

started looking around to see, okay, like what different paths could I take?

Jason Hreha: 00:04:23

So of course I, if you're taking like a biological science as a major,

Jason Hreha: 00:04:28

most of the people in your class are, want to go to med school, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:04:31

They, most of 'em wanna be doctors.

Jason Hreha: 00:04:33

And so I got interested.

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I was like, okay, should I go down the medical PA route?

Jason Hreha: 00:04:36

And so I actually, shadowed a doctor at the Stanford Hospital.

Jason Hreha: 00:04:41

And I also was able to see some operations while I was there and was just

Jason Hreha: 00:04:44

exploring the medical side of things.

Jason Hreha: 00:04:46

But I just didn't really like being in the hospital.

Jason Hreha: 00:04:48

I didn't really like that environment, that setting, and I just wasn't

Jason Hreha: 00:04:51

all that interested in it.

Jason Hreha: 00:04:52

And so I decided, okay, I'm not gonna be a doctor.

Jason Hreha: 00:04:54

that's not the path I'm gonna go down.

Jason Hreha: 00:04:56

maybe I'll become a researcher.

Jason Hreha: 00:04:57

So I worked in two different labs when I was at Stanford.

Jason Hreha: 00:05:00

One lab was a genetics lab.

Dallas Burnett: 00:05:01

Oh,

Jason Hreha: 00:05:02

and we were looking at actually, more or less like stem

Jason Hreha: 00:05:04

cell genetics, we're looking in fly.

Jason Hreha: 00:05:07

it's been a long time since I've thought about this, to be honest.

Jason Hreha: 00:05:09

But we were looking at in flies, what are the genes involved in keeping these

Jason Hreha: 00:05:13

adult stem cells versus allowing them to differentiate in other types of cells.

Jason Hreha: 00:05:17

So we're looking at kind of the genes involved in that,

Jason Hreha: 00:05:20

and like more, local signaling.

Jason Hreha: 00:05:22

And so I was in a lab doing that.

Jason Hreha: 00:05:24

And then I joined a lab that was more or less a behavioral neuroscience lab.

Jason Hreha: 00:05:27

it was a neuro ethology lab, that was the technical term for it.

Jason Hreha: 00:05:31

and so what we did is we studied, the idea is you wanna study animals in

Jason Hreha: 00:05:35

their natural environments to really understand like the natural behavior.

Jason Hreha: 00:05:38

And then we looked for things called, in that field there's an important

Jason Hreha: 00:05:41

concept called a fixed action pattern.

Jason Hreha: 00:05:43

Basically the idea is that in animals, they operate in a much more

Jason Hreha: 00:05:47

reflexive, in instinctual way, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:05:49

And so the whole idea there is let's uncover kind of these instinctual

Jason Hreha: 00:05:53

reflexive behaviors that they do, and figure out like what are the signals that

Jason Hreha: 00:05:57

unlock these like genetically encoded, behaviors and try and understand like

Jason Hreha: 00:06:02

the, genetic side of I guess you could say behavioral, yeah, genetic side of

Jason Hreha: 00:06:08

what, what causes behavior, et cetera.

Jason Hreha: 00:06:10

So we were very interested in that.

Jason Hreha: 00:06:12

So I studied that, for a period of time I was in that lab.

Jason Hreha: 00:06:15

And to be honest, I didn't really like research that much.

Dallas Burnett: 00:06:17

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:06:17

it's just not a, it's, I don't like being in a lab.

Jason Hreha: 00:06:20

I just realized, Okay.

Dallas Burnett: 00:06:21

percent.

Jason Hreha: 00:06:22

I don't like being in a hospital.

Jason Hreha: 00:06:23

I don't really like being in a lab, doing everything that's involved in that.

Jason Hreha: 00:06:27

So as I approached graduation, I was a little bit lost and I was

Jason Hreha: 00:06:31

wondering, okay, what should I do here?

Jason Hreha: 00:06:33

should I become a management consultant or something like that, or

Jason Hreha: 00:06:36

should I go into finance or, should I just figure out something else?

Jason Hreha: 00:06:39

and then I encountered right as I was graduating, actually, I encountered

Jason Hreha: 00:06:42

the work of this guy, BJ Fog, who was at Stanford, and he ran this lab that

Jason Hreha: 00:06:45

was, at the time it was called the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab.

Jason Hreha: 00:06:49

Now it's called the Stanford Behavior Design Lab, but at the time it was

Jason Hreha: 00:06:52

called the Persuasive Technology Lab because they're really focused

Jason Hreha: 00:06:55

at that time on, so BJ had invented this field, he called it captology.

Jason Hreha: 00:07:00

And the idea was, okay, you have technologies, you have like mobile

Jason Hreha: 00:07:04

phones, you have computers, et cetera.

Jason Hreha: 00:07:06

These things, we interact with them every day.

Jason Hreha: 00:07:07

they're a huge important part of our lives.

Jason Hreha: 00:07:10

And so, you know, they're changing our behavior.

Jason Hreha: 00:07:12

They're shaping what we do, like

Dallas Burnett: 00:07:14

yes.

Jason Hreha: 00:07:15

regardless, like it, they just will impact us.

Jason Hreha: 00:07:17

And so the question became, how could you actually modify these

Jason Hreha: 00:07:21

systems or use these systems and harness them to change behavior

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in a very deliberate, mindful way?

Jason Hreha: 00:07:27

So how could you actually make it so that these systems could be designed

Jason Hreha: 00:07:30

to, let's say, shape, health behavior or shape other types of behaviors

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to, to make people's lives better?

Jason Hreha: 00:07:36

And so the lab really studied how do you change behavior using technology?

Jason Hreha: 00:07:40

In order to change behavior using technology, first you have to understand

Jason Hreha: 00:07:43

just behavior change in general.

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So a lot of the research of the lab was just around, okay,

Jason Hreha: 00:07:48

how can you change behavior?

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What tactics work?

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What tactics don't work?

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What are the determinants, et cetera.

Jason Hreha: 00:07:54

And so I emailed him actually and I said, Hey, I'm graduating more or less,

Jason Hreha: 00:07:57

can I still be a member of your lab?

Jason Hreha: 00:08:01

And so I started doing research for him after I graduated and, worked with him.

Jason Hreha: 00:08:05

I think, I don't remember the exact amount of time.

Jason Hreha: 00:08:08

it, was probably a year and a half or two years I was collaborating with him.

Jason Hreha: 00:08:11

And I just, that, that changed my life.

Jason Hreha: 00:08:12

'cause it was at that point I realized, okay, you actually can use these

Jason Hreha: 00:08:16

tools in a very, behavioral science tactics, behavioral science knowledge.

Jason Hreha: 00:08:19

You can use it in a very tactical way in order to get real world results.

Dallas Burnett: 00:08:23

Mm-hmm.

Jason Hreha: 00:08:24

if you think about it, that's what most companies are trying to do is,

Jason Hreha: 00:08:28

a company is only as good as its ability to like change consumer behavior, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:08:32

If you can't get anybody to change their habits and start shopping at your store,

Jason Hreha: 00:08:35

or if you can't get people to suddenly, build a routine around your application,

Jason Hreha: 00:08:39

if you can't get people to do any of these things, then you're, you're outta luck.

Jason Hreha: 00:08:43

Right?

Jason Hreha: 00:08:43

And so if you just look at the most successful, for example,

Jason Hreha: 00:08:45

technology products, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, et cetera, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:08:50

What the, their defining feature is that they're very engaging and

Jason Hreha: 00:08:53

that a lot of people use them, and a lot of people love them.

Dallas Burnett: 00:08:56

Oh yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:08:56

I think that's so fascinating too.

Dallas Burnett: 00:08:58

there's a lot of things about your story that, res that resonate with me.

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:01

coming out, I came out of a very technical degree as well and didn't

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:04

kinda know what I wanted to do with that.

Jason Hreha: 00:09:06

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:06

of the things I went to is similar to you, I went to a biomedical

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:09

engineering lab and I was like, well, maybe this is cutting edge stuff.

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:12

I'll try this out.

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:13

And I will, I'll be honest, walking around and seeing all the different

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:17

research projects I can imagine it was, is mind blowing at Stanford.

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:21

And more mind blowing in genetics lab is seeing what all these brilliant people

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:25

were working on and engaging with that.

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:27

So for a semester I'm just, I'm in it looking at all these things, but

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:30

man, I got to the end of it and I was like, I cannot be in, there's

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:33

no way this is gonna work for me.

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:35

And we were working on some really cool stuff and I wanted to know all about it.

Dallas Burnett: 00:09:38

I just didn't wanna be

Jason Hreha: 00:09:39

Totally, totally.

Jason Hreha: 00:09:41

I'm the same boat.

Jason Hreha: 00:09:42

. Dallas Burnett: yeah, so the other thing is.

Jason Hreha: 00:09:43

It's so interesting because I've just read in the last 24 hours, read two articles

Jason Hreha: 00:09:47

that just really jumped out at me.

Jason Hreha: 00:09:49

That is exactly like center mass of what you were just talking about.

Jason Hreha: 00:09:52

And one of them that just recently just published I think was how

Jason Hreha: 00:09:57

don't know, I think it was MIT, but someone was looking at how our

Jason Hreha: 00:10:00

brains are functioning with AI and.

Jason Hreha: 00:10:03

If you use AI to write it, they used a word like cognitive deficit or

Jason Hreha: 00:10:07

something like that, where there's just not, you don't even remember

Jason Hreha: 00:10:10

what you wrote like 10 minutes ago.

Jason Hreha: 00:10:12

Well, the reason is you're not writing it, but it's

Jason Hreha: 00:10:14

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:15

They were talking about how it's changing our brains and so

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:17

they kinda, you kinda read all through this research and it gets to the end.

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:20

It says, no, you can still use ai, but just you write it first and use it to edit

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:25

it and you'll remember and own it more.

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:27

Essentially your brain will own it more and function at a higher level than if

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:30

you just have it, which kind of seems to me to be very fairly intuitive.

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:33

Right.

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:33

That will make sense.

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:34

But it's exactly what you're saying

Jason Hreha: 00:10:36

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:36

how is this changing?

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:37

And then also, was re-released recently in the news where, I think it was, I think,

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:42

yeah, it was chat GBT that said, Hey.

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:45

actually been increasing people's likelihood of believing

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:49

in conspiracy theories.

Jason Hreha: 00:10:51

Sure.

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:52

And then when they called out the AI on it, it was like,

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:55

you need to call people at chat, GBT and the media and let them know

Dallas Burnett: 00:10:58

that's what we've been doing here.

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:00

You know?

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:00

And it's okay, wow.

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:01

but to your point, we're interfacing with technology so much, and it's

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:05

only getting more and more and more.

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:06

So before it was just, you're logging on your computer and you're just using

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:10

tools on your computer, like Word.

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:11

Then all of a sudden social media comes and everybody's got it in

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:13

their pocket and their phone.

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:15

And now with ai now we're integrating it into actual

Jason Hreha: 00:11:18

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:19

and things like that.

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:20

It's just, we're seeing this integration.

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:22

So totally relevant.

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:23

I know you're like it because working with, BJ Fog and his, his research is

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:28

just, I mean, it was center mass of what's going on in, in the world today.

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:31

So I know that you had some serious actionable things

Dallas Burnett: 00:11:33

that you could take out of

Jason Hreha: 00:11:34

Yeah, absolutely.

Jason Hreha: 00:11:35

Absolutely.

Jason Hreha: 00:11:36

working for him was incredible because, when you study the behavioral sciences

Jason Hreha: 00:11:40

and neuroscience in an academic concept context, you understand behavior very well

Jason Hreha: 00:11:45

for me in ab, in an abstract way, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:11:48

Like you study a lot of these lab experiments that are done

Jason Hreha: 00:11:51

in a very, artificial context.

Jason Hreha: 00:11:52

You learn about these different theories, but bridging the divide

Jason Hreha: 00:11:56

between, okay, I read about this in a book to I'm, I can use it and

Jason Hreha: 00:11:59

actually experience it in real life.

Jason Hreha: 00:12:01

there's a huge divide there.

Jason Hreha: 00:12:02

There's a huge gap and I think it requires a lot of creativity and a lot

Jason Hreha: 00:12:05

of, just a practical mindset that is.

Jason Hreha: 00:12:08

that you don't really learn in an academic context.

Jason Hreha: 00:12:10

And with BJ I could see, I saw the way he thought and the way he was able to

Jason Hreha: 00:12:14

break down problems and really hone in using his different models on what

Jason Hreha: 00:12:18

the bottlenecks were for a behavior not occurring or his ability to just

Jason Hreha: 00:12:22

see a situation and just break down in a, just a very logical and, systematic

Jason Hreha: 00:12:27

way, all the behavioral dynamics and then come up with potential solutions.

Jason Hreha: 00:12:31

It just blew my mind.

Jason Hreha: 00:12:32

And

Dallas Burnett: 00:12:32

Oh

Jason Hreha: 00:12:33

working with him, I, he really was the one who gave me

Jason Hreha: 00:12:35

the confidence and really the tools, I think, to start this career.

Jason Hreha: 00:12:38

And, I owe so much to I personally think that he is the, the most,

Jason Hreha: 00:12:43

The most brilliant kind of applied behavioral scientists, of our era.

Jason Hreha: 00:12:46

I, I really do.

Jason Hreha: 00:12:47

And I do think that his materials, like I always, I recommend his materials

Jason Hreha: 00:12:51

to everybody I can because, 'cause I think that if you're interested in

Jason Hreha: 00:12:55

just getting started in this field or if you're interested in just learning

Jason Hreha: 00:12:59

how to think, in a practical way about behavior and behavior change, I do think

Jason Hreha: 00:13:03

that the fog behavior model, his main behavior model is the best place to start.

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:07

Wow.

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:08

That's awesome.

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:08

That's

Jason Hreha: 00:13:09

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:09

to look up some of this stuff.

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:10

I

Jason Hreha: 00:13:10

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:13:10

Absolutely.

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:11

any of his in, his material, but that now I

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:13

want to, so I'm gonna have to

Jason Hreha: 00:13:14

You should.

Jason Hreha: 00:13:14

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:15

awesome.

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:15

if you were to think back

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:16

Was there one thing that stood out to you that was like, my

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:19

gosh, this is mind blowing.

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:22

this is just something I was not expecting.

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:24

Some unexpected insight,

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:27

or was it different?

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:28

Was it more like unveiling the reality you kind of already knew?

Jason Hreha: 00:13:31

No, I mean, I, I would say that learning the fog behavior model,

Jason Hreha: 00:13:33

his main behavior model for the first time was mind blowing for me because,

Jason Hreha: 00:13:37

it in an academic context, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:13:39

Like, well, first of all, behavior is very complex.

Jason Hreha: 00:13:41

Like we do things for, there's so many different variables that kind

Jason Hreha: 00:13:43

of go into, any given decision.

Jason Hreha: 00:13:46

we, humans are extremely complex.

Jason Hreha: 00:13:47

The brain is extremely complex.

Jason Hreha: 00:13:49

When you study it in this very rigorous academic way, it's

Jason Hreha: 00:13:52

a little bit overwhelming.

Jason Hreha: 00:13:53

it's a little bit overwhelming because

Dallas Burnett: 00:13:54

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:13:55

this infinitely complex problem.

Jason Hreha: 00:13:57

But what BJ did that I think is so brilliant is he said, okay, listen.

Jason Hreha: 00:14:01

In an applied context, when we're thinking about behavior, really there are three

Jason Hreha: 00:14:04

elements that you need to think about.

Jason Hreha: 00:14:06

There are really only three major elements.

Jason Hreha: 00:14:08

One is called motivation, one is ability, and the other is trigger.

Jason Hreha: 00:14:12

He calls tri, he changed trigger to prompt now, so he says

Jason Hreha: 00:14:15

motivation, ab ability and prompt.

Jason Hreha: 00:14:17

And so the whole idea here is that as we walk around the world, we

Jason Hreha: 00:14:21

have, varying levels of motivation for different behaviors or different

Jason Hreha: 00:14:24

outcomes in our life, right,

Jason Hreha: 00:14:26

And there are some days when I'm extremely motivated to work out.

Jason Hreha: 00:14:29

And in those situations when I'm extremely motivated to work out,

Jason Hreha: 00:14:33

I can be, far away from a gym.

Dallas Burnett: 00:14:35

right.

Jason Hreha: 00:14:36

I could have a low ability to go to the gym that day, but because

Jason Hreha: 00:14:40

I'm so motivated and amped up, I'll actually end up, I'll going and doing it.

Dallas Burnett: 00:14:44

right.

Jason Hreha: 00:14:45

so it's the combination of motivation and ability kind of

Jason Hreha: 00:14:48

determines my probability or propensity to do a given behavior when prompted,

Dallas Burnett: 00:14:54

I

Jason Hreha: 00:14:55

if you can understand that.

Jason Hreha: 00:14:56

Yeah,

Dallas Burnett: 00:14:56

totally.

Dallas Burnett: 00:14:57

That is so interesting because you hear the other models, and I

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:00

know Duhigg has his habit model,

Jason Hreha: 00:15:02

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:03

James Clear has Atomic Habits.

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:04

One

Jason Hreha: 00:15:05

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:06

and one has four.

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:07

I think one is you have the trigger that I think they still use trigger

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:10

they then the actual behavior and then the reward, which kind of

Jason Hreha: 00:15:14

yeah,

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:14

The other one has, I think the other one has motivation

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:16

tied or emotion tied into it.

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:18

And I think that's somehow or something, I may be wrong on that, but it's been

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:21

a while since I've read those books.

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:23

But, I love how you're positioning it that way because in a sense.

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:27

you're there is the behavior.

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:29

But it's saying before you even get to that, your motivation has got to outweigh,

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:35

any obstacles that are impeding it.

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:37

if you're not highly motivated, you're not going to actually do

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:40

the behavior that you could do.

Jason Hreha: 00:15:42

sure.

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:43

if there's some, if the motivation is extremely high, you'll

Dallas Burnett: 00:15:46

still find a way because you're just like

Jason Hreha: 00:15:48

Totally.

Jason Hreha: 00:15:49

. Dallas Burnett: to do it.

Jason Hreha: 00:15:49

And so I love how it starts with that motivation piece.

Jason Hreha: 00:15:52

I just, I like that framing.

Jason Hreha: 00:15:53

That's a very interesting way to, Way to frame it up.

Jason Hreha: 00:15:55

I Now, speaking of Atomic Habits, now this is amazing.

Jason Hreha: 00:15:59

So you have written a book called Real Change, and

Jason Hreha: 00:16:02

Yeah,

Dallas Burnett: 00:16:03

by James Clear in Atomic Habits, which is awesome.

Dallas Burnett: 00:16:07

that's a super huge call out.

Dallas Burnett: 00:16:09

And so, um, tell, tell us how that book is related to habit formation and

Dallas Burnett: 00:16:16

kind of your, the background of that book and your time at Stanford, how

Jason Hreha: 00:16:20

sure.

Dallas Burnett: 00:16:20

of goes together.

Jason Hreha: 00:16:22

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:16:22

I do want to clarify.

Jason Hreha: 00:16:23

James Clear, he, he quoted my, my definition of habit

Jason Hreha: 00:16:27

in Atomic Habits years ago.

Jason Hreha: 00:16:29

My book is significantly newer, so he didn't, he didn't cite

Jason Hreha: 00:16:31

my book or call out my book.

Jason Hreha: 00:16:33

he just, called out, I believe, actually it was, years ago.

Jason Hreha: 00:16:36

I think I put out a, I believe he found it.

Jason Hreha: 00:16:38

It was a tweet where I laid out my definition of habit because.

Jason Hreha: 00:16:42

I guess to kind of fast forward a little bit, after I graduated college and

Jason Hreha: 00:16:46

worked with bj after that I decided, okay, I just want to just start

Jason Hreha: 00:16:50

doing this applied behavioral work.

Jason Hreha: 00:16:52

And I just want that to be my career.

Jason Hreha: 00:16:53

I just wanna work on applied behavioral science projects in industry.

Jason Hreha: 00:16:57

And since I graduated from Stanford, a lot of my friends were in the technology

Jason Hreha: 00:17:02

world building technology startups or working for large technology companies.

Jason Hreha: 00:17:05

And when I was looking around seeing, okay, where could I apply this stuff?

Jason Hreha: 00:17:09

tech was the obvious answer.

Jason Hreha: 00:17:11

Just because number one, it's a lot easier to make, product changes in a technology

Jason Hreha: 00:17:18

product versus a physical product or versus a real world situation, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:17:21

Like in order to make a change to a technology product, you can

Jason Hreha: 00:17:24

just sit down with a developer.

Jason Hreha: 00:17:26

I. In a period of a few hours or a few days, you can make a new feature

Jason Hreha: 00:17:31

or you could tweak things, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:17:32

And so you can shape the environment of a technology product a lot more easily

Jason Hreha: 00:17:35

than a real world situation, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:17:37

And so number one, technology allows you to iterate very quickly.

Jason Hreha: 00:17:41

It allows you to make these big changes and run experiments very accurately.

Jason Hreha: 00:17:44

Number two, with a technology product, the sample sizes are often very large.

Dallas Burnett: 00:17:49

Right.

Jason Hreha: 00:17:49

with Facebook, you have like billions of people using it.

Jason Hreha: 00:17:51

And if you're an academic and you're trying to study human behavior in a lab,

Jason Hreha: 00:17:54

you can maybe recruit a couple hundred, maybe, students or something like that.

Jason Hreha: 00:17:58

But if you're Facebook or if you're one of these large companies, you

Jason Hreha: 00:18:01

can get, hundreds of thousands or millions of people in your experiment

Jason Hreha: 00:18:04

very quickly, and you can segment them very easily and then you can

Jason Hreha: 00:18:07

actually track exactly what they do.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:09

So it's very easy to measure the behavior.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:11

So technology products are really like the perfect, laboratory for human behavior.

Dallas Burnett: 00:18:16

Sure.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:17

great, this is what I want to do.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:18

So I.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:19

created my own consulting firm.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:20

At the time it was called Dopamine.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:22

It was just me and I would hire contractors to help me

Jason Hreha: 00:18:24

out, with different projects.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:26

And so I started doing this applied behavioral work and doing

Jason Hreha: 00:18:29

this applied behavioral work.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:30

What I realized very quickly was, okay, what all the clients that I work with

Jason Hreha: 00:18:34

want is they want habit formation.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:36

They want to build habit forming products.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:38

They want people to come into their products, love their product, and

Jason Hreha: 00:18:41

just start using it continuously.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:43

And so I was spending a lot of time for many years thinking about,

Jason Hreha: 00:18:46

okay, the academic literature says certain things about habits.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:50

I'm experiencing some of that in the real world.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:51

I'm seeing my, I'm coming up with my own insights as well.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:54

And so I wanted to come up with a very crisp, clear definition

Jason Hreha: 00:18:58

of habit for me to use.

Jason Hreha: 00:18:59

It was really for my own benefit.

Jason Hreha: 00:19:00

And I believe I tweeted that out.

Jason Hreha: 00:19:02

James, I think doing the research for his stuff and his book, saw that and

Jason Hreha: 00:19:06

then decided to use that in the book.

Jason Hreha: 00:19:07

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:08

Oh my goodness.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:09

That's awesome.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:10

that's awesome.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:11

Takes your definition for the book on habits, like That's awesome.

Jason Hreha: 00:19:16

No, it was cool.

Jason Hreha: 00:19:16

I mean, it was very, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm very honored and, so it's

Jason Hreha: 00:19:19

just, it was and very, very nice of him.

Jason Hreha: 00:19:21

Yeah,

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:22

Cool.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:22

Shout out tool.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:23

Shout out.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:23

That's really great.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:24

so let's talk a little bit about that, because you

Jason Hreha: 00:19:27

yeah,

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:27

together these models and seeing it you were able to iterate

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:30

so much, I think during that time.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:32

'cause it sounds like what you're able to do is you've got this massive sample

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:35

size and then you can just experiment on real, in real time, on real people

Jason Hreha: 00:19:40

yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:41

technology.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:41

So that's amazing.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:43

That's amazing.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:43

information and data that you could process.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:46

So

Jason Hreha: 00:19:46

Totally.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:46

bit about what you found, specifically let's talk

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:49

about as it relates to and habits, 'cause you've got Atomic Habits,

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:54

but in your book Real Change.

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:55

Let's talk a little bit about all of that and what you found

Dallas Burnett: 00:19:58

in that time as a consultant.

Dallas Burnett: 00:20:00

In, in, in the Valley.

Jason Hreha: 00:20:01

yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:20:01

so my time as a consultant working with a lot of different technology companies,

Jason Hreha: 00:20:05

it was eyeopening, it was enlightening.

Jason Hreha: 00:20:07

and the big thing that I realized very quickly actually was, very early

Jason Hreha: 00:20:10

on I realized that a lot of what you learn about in the academic world just

Jason Hreha: 00:20:14

doesn't really apply, in the real world.

Jason Hreha: 00:20:17

and what I noticed is, so my original approach, when I first started doing

Jason Hreha: 00:20:20

this work, my entire strategy was okay.

Jason Hreha: 00:20:24

I saw myself as the, the translator for translating

Jason Hreha: 00:20:27

academic work into, the real world.

Jason Hreha: 00:20:30

And so what I would do is, so whenever I would work with a company, my first.

Jason Hreha: 00:20:34

Task was to go to the literature, to go to the academic literature, do a literature

Jason Hreha: 00:20:38

review, just l see, look up as many different papers as I could on these types

Jason Hreha: 00:20:43

of behavior change problems, interventions that have been tested in a laboratory

Jason Hreha: 00:20:46

context or in a real world context.

Jason Hreha: 00:20:48

by academics, gather all the interventions or the po the possible

Jason Hreha: 00:20:52

interventions that I could, and then evaluate each of them, figure

Jason Hreha: 00:20:56

out which ones make the most sense for the given product or the given

Jason Hreha: 00:20:59

behavior change problem I'm working on with the technology company.

Jason Hreha: 00:21:02

And then I, we would work to run experiments around, okay, let's take this

Jason Hreha: 00:21:06

tactic and add it to the product or add it to a marketing campaign or whatever,

Jason Hreha: 00:21:10

and then just see what the results are.

Jason Hreha: 00:21:11

And what I realized very quickly, and this was actually quite disheartening

Jason Hreha: 00:21:14

at the time, was so many of the tactics that I'd read about in books or in

Jason Hreha: 00:21:18

papers that I tried to apply in the real world, they would just have no effect.

Jason Hreha: 00:21:22

This happened over and over again.

Jason Hreha: 00:21:25

It happened quite a number of times.

Jason Hreha: 00:21:26

My first, let's say, two or three years doing this applied work.

Jason Hreha: 00:21:30

And I remember at the time, my, my point of view was, either the

Jason Hreha: 00:21:33

research is wrong, I'm implementing it incorrectly, or I'm just like a total

Jason Hreha: 00:21:37

idiot and just misreading these things

Dallas Burnett: 00:21:39

you had to have some, you had to have some patience.

Dallas Burnett: 00:21:41

That had to be a little bit discouraging

Jason Hreha: 00:21:43

oh, it was ex

Dallas Burnett: 00:21:44

time and going through all this stuff.

Dallas Burnett: 00:21:46

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:21:47

it was extremely discouraging.

Jason Hreha: 00:21:48

But, I started then reading the papers with a bit more of a critical

Jason Hreha: 00:21:50

eye in looking, looking at the methodology, looking at how the

Jason Hreha: 00:21:53

researchers set up these experiments.

Jason Hreha: 00:21:55

And I started getting quite suspicious and thinking, okay, a lot of these studies

Jason Hreha: 00:22:00

are done with very small sample sizes.

Jason Hreha: 00:22:02

a lot of the times the, the, these papers just didn't really pass the

Jason Hreha: 00:22:05

sniff test, the closer I looked at the methodology and so I started thinking,

Jason Hreha: 00:22:08

I. I think that there might be either some, just massaging or just, potentially

Jason Hreha: 00:22:13

outright fraud in some of these papers.

Jason Hreha: 00:22:15

it's hard to say because a lot of these, a lot of academics do not,

Jason Hreha: 00:22:18

now it's becoming much more common, but in the past they wouldn't like

Jason Hreha: 00:22:21

necessarily release the raw data.

Jason Hreha: 00:22:23

and or today what, what a lot of academics do is called pre-registering

Jason Hreha: 00:22:26

where you, before you, run the experiment, you say, here's the

Jason Hreha: 00:22:29

experiment where we're gonna run.

Jason Hreha: 00:22:31

Here's how we're gonna do it.

Jason Hreha: 00:22:32

Here are the analyses that we're gonna do.

Jason Hreha: 00:22:34

And you lay it all, you put your prediction out and your

Jason Hreha: 00:22:36

whole plan out ahead of time.

Jason Hreha: 00:22:37

And so you can't deviate from that plan.

Jason Hreha: 00:22:39

'cause what I'll.

Dallas Burnett: 00:22:40

hypothesis, you have to say, this is my hypothesis

Dallas Burnett: 00:22:43

and this is how I'm gonna build it.

Dallas Burnett: 00:22:44

To test this hypothesis

Jason Hreha: 00:22:46

you pre-register it, you pre-register it so that you can't later.

Jason Hreha: 00:22:49

So let's say you pre-register like this and then, or let's say you don't

Jason Hreha: 00:22:53

pre-register this and you run the experiment, then you can say, okay, well

Jason Hreha: 00:22:57

the original findings that we were going out to look for, we didn't find, but we

Jason Hreha: 00:23:01

reanalyzed the data and these other ways and we found this significant effect.

Jason Hreha: 00:23:05

You can then publish that significant effect.

Jason Hreha: 00:23:07

But for a variety of reasons, it gets pretty complicated, but for a variety of

Jason Hreha: 00:23:10

reasons, that just like methodologically is just not, it's not proper.

Jason Hreha: 00:23:15

You really don't wanna do that.

Jason Hreha: 00:23:16

You can get a lot of false positives that way.

Dallas Burnett: 00:23:17

Yes.

Jason Hreha: 00:23:18

And what I started noticing doing this applied work is

Jason Hreha: 00:23:20

okay, something is not right in the academic applied behavioral science

Jason Hreha: 00:23:26

slash behavioral science world.

Jason Hreha: 00:23:28

And it was interesting.

Jason Hreha: 00:23:29

So I started having these realizations and I started writing about it.

Jason Hreha: 00:23:32

And then what happened was I. There was a big project called

Jason Hreha: 00:23:35

the, reproducibility project.

Jason Hreha: 00:23:37

It was run by this guy Brian Sik, and the idea was they'd ran this, big

Jason Hreha: 00:23:42

study where they took, they selected a hundred behavioral science papers

Jason Hreha: 00:23:47

from top journals, and then they had labs, do, reproduce, try to reproduce

Jason Hreha: 00:23:51

the studies and reproduce the findings.

Jason Hreha: 00:23:54

And, I don't have the study in front of me right now, but if I remember correctly, I

Jason Hreha: 00:23:57

believe it was 36%, so 36 out of the 100 papers where they were able to reproduce.

Jason Hreha: 00:24:02

So

Dallas Burnett: 00:24:02

my

Jason Hreha: 00:24:03

a majority of the research, they could not reproduce the findings.

Dallas Burnett: 00:24:07

amazing.

Dallas Burnett: 00:24:07

That's the vast majority.

Dallas Burnett: 00:24:09

That's a huge number that they

Jason Hreha: 00:24:11

yeah, yeah, it's,

Dallas Burnett: 00:24:12

gosh.

Jason Hreha: 00:24:13

meant that it's more likely than not.

Jason Hreha: 00:24:15

If you encountered a new study back then, it was more likely than not that it would

Jason Hreha: 00:24:19

not, the findings would not hold up.

Jason Hreha: 00:24:20

And so the, it was, that was a interesting experience for me

Jason Hreha: 00:24:24

because when this research came out.

Jason Hreha: 00:24:26

It was, validating because I realized, okay, I'm not wrong.

Jason Hreha: 00:24:31

Like the, what I was experienced, what I experienced was due to, research

Jason Hreha: 00:24:35

quality rather than, anything else.

Jason Hreha: 00:24:37

it,

Dallas Burnett: 00:24:37

crazy.

Dallas Burnett: 00:24:38

I'm

Jason Hreha: 00:24:38

I'm not crazy.

Jason Hreha: 00:24:39

Yeah,

Dallas Burnett: 00:24:39

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:24:40

You're actually getting the real results.

Dallas Burnett: 00:24:42

You're seeing what's really going on in your tech, in the

Dallas Burnett: 00:24:45

world of tech at that time.

Dallas Burnett: 00:24:46

Whereas what you were basing some of your assumptions on was not

Jason Hreha: 00:24:49

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:24:50

So that was, I mean, it was disheartening.

Jason Hreha: 00:24:51

but it was validating and disheartening at the same time because this is

Jason Hreha: 00:24:54

what I had spent the last many years thinking about, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:24:57

So at that time, I probably would've been, I don't know, 24, 25, 26 years old.

Jason Hreha: 00:25:02

I'd been studying this stuff intensely since 16 or 17.

Jason Hreha: 00:25:05

So I'd spent almost a decade, just like full-time thinking about this stuff.

Jason Hreha: 00:25:08

And so it was a very interesting.

Jason Hreha: 00:25:10

period for me.

Jason Hreha: 00:25:12

And so what I started really getting obsessed with was, okay.

Jason Hreha: 00:25:15

What research is good and what research is not good.

Jason Hreha: 00:25:17

And so I really started spending a lot of my time trying to figure

Jason Hreha: 00:25:20

out, okay, I don't think the entire field of the psychological sciences,

Jason Hreha: 00:25:24

the behavioral sciences, I don't think the whole thing is rotten.

Jason Hreha: 00:25:26

I think a lot of it's rotten.

Jason Hreha: 00:25:28

But, what is the truth here?

Jason Hreha: 00:25:30

And so I started really trying to figure out on my own, based on my own

Jason Hreha: 00:25:33

applied work, based on my reading of the research, based upon just my own

Jason Hreha: 00:25:37

thoughts, okay, what's the truth here?

Jason Hreha: 00:25:39

What actually causes behavior change?

Jason Hreha: 00:25:42

What's actually effective here?

Jason Hreha: 00:25:43

And what's like the accurate model of human behavior?

Jason Hreha: 00:25:45

And so that has led me down this entire path.

Jason Hreha: 00:25:48

And that eventually led to this book Real Change.

Jason Hreha: 00:25:51

and it led to my current company.

Jason Hreha: 00:25:53

and it led to, other work I've done, but Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:25:55

Wow.

Dallas Burnett: 00:25:56

I think that is very interesting and it's definitely coincides.

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:01

I've read over the past, I don't know, five to 10 years, different reports out

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:07

that's very similar to the one that you did where people are going and looking at

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:11

and it's outside of just the behavioral science.

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:13

it's really, it's really across the board.

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:16

And, what I've seen is they've had a, they've had a lot of problems and I

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:19

think that in, in some ways, I, look at it and go, gosh, you always are

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:24

asking the question what is true, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:26:26

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:26

is true?

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:26

Is that right?

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:27

Is that, are those facts or.

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:30

it been massaged?

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:30

Because at the end of the day, what is true is we're all human.

Jason Hreha: 00:26:34

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:35

like we all have cognitive biases that can creep in.

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:38

Even

Jason Hreha: 00:26:38

Yep.

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:39

professors, we can have bandwagon effect or you know, we can have

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:42

a Dunning Kruger, we can do all that.

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:43

We can, we are susceptible as that.

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:45

So it's like, wow, some of these reports, it's not all, but some, or a

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:49

lot, in many cases are not as accurate as what we, as would subscribe to them.

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:54

So I think it's really awesome that you we're in a position not only to

Dallas Burnett: 00:26:59

wonder that, but to literally have the tools at your disposal to test it, to

Jason Hreha: 00:27:04

Mm-hmm.

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:05

in the real world and go, okay, this is.

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:08

This has been tested and this kind of been proving to, to be wanting

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:12

because it's not lining up with

Jason Hreha: 00:27:13

Totally.

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:13

at all.

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:14

So I think that's really cool because I think definitely gives you a unique

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:17

perspective because you have seen the academic side, you spent years in that

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:22

research and really understanding it, but then you were able to apply it and see

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:26

what actually was working in real life.

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:28

So that's really cool.

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:29

I, so let's talk a little bit about that because I'm interested in habit change.

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:33

So if a lot of the research, I mean two thirds at least was not even reproducible.

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:40

That means a lot of the books and advice and things that everybody wrote for years

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:46

and years based on all that research,

Jason Hreha: 00:27:48

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:48

in the same boat.

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:49

Because they're going, look at this research from this and

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:51

look at this research from that.

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:52

And it's ah, yeah, that was part of the two thirds that wasn't right.

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:54

So what can you tell us about habit change?

Dallas Burnett: 00:27:58

Efforts and maybe why they fail.

Dallas Burnett: 00:28:00

And maybe what are we, what do we think we know that just isn't so that,

Dallas Burnett: 00:28:06

as it relates to change behavior.

Jason Hreha: 00:28:07

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:28:07

my perspective has shifted a lot over the years.

Jason Hreha: 00:28:09

I'd say that right around you had right around the time when I was running all

Jason Hreha: 00:28:13

these tests and having bad results.

Jason Hreha: 00:28:16

And right around the time when the reproducibility project, came out

Jason Hreha: 00:28:18

with their results and we saw this, I started looking, I started looking at

Jason Hreha: 00:28:23

kinda okay, what areas of research seem are like the longest lived, that have

Jason Hreha: 00:28:27

the highest, re reproducibility rates?

Jason Hreha: 00:28:28

The highest replication rates?

Jason Hreha: 00:28:30

And I just, it became very interested also just in looking at, with the

Jason Hreha: 00:28:34

companies that I've worked with, where we've had success, like

Jason Hreha: 00:28:37

what's true versus, like what things succeeded versus which things failed.

Dallas Burnett: 00:28:41

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:28:42

my perspective really did shift around from one of, okay,

Jason Hreha: 00:28:45

so let me zoom out a little bit.

Jason Hreha: 00:28:47

I would say that the, the typical approach in the habit formation

Jason Hreha: 00:28:53

and behavior change world,

Dallas Burnett: 00:28:54

Mm-hmm.

Jason Hreha: 00:28:55

approach goes something like this, okay, you have a group,

Jason Hreha: 00:28:58

you have a person or a group of people, and you have a behavior.

Jason Hreha: 00:29:02

And the whole job is, okay, we want these people, or sorry, we want

Jason Hreha: 00:29:08

these people to do this behavior.

Jason Hreha: 00:29:10

They're not doing this behavior for whatever reason.

Jason Hreha: 00:29:12

How can we nudge them?

Jason Hreha: 00:29:13

Or how can we apply some sort of stimulus or signal to them in order to get them to

Jason Hreha: 00:29:20

suddenly start doing this thing That for whatever reason, they're not doing more.

Jason Hreha: 00:29:23

So that's the general model.

Dallas Burnett: 00:29:24

Right.

Jason Hreha: 00:29:25

model is it's one-to-one.

Jason Hreha: 00:29:27

It's like we have a behavior and this is inflexible, and then you have a group of

Jason Hreha: 00:29:31

people and how do we get them to do this?

Dallas Burnett: 00:29:34

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:29:34

My.

Dallas Burnett: 00:29:34

like a reward.

Dallas Burnett: 00:29:35

Can I give them a reward or,

Jason Hreha: 00:29:37

Sure.

Dallas Burnett: 00:29:38

or, show 'em some, something to make them

Dallas Burnett: 00:29:40

click or do or whatever.

Dallas Burnett: 00:29:41

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:29:41

I got

Jason Hreha: 00:29:42

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:29:42

So the typical advice, then turns into something along the lines of, okay, if

Jason Hreha: 00:29:46

they're not doing this behavior, maybe it's because, the reward isn't big enough.

Jason Hreha: 00:29:50

So maybe can we add a reward to the situation?

Jason Hreha: 00:29:52

Or, okay, if they're not doing this behavior, maybe it's because, it's

Jason Hreha: 00:29:56

just too hard or it's too, the, their circumstances just make it.

Jason Hreha: 00:29:59

too inconvenient.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:00

And so how can we make it, easier or more convenient?

Jason Hreha: 00:30:03

Or, Hey, maybe there's forgetting about this thing.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:06

they're forgetting to do this behavior and then it's too late in

Jason Hreha: 00:30:08

the day by the time they remember.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:09

And so maybe if we remind them or prompt them early in the day, we

Jason Hreha: 00:30:13

could get them to do this thing.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:14

And, over the years, I started to notice there, there are a lot

Jason Hreha: 00:30:17

of problems with this general mindset or this general frame.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:20

And the problems are, number one, a lot of behaviors, you just,

Jason Hreha: 00:30:23

let's just start with easiness.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:25

A lot of behaviors you just cannot make easier.

Dallas Burnett: 00:30:28

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:28

by their very nature.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:30

Right.

Dallas Burnett: 00:30:30

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:30

so learning, like learning a new skill.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:33

of course you can make the instructional materials better, maybe

Jason Hreha: 00:30:36

you can get somebody a tutor, maybe you can do these sorts of things.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:38

But a lot of skills, a lot of fields are just really hard by their very nature.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:43

And so good luck trying to make it significantly easier or

Jason Hreha: 00:30:46

significantly more convenient.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:47

Kind of the whole point is, the whole point of learning a new skill is that

Jason Hreha: 00:30:51

it's something that is hard for you.

Jason Hreha: 00:30:53

It's something outside of your capabilities, and so therefore, like

Jason Hreha: 00:30:57

can, I don't even know if you could, in a lot of situations make it easier

Jason Hreha: 00:31:00

without destroying the whole purpose of doing the behavior in the first place.

Dallas Burnett: 00:31:03

Exactly.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:04

So a lot of behaviors just, you cannot make easier.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:06

And then a lot of behaviors, on the motivation side is, there's a similar

Jason Hreha: 00:31:10

story here, which is, okay, if you're trying to get somebody, let's say

Jason Hreha: 00:31:13

to learn a new, a new, area of math, for example, There's not really a,

Jason Hreha: 00:31:18

and they're not motivated to do it.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:20

There's not really a whole lot you can do there, Right.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:22

Maybe you could turn it into, try to gamify it, turn it into a game.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:25

But gamification in general has a pretty mixed track record.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:28

It's generally pretty good at getting people to change their behavior in the

Jason Hreha: 00:31:32

short run, for a small period of time.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:34

But most games end, Right.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:37

Like most video games end, most board games end, most games are not indefinite,

Jason Hreha: 00:31:40

and so it can provide a little boost for a period of time, but it's not

Jason Hreha: 00:31:44

really a sustainable long-term, tactic.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:47

just from, in my experience, from everything that I've seen.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:49

yeah, maybe you could try to gamify it.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:52

Maybe you could add some sort of tangible reward, pay people to do it, et cetera.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:56

But.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:57

Number one, that's expensive too.

Jason Hreha: 00:31:58

It's not that sustainable.

Jason Hreha: 00:32:00

and then you can get this, there is some research showing that you do get

Jason Hreha: 00:32:03

this, reward, this sub substitution effect where if people start doing

Jason Hreha: 00:32:07

something for extrinsic reasons, for reasons other than the activity itself

Jason Hreha: 00:32:11

and the rewards it provides, let's say if they're just, you're just paying

Jason Hreha: 00:32:13

them to do it, you can get this effect where, they start to rely on the,

Jason Hreha: 00:32:18

extrinsic, the reward that you added.

Jason Hreha: 00:32:20

And then if you take that away later, then they lose motivation for the activity.

Jason Hreha: 00:32:23

So that's a,

Dallas Burnett: 00:32:24

Makes

Jason Hreha: 00:32:24

a bargain with the devil, in, in a certain sense.

Jason Hreha: 00:32:27

And so you could do that to try and increase motivation.

Jason Hreha: 00:32:30

Maybe you can make the activity social.

Jason Hreha: 00:32:32

You could add a fun social element to it or add a fun competitive element

Jason Hreha: 00:32:36

to it, to make it fun and social.

Jason Hreha: 00:32:37

But number one, not everybody's competitive, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:32:40

So if you add in points on a leaderboard and stuff like that,

Jason Hreha: 00:32:43

some people will like that.

Jason Hreha: 00:32:44

A lot of other people won't.

Dallas Burnett: 00:32:45

Yes.

Jason Hreha: 00:32:46

and then some activities, you don't really want to be social

Jason Hreha: 00:32:49

or it's just super inconvenient for it to have to be social all the time.

Jason Hreha: 00:32:52

So for a lot of behaviors, increasing the motivation is

Jason Hreha: 00:32:57

extremely hard, if not impossible.

Dallas Burnett: 00:32:58

Right.

Jason Hreha: 00:32:59

so what I started noticing over time was, okay, there

Jason Hreha: 00:33:02

are a lot of behaviors that you just really can't make a lot easier.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:04

There are a lot of behaviors that you just really can't motivate people

Jason Hreha: 00:33:07

to do that much, above and beyond their intrinsic motivation for it.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:11

And so if this is the case, then how do you actually get people

Jason Hreha: 00:33:14

to do these things, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:33:15

It's a good question.

Dallas Burnett: 00:33:17

That's a.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:18

And so my perspective shifted from, okay, let's just figure

Jason Hreha: 00:33:23

out how to get people to do this one behavior to one behavior matching.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:26

So my perspective became, okay, let's say we want to get people running, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:33:31

let's say That's the habit we're trying to get people to form.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:34

And for whatever reason we have a.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:36

group of let's say 10 people.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:37

They're not running.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:38

We really wanna get them all running regularly.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:40

We want them to form a running habit.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:41

Once again, running's really hard.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:43

You can't really make it a whole lot easier.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:44

Running is not that pleasant.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:46

Maybe if you have a running group, it's more fun than it would be if you ran

Jason Hreha: 00:33:49

on your own or if you ran at the gym.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:51

But, at the end of the day, it's like a lot of people

Jason Hreha: 00:33:53

aren't that socially motivated.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:55

there is a lot of individ, there are a lot of individual differences there.

Jason Hreha: 00:33:58

And so in a situation like that, my perspective turned into,

Jason Hreha: 00:34:02

okay, why are we trying to get people to run in the first place?

Jason Hreha: 00:34:05

What's the goal here?

Jason Hreha: 00:34:07

Behaviors are done for a reason like organisms, animals, did not

Jason Hreha: 00:34:13

evolve the ability to do behaviors just for no reason at all.

Jason Hreha: 00:34:16

We do behaviors to gain things or to solve problems in our lives, Right.

Jason Hreha: 00:34:20

there's a function behind each behavior that we do, even if we're not aware of it.

Jason Hreha: 00:34:24

So if you say, okay, I want this group of 10 people to go

Jason Hreha: 00:34:28

running, the question becomes why do you want them to go running?

Dallas Burnett: 00:34:31

Right.

Jason Hreha: 00:34:32

they want to go running?

Jason Hreha: 00:34:33

Is it to gain better cardiovascular health?

Jason Hreha: 00:34:35

Is it to lose weight?

Jason Hreha: 00:34:37

Is it to just relieve stress?

Jason Hreha: 00:34:40

Whatever the reason is that the only way to achieve that end goal is the

Jason Hreha: 00:34:44

only way to lose weight by running?

Jason Hreha: 00:34:46

No, of course not.

Jason Hreha: 00:34:47

you can lose weight a thousand different ways.

Jason Hreha: 00:34:49

You can play tennis, you can go swimming, you can have a diet, you

Jason Hreha: 00:34:53

can take a GLP one drug today, right?

Dallas Burnett: 00:34:55

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:34:55

do there.

Jason Hreha: 00:34:56

There's so many different ways to get that end goal.

Jason Hreha: 00:34:59

And so my entire perspective shifted from, instead of trying to force people or use

Jason Hreha: 00:35:05

these hacks and tricks to get people to do behaviors that they obviously do not want

Jason Hreha: 00:35:09

to do or cannot do, let's instead, based on the goal that we have in mind for them,

Jason Hreha: 00:35:15

let's actually match them with A behavior that's better suited to their individual

Jason Hreha: 00:35:20

unique characteristics and to their goals.

Dallas Burnett: 00:35:23

man that's yeah, that just, it goes right back to what we

Dallas Burnett: 00:35:27

were talking about at the beginning of the conversation when you're talking

Dallas Burnett: 00:35:30

about is your motivation, great enough to overcome these obstacles or your

Dallas Burnett: 00:35:36

ability, your ability to do something.

Jason Hreha: 00:35:38

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:35:39

that's, it's so fascinating 'cause what you're talking

Dallas Burnett: 00:35:41

about is let's say like you're just saying essentially this is the,

Dallas Burnett: 00:35:44

you're starting with the result.

Jason Hreha: 00:35:45

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:35:46

okay, now let's, it's the different ways to skin a cat.

Dallas Burnett: 00:35:49

So if we gonna have this result, how many different things can we come up with

Dallas Burnett: 00:35:54

that could be used to get to that result?

Dallas Burnett: 00:35:56

And hey, pick your poison.

Dallas Burnett: 00:35:57

You can go and choose any one of these things as long as you're

Dallas Burnett: 00:36:01

motivated to do that thing.

Dallas Burnett: 00:36:03

So it's almost like you're just tapping into that intrinsic

Dallas Burnett: 00:36:06

motivation that's already there.

Jason Hreha: 00:36:08

Yep.

Dallas Burnett: 00:36:08

or aligning it to one that has, like for example, if

Dallas Burnett: 00:36:12

they're just really not motivated to exercise and they're just like, I

Dallas Burnett: 00:36:16

am, that's just not my thing at all.

Dallas Burnett: 00:36:17

I'm not playing tennis, I'm not running.

Dallas Burnett: 00:36:19

Then, taking one of those, weight loss, that might be the

Jason Hreha: 00:36:23

Sure.

Jason Hreha: 00:36:23

. Dallas Burnett: person's I just don't like running.

Jason Hreha: 00:36:25

It's mindless.

Jason Hreha: 00:36:25

I just can't get into it.

Jason Hreha: 00:36:27

I like competing.

Jason Hreha: 00:36:28

Okay, maybe the tennis is a good option.

Jason Hreha: 00:36:29

Or maybe, pickleball or whatever, racketball.

Jason Hreha: 00:36:32

I think that's really fascinating.

Jason Hreha: 00:36:34

It definitely puts the onus though, on the

Jason Hreha: 00:36:40

To really get to know the individual, because at that point you can't, I

Jason Hreha: 00:36:45

don't know, do it just seems like

Jason Hreha: 00:36:47

broad brush.

Jason Hreha: 00:36:48

I think in the past this sort of approach was

Jason Hreha: 00:36:50

impractical and often impossible.

Jason Hreha: 00:36:53

I think that the reason that these approaches of, okay, we want everybody

Jason Hreha: 00:36:57

to do a. How do we just force, force or like prod everybody to do

Jason Hreha: 00:37:02

a, I think that approach was more justifiable or more reasonable in

Jason Hreha: 00:37:07

the past when we didn't have, when we didn't have the technologies and the

Jason Hreha: 00:37:11

means to personalize things at scale.

Dallas Burnett: 00:37:14

Agreed.

Jason Hreha: 00:37:14

a government, and you're just looking at like a hundred

Jason Hreha: 00:37:17

million or however many people and you're, it's a nearly impossible

Jason Hreha: 00:37:21

task to say, okay, let's help each person pick the right thing for them.

Jason Hreha: 00:37:25

I think governments and companies, et cetera, I think everybody can do

Jason Hreha: 00:37:28

more on the personalization front.

Jason Hreha: 00:37:30

or could have done more on the personalization front in the past.

Jason Hreha: 00:37:33

I think they could have, but I think today, there's no excuse, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:37:36

We have new technologies.

Jason Hreha: 00:37:38

We have ai, we have LLMs, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:37:40

These sorts of things where actually today we're entering the era where, okay,

Jason Hreha: 00:37:44

instead of just trying to push people and prod people into doing like a thing

Jason Hreha: 00:37:49

or two things, I think we can really actually, now we're getting to the point

Jason Hreha: 00:37:52

we're at scale where for individuals, for groups of people, for huge groups of

Jason Hreha: 00:37:57

people, help matching them to the right.

Jason Hreha: 00:38:00

right activities and the right things for them to accomplish the

Jason Hreha: 00:38:02

aim that we or they have in mind.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:04

Ah, I love that.

Jason Hreha: 00:38:07

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:07

that's so true and I agree with you a hundred percent.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:10

It is that it takes the focus less, it puts the focus less on the thing,

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:15

whatever that motivating thing is, and puts it more on the result and

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:19

saying, okay, what are all the things that we can do to get the result?

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:22

And then allowing that personalization to take place in the workplace.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:26

I think that's think that's so good.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:27

I think that is really good advice.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:29

So if you're listening today at the last 10%, put that down.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:32

Mark that down.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:33

That is a great idea.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:35

That's a great, great truth that we've got today on the show.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:38

I wanna talk a little bit about, 'cause we've got a lot of leaders

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:40

that listen to the last 10%.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:42

They're leading teams are growing

Jason Hreha: 00:38:43

Mm-hmm.

Jason Hreha: 00:38:44

- Dallas Burnett: teams and you went to Walmart and literally built like

Jason Hreha: 00:38:50

your own behavioral science team

Jason Hreha: 00:38:52

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:53

at this massive company.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:55

All right.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:55

You gotta give us a little play by play on that.

Dallas Burnett: 00:38:57

Like a, how in the world did that happen?

Dallas Burnett: 00:39:00

And B what was the biggest challenge, like getting into

Dallas Burnett: 00:39:04

Walmart and just building this team.

Dallas Burnett: 00:39:06

And we will talk about

Jason Hreha: 00:39:07

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:39:08

how you led it in a minute.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:09

I can't say enough good things about Walmart.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:11

Walmart's an incredible company.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:12

they're, I think they're the best retailer in the world.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:14

the people that are incredible, the leaders are incredible.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:17

the stores are insane in a great way, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:39:19

I think that they're just like, they're, you have over a hundred

Jason Hreha: 00:39:22

thousand different unique products in the Supercenters, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:39:25

they're, I think they're marvels.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:26

they're absolute marvels.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:28

And the effort and the work and the care that goes into building the stores and

Jason Hreha: 00:39:32

running the stores and making sure that they're a great experience, it's it's

Jason Hreha: 00:39:35

insane how much work goes into that.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:37

And I was just so blown away by just the level of talent and just

Jason Hreha: 00:39:41

the level of care at the company.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:43

And first of all, I just wanna say I just, I love Walmart.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:44

I'm the biggest Walmart fanboy ever.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:46

and

Dallas Burnett: 00:39:47

I

Jason Hreha: 00:39:47

the way that happened was pretty interesting actually.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:49

I actually got recruited.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:51

There was a guy at Walmart.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:53

and so I actually co-led the group.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:55

in the early days with a guy named Omar, who is just incredible.

Jason Hreha: 00:39:58

so he had been at Walmart for many years and he had gotten permission,

Jason Hreha: 00:40:02

from the leadership at Walmart to build this applied behavioral science group.

Jason Hreha: 00:40:06

And so the two of us co-led the group.

Jason Hreha: 00:40:08

So he brought me in to co-lead the group there.

Jason Hreha: 00:40:11

and the whole idea was, okay, if you think, as I mentioned earlier in this

Jason Hreha: 00:40:15

conversation, every business is in the business of changing behavior.

Jason Hreha: 00:40:19

Every business is in the business of understanding the person that

Jason Hreha: 00:40:23

they're, that who is the customer, the consumer, and getting them

Jason Hreha: 00:40:26

to engage with that business, in positive ways as much as possible.

Jason Hreha: 00:40:31

And so Walmart's very, a very forward thinking company.

Jason Hreha: 00:40:34

And so they, the executives there thought that was a great idea.

Jason Hreha: 00:40:37

And so the two of us built out this group together.

Jason Hreha: 00:40:39

And, I. it's probably my favorite job I've ever had by far.

Jason Hreha: 00:40:44

because we were actually given, we were given a lot of freedom because

Jason Hreha: 00:40:49

I'd say the executives there understood that, they're not, they weren't

Jason Hreha: 00:40:52

experts in applied behavioral science.

Jason Hreha: 00:40:54

Like we were the experts and we understand the toolkit and the

Jason Hreha: 00:40:58

capabilities and what's possible there.

Jason Hreha: 00:41:00

And so the leaders of the company did give us some strategic objectives and strategic

Jason Hreha: 00:41:04

projects to work on, but actually a lot of our time there was spent they gave

Jason Hreha: 00:41:09

us freedom and leeway to figure out, okay, given everything that you know,

Jason Hreha: 00:41:13

and given everything that you see at the company, what do you think we can do?

Jason Hreha: 00:41:16

Or what should we do?

Jason Hreha: 00:41:17

And so I spent a lot of my time going around the company, going to stores,

Jason Hreha: 00:41:23

going to different teams, learning about what they're working on, what are their

Jason Hreha: 00:41:26

strategic objectives, and then based upon that, I could, I. Propose projects

Jason Hreha: 00:41:30

or I could work on different projects.

Jason Hreha: 00:41:32

And so it's hard for me to go into a ton of detail around exactly what we

Jason Hreha: 00:41:36

did, just because it is confidential and I don't wanna, the last thing

Jason Hreha: 00:41:39

I'd wanna do is, spill any secrets, but some of our projects are public.

Jason Hreha: 00:41:43

so for example, one of the big projects that, that we did work on, was, Sam's

Jason Hreha: 00:41:47

Club, Sam Walmart owned Sam's Club.

Jason Hreha: 00:41:49

I don't know how many people know that, but so Walmart, Sam's Club

Jason Hreha: 00:41:51

is like the, the big, the warehouse store similar to Costco of Walmart.

Jason Hreha: 00:41:56

And, they actually created a new store format.

Jason Hreha: 00:41:59

the first store is in Dallas, it's called Sam's Club now.

Jason Hreha: 00:42:02

And so my group is very, very much involved in kind of building out

Jason Hreha: 00:42:05

that new store format and figuring out the behavioral dynamics there,

Jason Hreha: 00:42:09

and then help launching that.

Jason Hreha: 00:42:11

we were also involved heavily with Sam's Club in kind of, they have

Jason Hreha: 00:42:15

an application called Scan and Go where you can check yourself out.

Jason Hreha: 00:42:19

At the store, so you don't have to go through a line.

Jason Hreha: 00:42:20

You can use an app in order to check yourself out.

Jason Hreha: 00:42:22

and so we were heavily involved in increasing the, usage and engagement

Jason Hreha: 00:42:26

with that application and getting members onboard and into that.

Jason Hreha: 00:42:30

We were heavily involved in the new member experience at Sam's Club as well.

Jason Hreha: 00:42:33

So somebody signs up for, a membership at Sam's Club, how

Jason Hreha: 00:42:37

do we ensure that they, love it.

Jason Hreha: 00:42:40

understand exactly how to use it, and then build a habit around

Jason Hreha: 00:42:43

coming to the warehouse stores.

Jason Hreha: 00:42:45

And so we worked on a lot of different projects there.

Jason Hreha: 00:42:48

And it was fascinating for me because this was really my first

Jason Hreha: 00:42:51

intense experience working on what I'd call real world behavior change.

Jason Hreha: 00:42:55

And by real world, I mean in the physical, real world versus in the digital world.

Jason Hreha: 00:42:59

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:43:01

It becomes a lot more, everything becomes significantly more complicated when you're

Jason Hreha: 00:43:04

dealing with people in physical spaces.

Jason Hreha: 00:43:06

or when you're dealing with people, moving and changing their activity

Jason Hreha: 00:43:11

in the real, in, in a physical world versus a digital world.

Jason Hreha: 00:43:14

Because in a digital world, it's pretty constrained, Right.

Jason Hreha: 00:43:17

It's like you just have a little screen in front of you.

Jason Hreha: 00:43:20

People can only do so many things on the screen, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:43:22

if you add a button, it's very likely they're gonna tap the button.

Jason Hreha: 00:43:24

But in a physical space, there's so many different variables.

Jason Hreha: 00:43:27

There's so much happening, right?

Dallas Burnett: 00:43:29

Yeah, you've got all the senses, the sight and the sounds and

Jason Hreha: 00:43:32

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:43:33

. Dallas Burnett: and then the directional things.

Jason Hreha: 00:43:34

you've got, all kind of other things that can impede, what

Jason Hreha: 00:43:37

you're wanting to get 'em to do.

Jason Hreha: 00:43:39

there's so many things that's interesting about that because the team, when you're

Jason Hreha: 00:43:41

talking about building this team, I can totally see what would be a team.

Jason Hreha: 00:43:44

'cause when you, and obviously I'm sure listeners are just enjoying this,

Jason Hreha: 00:43:48

because the amount of planning and detail that goes into just checking

Jason Hreha: 00:43:53

out, just the checking out of products.

Jason Hreha: 00:43:56

a team of people that's working on making that experience

Jason Hreha: 00:43:59

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:00

seamless and as essentially have it forming and

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:03

as easy as possible so that you, don't mind, but enjoy doing it.

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:07

And when you were talking about that though, it makes me feel like it, it

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:10

just reminded me of a ux ui designer,

Jason Hreha: 00:44:13

Mm-hmm.

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:14

that are, because you're talking about behavior, but the behavior

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:17

is Closely linked to design as well.

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:19

So it's almost like

Jason Hreha: 00:44:20

Totally.

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:20

kind of hybrid between knowing how people think and then

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:25

designing a, instead of a computer page.

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:27

Now you're designing an environment to fit that way that people

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:32

operate very fluidly, for where it

Jason Hreha: 00:44:34

Absolutely.

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:35

That's just a fascinating, so tell us, one of the things like

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:38

when, and you don't have to go into details about projects, but, those

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:40

were great, but as it was relates to building that team, did you have any,

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:44

did you have any challenges or, did you have any, things that you had to

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:48

work through with your team in terms of leading and growing that team?

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:51

'cause that's a huge company, and this was a big, you had a lot of projects

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:54

and stuff going on, but anything that you had to, as you got into it,

Dallas Burnett: 00:44:57

you said, man, this was something I learned as a leader, running this or

Dallas Burnett: 00:45:00

growing this behavioral science team.

Jason Hreha: 00:45:03

I would say that the biggest thing I learned is, and actually this

Jason Hreha: 00:45:06

is something that kind of influenced my perspective going into persona, my

Jason Hreha: 00:45:09

current company, the, I'd say the biggest thing I learned is that recruiting's not

Jason Hreha: 00:45:13

everything, but it's almost everything.

Jason Hreha: 00:45:16

and what I mean by that is, I really think that, a company culture or

Jason Hreha: 00:45:21

number one, if you just zoom out a company, what is a company?

Jason Hreha: 00:45:24

A company is just a group of people working together

Jason Hreha: 00:45:26

towards a common goal, right?

Dallas Burnett: 00:45:28

Yes,

Jason Hreha: 00:45:28

So you have two, two el almost two elements there.

Jason Hreha: 00:45:31

You have the goal or the mission, and you have the people, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:45:34

and then, so I guess in that situation it's okay, like you have

Jason Hreha: 00:45:39

basically two things you can tweak.

Jason Hreha: 00:45:40

We can, you can tweak the mission and the product, let's say that kind of

Jason Hreha: 00:45:44

is built to instantiate that mission.

Jason Hreha: 00:45:46

And then you can also tweak who you have in your organization.

Jason Hreha: 00:45:49

And so I really think that, for me, when I was at Walmart, I just, I learned so much

Jason Hreha: 00:45:55

just looking around the company around okay, Walmart has done such a great job

Jason Hreha: 00:46:00

at the corporate level, just and at the store level bring, just finding the right.

Jason Hreha: 00:46:05

people, bringing them on board, nurturing them, making sure

Jason Hreha: 00:46:08

that they uplevel and upskill.

Jason Hreha: 00:46:10

And I really just saw how, like important, it was just like being

Jason Hreha: 00:46:14

very mindful about who you select to be a part of your organization.

Jason Hreha: 00:46:18

And when I was at, when I was recruiting for that team, I realized how hard it is,

Jason Hreha: 00:46:23

especially in the behavioral sciences.

Jason Hreha: 00:46:25

'cause the Applied Behavioral sciences are, it's a pretty new field.

Jason Hreha: 00:46:28

And, when I started doing this work back in, in Silicon Valley, like right.

Jason Hreha: 00:46:31

after working in the persuasive technology lab, I was one of like maybe two or three

Jason Hreha: 00:46:36

or maybe four people total doing this type of work in Silicon Valley at the time.

Jason Hreha: 00:46:39

Now there are a lot more people, but even when I was at Walmart, the pool of applied

Jason Hreha: 00:46:45

behavioral scientists with like real world practical experiences was very low.

Jason Hreha: 00:46:49

And so in order to recruit people, number one, we started reaching out

Jason Hreha: 00:46:53

to a ton of different people with a behavioral science background in, in

Jason Hreha: 00:46:57

an academic or an applied context.

Jason Hreha: 00:46:59

And I just, would bring them in to interview or I'd interview them on the

Jason Hreha: 00:47:01

phone and I realized very quickly that finding the right person was number

Jason Hreha: 00:47:06

one, very hard finding the Right,

Jason Hreha: 00:47:08

person that had the kind of the realistic and, I'd say calibrated academic.

Jason Hreha: 00:47:13

Point of view that not the point of view that I was talking about

Jason Hreha: 00:47:17

much earlier in the conversation of the not reproducing point of view.

Jason Hreha: 00:47:20

'cause a lot of people have the point of view that's built

Jason Hreha: 00:47:21

on non reproducing research,

Dallas Burnett: 00:47:23

right.

Jason Hreha: 00:47:24

but finding people that have the accurate point of view, built

Jason Hreha: 00:47:26

on the good stuff that also have, real wor like that also have like practical

Jason Hreha: 00:47:31

skills so that they can instantiate those ideas into something real in a company.

Dallas Burnett: 00:47:37

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:47:37

very small.

Jason Hreha: 00:47:38

So what I, my perspective at Walmart when recruiting for this team

Jason Hreha: 00:47:43

basically became, wow, finding the right person I. Especially in a

Jason Hreha: 00:47:47

specialized context like this, you're looking for a needle in a haystack.

Jason Hreha: 00:47:50

A haystack.

Jason Hreha: 00:47:51

And so I realized very quickly when I was there, okay, a lot of number

Jason Hreha: 00:47:55

one, A, a company is just a group of people working towards a mission.

Jason Hreha: 00:47:59

And a company is made up of smaller teams that works towards

Jason Hreha: 00:48:02

sub missions or smaller missions.

Jason Hreha: 00:48:03

And so if I'm going to build the best organization and possible, I have

Jason Hreha: 00:48:08

to build the best teams possible and to build the best teams possible,

Jason Hreha: 00:48:11

I have to find the right people.

Jason Hreha: 00:48:12

And finding the right people is really hard.

Jason Hreha: 00:48:14

And you, have to sift through a lot of different talent to find the right fit for

Jason Hreha: 00:48:17

your specific organization and its needs.

Jason Hreha: 00:48:20

And so my mindset at Walmart really shifted into this whole idea of recruiting

Jason Hreha: 00:48:25

is a number, is largely a numbers game.

Jason Hreha: 00:48:28

And if it's a numbers game, you have two options.

Jason Hreha: 00:48:31

Number one is you just, if you're a company leader, you have to

Jason Hreha: 00:48:33

spend all your time doing this.

Jason Hreha: 00:48:35

that's option one.

Jason Hreha: 00:48:36

Option two is you build and use tools to do this.

Dallas Burnett: 00:48:39

Right.

Jason Hreha: 00:48:40

it was at Walmart where I think the, when I was doing all

Jason Hreha: 00:48:43

this, I had the first kind of inkling of what I wanted to end up building,

Jason Hreha: 00:48:47

which is I wanted to build a, an automated or a semi-automated set of

Jason Hreha: 00:48:52

recruiting tools that would allow me to, At scale, find people that kind

Jason Hreha: 00:48:58

of fit the archetype that I want

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:01

Hmm.

Jason Hreha: 00:49:02

and then bring them on board.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:03

a great way to, to take it though.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:05

That's because when you think about it, and you talked about,

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:07

you kinda hinted at the beginning, is that culture is so important

Jason Hreha: 00:49:11

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:11

and your culture is your people, like your people.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:15

And that what they do and how they do it ultimately is the culture, their mindset,

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:21

their shared values and all these things.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:24

you.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:25

you can start by bringing in people that you already know are in alignment

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:30

with that, not only with just their values, but their skillset.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:34

Because if you bring in, if you have a high performers on the team,

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:37

you bring in somebody that's not a high performer, a mid to low

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:41

performer, it's just gonna, it's.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:43

That's not going well.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:44

for either party.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:45

And so by just being able to align some of those metrics, it gives

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:48

you more of an ability, I think, to create a stronger culture faster.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:51

Because you're bringing in people who are already getting it.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:54

They're like, oh, they're gonna see it and go, oh yeah, totally.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:57

Yeah, that's, I get it.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:57

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:49:58

I'm there, versus somebody who you're having to either bring up to speed or

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:02

spend more time training on, or maybe they're just not equipped to begin.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:05

They're just not.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:06

It's a, round peg in a square hole kind of thing, and you're just

Jason Hreha: 00:50:09

Totally

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:09

there.

Jason Hreha: 00:50:10

couldn't agree more.

Jason Hreha: 00:50:11

. Dallas Burnett: good could.

Jason Hreha: 00:50:11

That's a really good now.

Jason Hreha: 00:50:13

All right, we got one more topic I wanna hit before

Jason Hreha: 00:50:15

Okay.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:15

the show.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:15

And that is this.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:16

And we could talk for three hours.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:17

'cause I'm in this is awesome.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:18

It's a really good conversation.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:19

But I, I'm very interested in, because you're a behavioral scientist and

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:24

we have a lot of leaders who are managing teams that are in the office.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:29

We have some that are managing teams.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:31

That's a hybrid situation.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:32

And we have some, this management teams is completely remote.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:35

I'm just interested and you're not, I'm not asking you to

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:38

throw shade on any of it.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:38

They're all existing post COVID that I know.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:40

A lot of people have moved remote.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:42

You've been in the tech, I know Tech is, a lot of remote as well, but then

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:46

some that are, wanting people to be in, creating these spaces in the go.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:49

you hear the stories about the Google,

Jason Hreha: 00:50:50

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:51

and free lunches and the futons and ping

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:53

pong tables and that stuff.

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:54

So in your opinion, as a behavioral health science, expert, do you

Dallas Burnett: 00:50:58

see an advantage for people being together in an office environment

Dallas Burnett: 00:51:03

versus remote or virtually the same?

Dallas Burnett: 00:51:05

And then how would you say we would manage remote differently

Dallas Burnett: 00:51:09

than say a, an environment?

Dallas Burnett: 00:51:11

I'm just very curious to hear your

Jason Hreha: 00:51:12

Yeah, so I, I think it's undoubtedly true that the

Jason Hreha: 00:51:15

office is better than remote, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:51:17

All, all things equal.

Dallas Burnett: 00:51:19

Yeah,

Jason Hreha: 00:51:19

I think the issue is that, let me just say this.

Jason Hreha: 00:51:21

I think that offices better than remote, but remote allows a lot of companies

Jason Hreha: 00:51:26

to hire better people than they would otherwise be able to hire in person.

Dallas Burnett: 00:51:30

that's true.

Dallas Burnett: 00:51:31

Okay.

Jason Hreha: 00:51:32

So if you had the ability to, get every single person in the office,

Jason Hreha: 00:51:37

like talent, quality, talent level, Equal.

Jason Hreha: 00:51:41

Yes, of course that's better than being like, remote.

Jason Hreha: 00:51:44

But I think that a lot of companies unfortunately, just can't do that.

Jason Hreha: 00:51:48

It's like you may be in, you may be in a, a second or third tier talent

Jason Hreha: 00:51:52

city, and the people that you know are in your local market just aren't

Jason Hreha: 00:51:57

quite at the level that you want.

Jason Hreha: 00:51:59

But you can hire somebody from, anywhere in the world who's

Jason Hreha: 00:52:02

at the level yet you want.

Jason Hreha: 00:52:03

And since remote is a perk, a lot of people that you, number one that aren't

Jason Hreha: 00:52:08

in your area or that you wouldn't otherwise be able to convince to work

Jason Hreha: 00:52:12

for you, now you can get to work for you.

Jason Hreha: 00:52:15

And So I think that, I think that on balance, I think remote just

Jason Hreha: 00:52:18

makes a lot of sense for probably most companies to have at least

Jason Hreha: 00:52:21

part of their workforce remote.

Jason Hreha: 00:52:23

Just because once again, it's.

Jason Hreha: 00:52:24

are you gonna be able to otherwise locally find people at the same

Jason Hreha: 00:52:28

level to do exactly what you want?

Jason Hreha: 00:52:29

Probably not.

Jason Hreha: 00:52:30

but if you're somebody like Google or Meta or Apple.

Jason Hreha: 00:52:34

where number one, you can just throw money at problems.

Jason Hreha: 00:52:37

And number two, you have a, you're so desirable and high status as an employer.

Dallas Burnett: 00:52:42

that's right.

Jason Hreha: 00:52:43

I think in those situations, those companies I think

Jason Hreha: 00:52:46

should probably all just be in person.

Jason Hreha: 00:52:48

And they have the ability to convince, basically, not everybody,

Jason Hreha: 00:52:52

but most people to just, Hey, listen, you wanna work for us?

Jason Hreha: 00:52:55

You're gonna come into the office, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:52:57

Or, Hey, cool, I know cost of living's higher in the Bay Area, we'll pay you

Jason Hreha: 00:53:00

extra, but we want you to be here.

Jason Hreha: 00:53:02

That makes sense for them.

Jason Hreha: 00:53:03

But for most companies, I think that, yeah, most companies aren't

Jason Hreha: 00:53:06

Apple, most companies aren't Google.

Jason Hreha: 00:53:08

Most companies don't have that level of power to do that.

Jason Hreha: 00:53:10

and don't have the pocketbooks to be able to do that.

Jason Hreha: 00:53:12

And so for most companies, I think.

Jason Hreha: 00:53:14

Okay.

Jason Hreha: 00:53:15

We can get incredible people from all over the world.

Jason Hreha: 00:53:18

They don't just have to be in our specific area.

Jason Hreha: 00:53:20

We can hire people from, different states, different countries, and

Jason Hreha: 00:53:24

we can just, with the whole global market as our talent market, I think

Jason Hreha: 00:53:28

they can get much better people.

Jason Hreha: 00:53:29

And so I'd say for most companies, remote makes a lot of sense.

Jason Hreha: 00:53:33

the whole point of it is you can then, now you have access to so much more talent

Jason Hreha: 00:53:37

and you can find the exact right fit and the, and significantly better people.

Dallas Burnett: 00:53:40

I think you're right.

Dallas Burnett: 00:53:41

if I found the best person, but they're working remote, let's say we're only

Dallas Burnett: 00:53:45

gonna get 90% of their best at remote,

Jason Hreha: 00:53:47

Sure.

Dallas Burnett: 00:53:48

10% if they're in person.

Dallas Burnett: 00:53:50

But if in my market I can only hire the average person for that job,

Dallas Burnett: 00:53:53

it's like you're saying, if you don't have top tier talent in your

Dallas Burnett: 00:53:55

market, then maybe they're 50%.

Dallas Burnett: 00:53:57

obviously if I get,

Jason Hreha: 00:53:58

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:53:59

if I get the 90% of the best, that's still 40% more

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:02

than what I'm getting in my market.

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:03

So I can see how that would be, an advantageous, move.

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:06

I just, I'm a, maybe I'm old school, but I love that connection piece.

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:10

When you talk about culture, it's, to me, it's so much

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:13

easier to build that connection.

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:14

I think about, from an employment standpoint or an employer standpoint,

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:18

we know each other, so I want to, you're going through something at

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:22

home with the kids or whatever.

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:24

I'm like, Hey, I'm, I know you, I see you at the office every day.

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:27

Whereas if you're just on the other screen, the other side of the screen

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:29

somewhere else, we have no connection.

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:31

There's just.

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:32

There's something that's different there and I just feel like

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:34

we'll relate just a little bit differently, if that's the case.

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:37

But, I would love to hear, is there things that you've seen, you've been in

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:40

the tech space, you've been at Walmart, you've been in this behavioral space.

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:43

Is there things that you've seen as a remote?

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:46

If I'm leading a remote team, is there things that you've

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:48

seen that's worked really well?

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:50

Or as a behavioral scientist, leaders could do if they're in this

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:54

environment of leading remote team?

Dallas Burnett: 00:54:56

What's some things that you've seen work really well?

Jason Hreha: 00:54:58

number one, I think that I don't think everybody's

Jason Hreha: 00:55:00

equally well suited for remote work.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:02

I think that, it's even more important to pick the right

Jason Hreha: 00:55:06

people and to vet for the right.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:08

people.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:08

If you have a remote team, you want people that are very self-motivated, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:55:13

That without kind of a, without a boss kind of hovering over them

Jason Hreha: 00:55:17

and watching their every move.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:18

People that are just self-motivated, they're gonna follow through.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:20

So I think, screening for that and being very intense about looking for that.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:25

is so much more important if you're dealing with a remote team.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:29

That's number one.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:29

Number two is people who are like hyper social, and just really hyper extroverted.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:36

Not always the great.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:37

best fit, right for remote team, right?

Jason Hreha: 00:55:39

It's just not good for them.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:40

they'll become demotivated over time.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:42

And so I think that, I think you really have to look for that personality match

Jason Hreha: 00:55:45

much more intensely with a remote team.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:48

And, so I think it just makes the recruiting process even more important and

Jason Hreha: 00:55:51

harder when you're dealing with remote.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:53

So I'd say that

Dallas Burnett: 00:55:53

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:54

the most part, I'd say that's how it will, it should impact

Jason Hreha: 00:55:57

how you think about remote work.

Jason Hreha: 00:55:59

That's, those are the first two things.

Jason Hreha: 00:56:01

The next thing is in an office, I think you can be a little bit

Jason Hreha: 00:56:04

more laissez-faire, a little bit more chill about, about standups

Jason Hreha: 00:56:08

meetings, these sorts of things.

Jason Hreha: 00:56:10

Just because they're built into the environment where

Jason Hreha: 00:56:13

you're just around each other.

Jason Hreha: 00:56:14

You're having these sa small side conversations all the time.

Jason Hreha: 00:56:16

You're catching up with your colleagues and so you have this knowledge

Jason Hreha: 00:56:19

transfer, this like kind of a natural knowledge transfer and natural kind of.

Dallas Burnett: 00:56:23

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:56:24

Water cooler.

Jason Hreha: 00:56:24

stuff,

Dallas Burnett: 00:56:25

cooler.

Jason Hreha: 00:56:25

you also have accountability built into it because if you're all in

Jason Hreha: 00:56:28

the office and somebody's showing up at, an hour late every day, or they're

Jason Hreha: 00:56:32

just like slacking off, it becomes very obvious very quickly, and they probably

Jason Hreha: 00:56:36

will realize it very quickly and then their behavior will shift based upon that.

Jason Hreha: 00:56:40

but with remote, you don't have that level of, the accountability layer is

Jason Hreha: 00:56:44

often by default, a little bit lower and there's just a little bit less oversight,

Jason Hreha: 00:56:48

just of course 'cause they're at home.

Jason Hreha: 00:56:49

and so I think that with remote, you have to be much more mindful about

Jason Hreha: 00:56:53

having daily standups and recurring meetings and recurring check-ins

Jason Hreha: 00:56:57

and just like these mechanisms, like

Dallas Burnett: 00:56:59

Mm.

Jason Hreha: 00:56:59

just have to build a lot more of them into your company

Jason Hreha: 00:57:02

and its culture, or else you're just not gonna get as good performance.

Jason Hreha: 00:57:06

And you also have to have more, I think, explicit, knowledge capture

Jason Hreha: 00:57:10

and like knowledge management, let's call it systems in place,

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:13

Yes.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:14

Yes.

Jason Hreha: 00:57:14

as I just mentioned, like in, in person.

Jason Hreha: 00:57:16

That's happening naturally.

Jason Hreha: 00:57:17

Everybody's getting on the same page.

Jason Hreha: 00:57:18

Everybody's picking up in these little things, but remote all of

Jason Hreha: 00:57:21

that side chatter, all those small conversations are not happening.

Jason Hreha: 00:57:24

And so you have to build that then into your processes.

Jason Hreha: 00:57:27

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:28

I think that's great too.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:29

I agree with that 100%.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:31

you need to know and build those in.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:33

I think that's really good advice.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:35

Very well, very good.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:36

screening for very motivated people and maybe if you're hyper extroverted than

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:40

this, those are all very good things.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:43

And so I, this has just been a pleasure talking to you today, Jason.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:46

I

Jason Hreha: 00:57:46

Amen.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:47

your time today.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:47

And so we got a couple things.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:49

Number one, tell us about your company and how people can

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:52

connect with you if they want to.

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:54

A, get your book, find out more about your company or connect

Dallas Burnett: 00:57:57

with you, how will people do that?

Jason Hreha: 00:57:59

Yeah, so my company's called Persona.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:01

Our website is persona talent.com.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:03

so we do remote recruiting and staffing for companies.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:07

we focus on non-technical roles just because we find that?

Jason Hreha: 00:58:10

those are actually the hardest to recruit for because with a technical

Jason Hreha: 00:58:13

role, if you're trying to hire a developer, it's pretty easy to

Jason Hreha: 00:58:16

actually vet technical ability.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:18

You can just look at their pass code, you can look at their past projects.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:22

It's quite simple to determine whether or not they have the

Jason Hreha: 00:58:26

skills that they claim they have.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:28

But when you're dealing with these non-technical roles where it's like

Jason Hreha: 00:58:30

a little bit fuzzier, then you're dealing with things like personality,

Jason Hreha: 00:58:33

problem solving, ability, et cetera.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:35

Those are very hard to measure, and that's really our expertise at the company is

Jason Hreha: 00:58:40

putting numbers, hard numbers on these, like more fuzzy intangible skills.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:45

And so that's persona talent.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:47

So for any remote, non-technical roles, I do think we're the

Jason Hreha: 00:58:50

best in the world at that.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:51

I I think, if we're not the best in the world, we're at

Jason Hreha: 00:58:53

least the most rigorous at that.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:54

So I'll say that.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:56

so there's that company.

Jason Hreha: 00:58:58

And then, for my book's on Amazon, It's called Real Change.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:00

I have a very weird last name.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:02

It's H-R-E-H-A.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:04

So my name's Jason Rhea.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:05

If you just type my name in or type in Real Change, you'll see the book there.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:09

the, the cover has a butterfly on it.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:11

It's a cool cover.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:11

I actually,

Dallas Burnett: 00:59:12

a

Jason Hreha: 00:59:12

I actually had the guy that did, that did, some of Adam

Jason Hreha: 00:59:14

Grant's covers and James Clear's cover Do that cover actually.

Dallas Burnett: 00:59:18

totally can see that.

Dallas Burnett: 00:59:19

I

Jason Hreha: 00:59:19

yeah, yeah,

Dallas Burnett: 00:59:20

that feel?

Dallas Burnett: 00:59:21

That's awesome.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:22

He's the man.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:23

Yeah.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:23

He's the best, book, cover designer in the world.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:25

at least from my perspective.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:26

I love him, love his work.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:27

I was honored that he was, he was willing to work with me.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:30

and then I have a website.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:32

It's the behavioral scientist.com.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:34

I put articles up on there.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:35

I have a newsletter, you can sign up for it.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:37

I share thoughts.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:38

you can also connect with me on LinkedIn.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:39

I put a lot of thoughts on there too, and those are the best places to find me.

Jason Hreha: 00:59:43

And, feel free to shoot me a line, shoot me an email, from my website

Jason Hreha: 00:59:47

and be happy to talk with you.

Dallas Burnett: 00:59:49

That's awesome.

Dallas Burnett: 00:59:49

All right, so now we always ask the guest on the last 10% to close

Dallas Burnett: 00:59:53

out the show, who would you like to hear as a guest on the last 10%?

Jason Hreha: 01:00:00

Can you guess who I'm gonna say?

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:01

I'm guessing it might be James Clear.

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:03

Is that,

Jason Hreha: 01:00:04

James Clear would be amazing.

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:05

maybe BJ Fog.

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:06

What about that?

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:07

Am I

Jason Hreha: 01:00:07

Exactly.

Jason Hreha: 01:00:08

That's what I was gonna say.

Jason Hreha: 01:00:09

I was gonna say BJ Fog,

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:10

BJ

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:10

Okay, great.

Jason Hreha: 01:00:11

I think he's like kind of the father of modern applied behavioral

Jason Hreha: 01:00:15

science, at least in the technology world.

Jason Hreha: 01:00:17

So I think he's the most important person in the field.

Jason Hreha: 01:00:19

he's absolutely incredible.

Jason Hreha: 01:00:21

he'd be a great guest

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:22

man.

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:22

All right, we'll have to, we'll have to get together off the show.

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:24

Maybe you can connect me.

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:25

connect us, on, and we'll see if he's got some time for the last 10%, that would be

Jason Hreha: 01:00:29

Yeah, would love to.

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:30

So that's great.

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:31

Jason, again, thank you for your time today and, look forward to, look forward

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:35

to checking out your book and you guys check out persona and all that he's into.

Dallas Burnett: 01:00:39

So thanks again.

Jason Hreha: 01:00:41

Thanks for having me.