Transformative Experiences: Why People Want Control of Their “Change”

It’s almost universal. When we ask people about behavior change, personal transformation, nudges, encouragement, and other aspects of transformations where they know they need to change, they say they like support and guidance but they also want control of their change. Of course, it would just be so much easier if our customers, patients, employees, and audiences would just be compliant. After all, they hire us to know what we are doing. Shouldn’t they want to follow our process? 

In fact, sometimes they do want to follow our process. This week, at my wife’s behest, I got a manicure and pedicure.  I checked my man card and stepped into Luxury Nails and Spa. It was a little uncomfortable at first, but I told the woman who approached me that this was my first time and that she would have to explain everything to me. I wanted to follow her process and I didn’t have any expectations for control. 

Agency and Situation

Like going to a nail spa for the first time, transformative experiences are very different when someone is new to the experience. But once participants become familiar with the experience they want control. There are lots of reasons why this is the case. Control makes them feel powerful. Control lets them have a voice. Control allows them to go at their own pace. And on and on. At the heart of all of these reasons is agency and situation. Designers of transformations must understand that agency, or the ability to act upon and not be acted on, is core to being human. In most cases we don’t want to become something that we don’t have control over. We want to be involved, sometimes heavily, in choice making. In fact, our ability to make better decisions is part of the transformation. Companies who create transformations should always understand that compliance is not the goal. Better decision making through agency is. 

Situation is the next foundational reason why people want control. No transformation happens outside of unique situations. All transformations are contextual events. And often the situation is a prime driver for the change. A person has a high school reunion coming up and therefore decides to go on a diet and workout for three months to make sure he looks his best for the reunion. So he signs up for a program to help him. The program all too often has strict requirements regarding food and exercise that the person, because of his work and family life, cannot always maintain. That’s a program that doesn’t address situations and it’s why most people want control over their transformation. They understand their situations better than the program does. 

Who among us, having set up our smart watch to track our steps, doesn't get angry when the watch sends us an alert while we are driving to another state saying that we need to stand up and start walking? 

Design for Control 

Many companies think that they are designing for control when they allow their customers to set preferences. Preferences have very little to do with agency and situation. When I tell you that I prefer chicken to roast beef, I’m not at all describing how my preferences change depending upon mood, temperament, family situation, or the fact that I’ve had chicken for 8 days straight. 

Instead, companies should design transformations so the people can see and control their own data, create parameters for their activities, set their own pace, have a back up plan, and be motivated in meaningful ways, never coerced. That’s agency and situation.