Mind over money: Using behavioral psychology to boost your employee equity engagement

Chris Dohrmann  00:00

Hello, you’re listening to Prosperity at Work from J.P. Morgan Workplace Solutions, the podcast all about equity, communication, compensation, financial, well being and more. I’m your host Chris Dorman.

In our recent Workplace Solutions equity compensation administration survey, we found that 47% of companies found that communication was their main pain point. Great equity compensation plan, communications are all about what makes people tick and how to trigger the behavior you want. Today’s guest is perhaps the top expert in that game, Jeff Kreisler, head of behavioral psychology at JP. Morgan, I got a chance to pick his brains on how to motivate people to engage with their rewards. Jeff, thanks for joining us on the show. Thanks for the invite. I’m going to let you do your own introduction, because it’s extensive, and I I’m sure I’m not going to do it justice. So please tell us what you do and what you’ve been doing with JP Morgan.

Jeff Kreisler  01:04

Sure, happy to do so. And I’ll give you the short You’re not my therapist version of my background. My name is My name is Jeff Chrysler. I currently serve as the Global Head of behavioral science for JP Morgan Chase, and I’ve recently realized that, since we don’t have offices on any other planets. I’m also the galactic head of behavioral science. So for anyone in their company that is, like the Global Head of HR, you’re also galactic. Anyway. So we’ll talk more about what behavioral science is and how I think it’s useful for all of the audience here. But as far as my background and how I landed here, I went to Princeton, I went to law school, and then, as most people do, I became a stand up comedian for a lot of reasons, and one of which was because the stuff I studied in economics and finance in Princeton and in law school was not how I saw people really acting right. We didn’t really follow the rules of supply and demand or legal structures. We acted irrationally. We acted nuts. And as a comedian, I was like, Hey, look at these crazy things people do. And then eventually I stumbled in behavioral science, and they said, Yeah, this is why, and this is what we can do about it. To shorten the steps between I through comedy, I was always interested in this hypocrisy, or this way that we acted against our own interests. I ended up writing a book that got in the hands of a man named Dan Ariely, who wrote predictably irrational, one of leading thinkers in the field. We did several projects together, and the relevant one is we wrote a book together called dollars and cents, which is available in 22 countries, a best seller, 99% because of his name attached to it. But nonetheless, it sort of gave me the opportunity to use my skills in communications and through comedy and all the media work and TV, everything I done, I said, I want to advocate for this, for individuals, families, communities, organizations. And I ran a platform called people science for many years that was a communication between the practitioners of the researchers of the science and those that try to put it into practice, both public and private industry, because it’s new. It’s really only been in business world for the last, let’s say, 10 years at this point, and then I had an opportunity building off of that here at JP Morgan, and this is where I am now, excellent.

Chris Dohrmann  03:24

I’ve heard you talk about behavioral change, and that’s the dream for equity administrators and, you know, and that’s what at workplace solutions we’re focused on. So getting employees to go from, I’m not really sure what this equity means. And, you know, I hope it works out to be fully engaged and have some level of understanding, or at least know what the trajectory is. Is the goal, where can a non behavioral scientist start with this? You know, how can you get it in the hands of the people that are actually trying to do this, and give them a goal, and, you know, a plan.

Jeff Kreisler  03:59

It’s great question, and I’m going to ask your audience to indulge in a few minutes, to step back, because there is a framework that’s well proven that we’ll address. It’s called B equals m, A, P. We’ll get to it. But before, I think there’s a couple sort of core principles of behavioral science that are worth keeping in mind for this context than any first, as many may know, behavioral science is a study of how emotion and psychology impact decision making and behavior basically. Why do we and those that we care about do the certain things that they do, and what if anything can we do about it? And it’s not magic. You can’t just snap your fingers and have things happen. But hopefully it nudges to use a term of art people to sort of open their mind for better decisions for themselves and those that they serve. It tips the scales a little, but there are two guiding principles that before we get into the framework, I think are important. Number one, making good decisions is hard. Making good decisions is hard. It’s hard for everyone. It’s hard in every context, be that financial, be that the workplace, be that in your family, it’s hard to do something now. All for the benefit of the future, whether that future is, what are my returns on my investment going to be in 40 years of my retirement, or how does this impact my career and the project I’m working on, or my team we’re trying to do something now, when we feel these emotions in the present for the benefit of the future that we’re not as connected to, and that future is uncertain, it can be scary. On the positive side. If we do a good decision, we’re serving our goals and our dreams and what we want to achieve. But all that stuff is really emotional, your goals, your values, your legacy, the uncertainty. And so when people are making decisions on a day to day in the moment basis, they’re not thinking about the big idea. They’re thinking about like, I just want to get through this choice. They just want to leave that decision point and say, I feel good about that. That isn’t the good thing. Isn’t always the right thing. It’s just what feels good for a variety of reasons that my field has researched tons of we can talk about, but that’s our challenge as HR, professionals, managers, leaders, teammates, etc, is to make it so the right choice for not just our team and our bottom line before that person, that employee, the right choice is the one that feels good, is the one that is that instinctive, quick thing, because we confront the second big principle, and then we’ll get to the point of the podcast, and that is that we cannot change human nature. We can’t change people. We can’t change the underlying emotions and psychology and fears and excitement and motivations that make us and those that we work with do the things that we do. But what we can do, and I believe we have to do, is we can understand human nature, understand why we and those that we work with make the choices they do. What is it that moves them to make these decisions that are often undermining their own goals? And then when we understand that, then we create relationships, conversations, frameworks, tools, so that we help them use human nature for their benefit, instead of having it used against them. So instead of fighting to change people every time they make a choice, we work with who they are to get to the best outcome.

Chris Dohrmann  07:03

So let’s talk about motivations. What are the triggers for motivations, and which are the strongest when it comes to something like talking about equity and you know, more seriously, you know, or at least talking about it in a way that they want more information

Jeff Kreisler  07:20

Just to set the stage. B equals m, A, P is a behavior change. Framework, again, context matters. It’s not perfect, it’s not guaranteed, but it’s a nice starting point. B is the behavior that you want to get people to undertake, right? And by the way, behavior is a behavior. It’s not an outcome. In other words, a behavior is not I want to lose 10 pounds, it’s I want to exercise once this week. And same with our employees. It’s the specific choices so you identify that behavior, engage with your equity plan in this case, and that’s a combination of motivation ability and prompt. Motivation ability and prompt, working backwards, prompt just means a timely prompt, right? Tell me about my equity elections the week before I need to do it not two weeks later. Ability make it simple, lower the barriers. Don’t put unnecessary roadblocks in the way of me doing something that’s hard. And then ultimately, from my perspective, the biggest thing is that we talked about m motivation. Give me a reason to do this thing, even if it’s as simple as checking a box that you put right in front of me. You know, you can make the world’s most amazing red button, but if no, let me go back, you can make the world’s most amazing red button, but if nobody wants to push it, they won’t. And so give employees a reason to do that, to push that red button, to engage. And broadly speaking, you know, we think of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic being internal, extrinsic being external. And most of the time, when we’ve designed incentive programs, try to get people to do stuff, we lean on extrinsic motivation external things that’s like reward and punishment, that’s basically money, right? A lot of ways, or far right? You work at this car dealership, you sell 10 cars this month, you get a $5,000 bonus. You don’t sell two. You’re fired. That stuff matters. It’s not irrelevant, right? It gets people to do stuff. But broadly speaking, if you take that away, they’re not going to still want to do it, right? They haven’t created a real drive to do it. And you have to have some of that intrinsic there. You have to have some baseline. But the stuff that gets people to really engage and give a little bit more, and to go deeper than sort of the bare minimum, is the intrinsic, the internal motivation connecting to a sense of purpose, a sense of identity, something that they want beyond just the money and and, you know, if you think about like money, anybody can provide money only You can provide something specific to that individual money is is universal. Everyone can hold it and everyone can get it. Everyone can give it a feeling. You know, I got to take my family on a trip to Hawaii because I hit my goal, and we have these amazing memories that’s unique. To circle back to your question about sort of, what are some of I don’t know if you use the term levers, that’s the term I use. Of the things that we should consider to ignite this intrinsic motivation, which is where my focus is again, the extrinsic the money, all that stuff matters. But let’s focus here on this extra bit. I like to think of a few things. One is sort of the basic human need for three things, there’s something called self determination theory. Don’t know that I say it so I sound smart, and it basically says that we are we get satisfaction, meaning happiness, contentment from three areas, community, competence and control. Community competence and control. I think of them as a three C’s. Community. We’re social creatures, right? We want to be part of a team. You’re working on a project. You’re trying to get people to do stuff. Are you engaged? Right? Everybody? It’s harnessing social proof, right? Some great research shows, hey, 72% of your coworkers have signed up for the equity plan before April 7. Do you want to join them? Right? That sense of being part of something is very powerful in a lot of contexts, and I would venture it’s one of the most powerful ways for that sorts of things, for in the research, to get people to engage in benefits that they’re sort of leaving on the table is like, it’s kind of a little FOMO, right? Everyone else is doing it right? Yeah, there’s, there’s nuance, there competence, that we’re smart, that we’re growing, that we’re engaged, that we’re doing, we’re using our mind. And again, you think in the equity space like this is the this is what the smart employees are doing. This is what the high achievers are doing. This is what people thinking about their career and their family are doing. In other words, I’m not quite hitting the framing the language, but it’s like tapping into that need to be doing the right thing and to be being smart and strategic and thoughtful and control is, I think, straightforward. It’s not bossing others around, though we’ve all worked with folks like that. It’s having autonomy over our own career, our own future, our own lives, our day to day, and like in the equity context, like, Look, you can’t control everything. I think these days you look geopolitically without having an opinion, it feels like things are out of control. Well, you can control what you can control, and some of that is how much equity you have in the future. The professionals on this call know the language better, but in other words, like, here’s an opportunity to do something smart that a lot of folks are doing to provide for their family, and it’s unique to you, and you can really take control of at least this one part of your life and your future. Now all those things, if you’ll indulge one more thought before I let you get a word in edgewise, while those are sort of a little the three different important categories, a lot of them feed back into a sense of purpose, a sense of identity and like that is one of the really powerful motivators. A lot of things. It’s like a question of, like, why are you making this choice? Who are you? What? What matters to you, right? Not the like, how much you get paid and what do you do? But like, Are you a provider? Are you an innovator? Are you someone who thinks ahead for their family, connecting to that bigger thing is so powerfully motivating. You know, Adam Grant, who, I imagine many people on this call are familiar with Professor Wharton, one of his favorite projects. He took people at a call center, people that there’s no autonomy. They’re following the script. It’s not pleasant work, and he gave half of them a letter. They were they were raising money for a scholarship, and half of them got a letter from someone who’d received a scholarship, describing how that had changed their lives. The other half didn’t get this letter. The half that got the letter essentially got something that said, this is the point of your boring, horrible work, of picking up phone calls and getting a reject all the time, there’s there’s meaning and impact in what you do. Those people outperform the others. So at the same work, Project script almost two to one, just because they knew there was a point to it. My other favorite sort of anecdote slash study, is that when they were building the space program, President JFK went down to the Space Center at NASA, and he met a bunch of people. And one person he met was a janitor. And he said to the janitor, hey, what do you do here? And the janitor said, I’m helping put a man on the moon. Now, the janitor cleans toilets and picks up trash room nerds, but in that moment, speaking to the president, he was part of something bigger. He had a purpose or reason to get out of bed when he fought with his partner in his car wasn’t working right? And if you think about like, we’re not asking when it comes to equity elections, you know, we’re to ask people every day to salute the flag. We’re asking them to, like, harness that one moment of thinking, okay, like what matters to me. What am I part of? And everyone can have different purpose, right? Doesn’t have to be the corporate mission statement. It can be our own mission. So I want to provide for my family. I’m a first generation with this opportunity. I want to retire at 50 like I whatever it is, like. I want to do this thing, like helping them connect to that sharing, again, that social proof of stories of. How others have thought about X, Y, Z, their family, their future, whatever it may be, that is really powerfully motivating, more so I would venture than that dollar, not that the dollar is a matter, but you can layer this on top of that, and that’s going to, I believe, get people over the hump.

Chris Dohrmann  15:16

Jeff, everything that you’ve said so far is fantastic. What I’d like to do is give the HR people, or the total rewards, or the compensation people listening to this, they’re always thinking, how to make it easier for the employee. What’s the secret of this? What enables them to give the employee agency?

Jeff Kreisler  15:34

I think it is, as you had indicated, making it easy on them, like in so many contexts, when you’re across from somebody, whether it’s a hiring decision, it’s designing an interface on an app, make it easy for them to keep moving forward, put remove as many roadblocks as the regulations allow you to do. You know, getting people the opt in is the or the default is to opt into something they can still get out of it, right? You never want to restrict their choices, but you make it so that the default is the right thing. There’s a many design elements. And if I can recommend a book, am I allowed to recommend a book? Yes, give me an odd cool there’s a woman named Amy Bucha, B, U, C, H, E R, wrote a book called engage, which has a fantastic look at like, probably 150 design tweaks, using behavioral science to kind of get people, you know, like on page one of a sign in and onboarding process all the way through page 10. And there’s just, like, a lot of things, little tweaks to make it easy for them. And I would say the same in however you interact with with your employees, like serve it up to them. Of course, my perspective layer on the why and the motivation, but don’t make somebody come into your office in the sub basement on Saturday afternoon, you know, like bring it to them at their lunch on Thursday.

Chris Dohrmann  16:47

Okay, so finally, let’s talk about prompts. I’ve heard about there being three kinds of prompts. Can you elaborate?

Jeff Kreisler  16:54

Yeah, well, the key to prompts is really having to be timely and again, sort of served up in a way that people will react to. And a prompt is just, I might call it a nudge. It’s it’s a suggestion to do something. It’s an email that says, Don’t forget your elections. It’s a reminder, hey, you have two days left to do your your elections. It’s getting to people at the right time when they’re receptive to it. Now you could there’s a whole science to drill down when exactly it is like this fascinating research on when do you send cold, cold call emails, right? Outreach, and it was like Thursday mornings at 1005. Is the best time for that. You don’t have to get that specific, but recognize, within whatever your organization is like, When are good and bad times? Like, are you in an organization that’s tied to the market? And so anything before four o’clock is going to get ignored. Are you an organization where people are working on the weekends, like think about the timing of those reminders and serve it up in a way that people actually will read the email and then move forward. That’s really the key. Is the context, the timing and the design, so that again, the prompts, then harness all that, make it easy and make it motivating.

Chris Dohrmann  18:09

Okay, now we’re going to move on to what we call either the rapid fire or the rapid response part of the podcast. And what we’re hoping to get is real, Top of Mind information from you and really and just not give you a whole lot of time to respond. But we’re not trying to, you know, make you uncomfortable about it either. So are you ready?

Jeff Kreisler  18:28

As ready as I’ll be okay.

Chris Dohrmann  18:29

What’s the thing that holds most people back from understanding their finances better?

Jeff Kreisler  18:38

I would say it’s this is an unnecessary $20 phrase, perspective on magnitude. In other words, I would never want people to be obsessed with every financial decision that’s just not healthy and it’s not productive. However, we should be obsessed about certain ones, the ones that have a big impact. What people tend to do, though, is the reverse. We stress out about like, the $8 latte, and we don’t throw up our hands when it comes to a mortgage or a college loan. You know, imagine you’re getting your renovating your home for 150 grand, and your contractor goes, Hey, for $5,000 you can get a marble countertop. And you’re so overwhelmed, you’re like, Fine, whatever. It’s a drop in the bucket. Then you go to the supermarket and spend 10 minutes stressing out over 15 cents per pound more for organic tomatoes, right? That doesn’t add up, but we can control that tiny little thing. That’s why we do it. And we tend to obsess over the little ones and not the big ones. And I would say, try to flip that on its head, right? Obsess over the big things. Like it’s hard, I know that, but it’s worth it, because $100,000 has more impact and 10 cents every now and then check in on little ones. Right? Don’t just, like, willy nilly, spend five $8 all the time on the lattes. But like, don’t worry about all the time. Check in every six month and check those sort of recurring payments. But most of us tend to focus on the little ones. And I would say, flip that on its head, and don’t stress all the time. Stress on the big choices if you have to choose that moment to do so.

Chris Dohrmann  20:01

Perfect! When you’re writing messages for a big audience, what are the three golden rules?

Jeff Kreisler  20:09

Do you mean when I’m just sort of communicating myself, like a communication technique, or specifically about making better choices?

Chris Dohrmann  20:15

What a communication technique or making actually that prompts people to make better choices?

Jeff Kreisler  20:26

I would say that remembering that this is hard. I talked earlier about the big principles, like decisions are hard. Like listening as an audience is also hard. And like trying to simplify what I’m communicating, just as you might try to simplify framing a decision for folks. Likewise, the second principle, if you can’t change human nature, I can’t change what the audience is like. I can’t change that doing a talk at two o’clock in the afternoon that they’re gonna like, have a little lunch low so working with that, not fighting that, not begging for their attention. And then, you know what I tend to try to do, and I’m conflating both better choices and communicating to an audience. I think they’re relevant. I tend to try to put myself in their position. Like, who is the audience? Like, what do they want? Why are they here? What did they need? Not, What do I offer? Right? What? Not, What do I need? Not, What am I selling? But, like, what do they need? Who are they there? Just like in this, you know, for this podcast, like I got some background who the audience is. I may not have served it up perfectly, but I’m at least conscious like, this is not a bunch of salespeople or, you know, bank tellers. They’re in a different role. And a lot of times I see people trying to force others to get on their wavelength, where it’s better to try to get on the others the audience’s wavelength, and work with that.

Chris Dohrmann  21:44

So if one of the HR total rewards or equity comp people are writing a communications plan, what’s the first thing they should know?

Jeff Kreisler  21:54

Who is your audience and what do they want? Who is your audience? And ask yourself that question and answer without any reference to their money or their job title, who are the people you’re talking to? Right? Are they family, you know, head of a family? Are they entrepreneurs? Are they, you know, what, young risk takers? Are they near in retirement, like, who is what’s going to make them feel good about what it is that you’re presenting.

Chris Dohrmann  22:21

You know, in this communications plan, what are some serious don’ts if they’re writing this communication plan.

Jeff Kreisler  22:30

Over reliance on jargon and acronyms, just sort of, I don’t know what the proper approach is, is it assume people don’t know the acronyms, or just slow it down. But like, we rely on jargon a lot, and even in our closed circle of of like minded professionals and may have the same role like sometimes that just it slows the listeners down when the jargon and enough of it, can make it feel like there’s a wall between you and the audience. Unintentionally, it can just feel like there’s information imbalance. If you’re too jargon to keep it simple, if someone wants more detail, you know, you’re talking to a bunch of research scientists and they really want to know the great, then you can stop and provide that. Or you can, you know, certainly that’s what links are for when you’re creating something that’s that’s online. But keep it simple. K.I.S.S. Keep it simple. Silly. It’s not the word that’s normally used, but keep it simple silly.

Chris Dohrmann  23:27

Okay, last question, and I think you’re going to like this, because it harkens back to your introduction. Is there room for humor in this kind of messaging?

Jeff Kreisler  23:38

This is goes against improv, one on one yes, but supposed to be yes and yes, but it has to be authentic, and don’t force it. You can only be as funny as you can be. And I actually think where humor comes in is less about trying to be funny and more about just being authentic and genuine and vulnerable. And I obviously have a skewed perspective. My perspective is it the world and life is kind of absurd and funny, and so when I’m genuine and authentic, that’s the perspective I share. If you have a different perspective on life, that life is hard or life is beautiful and worth celebrating, or, you know, life is opportunity, whatever it is like, if you’re authentic, that will come through. I tend to believe that like that often releases some sense of humor, but don’t try to be funny, especially in the workplace, like the risk is not worth the reward of a poorly delivered joke, but be yourself and be in the moment.

Chris Dohrmann  24:34

Jeff, thank you for coming on the show and for making a topic that I think people are should be much more familiar with but is a little esoteric for them. On the on a day to day basis, you’ve made it very interesting and very understandable. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. And that brings us to the end of this episode, a prosperity at work from JP Morgan, workplace solutions. Thanks for listening, and if you enjoy this episode, we hope you review. Two rate and subscribe to JP Morgan, workplace solutions, prosperity at work available wherever you get your podcast. You can find more insights on equity compensation, financial wellness and more by following us on LinkedIn or at globalshares.com where you can download our new playbook on equity compensation program communications. So until next time that’s prosperity at work. Thank you. Bye. Information provided in this podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It may contain views which differ from the views of JPMorgan Chase and company. For specific guidance on how this information should be applied to your situation, you should consult a qualified professional for full details, see the show notes on your podcast player right now. The Prosperity at Work podcast is produced by dustpod.io, JP Morgan, Workplace Solution.