Episode Details

Kristen Berman is one of the world's foremost experts on getting people to do what they say they want to do. She also routinely has a hard time following her own advice, which is precisely why she got into the field.

Berman was on the founding team for behavioral economics at Google — a practice that now spans 26 teams across the company — and she founded Irrational Labs, a behavioral product design company that helps companies like LinkedIn, Airbnb, and PayPal increase the health, wealth, and happiness of their users.

Her work keeps landing on the same uncomfortable truth: the things that actually run your behavior are your environment and your incentives, and you barely notice either one. She learned the incentive half the hard way, when a project quietly turned her into what she calls a predatory lender. 

In this episode, she and Connor get practical: Why buying a dog beats relying on willpower. How a “Ulysses contract” binds your future self. Why she built her life around a 20-person Oakland commune called Radish, where everyone eats dinner together at 7:30. 

If you've ever known better and done it anyway, or wanted to know how to design an environment that brings out the best in your team, this one’s for you.

CHAPTERS

Chapters

• 00:00:00 The chocolate croissant you didn't mean to eat
• 00:00:55 Why behavioral science lights her up
• 00:02:16 How choice architecture works
• 00:05:31 You're always being manipulated by your environment
• 00:07:08 When good intentions meet bad incentives
• 00:08:39 The stand-up challenge — Closing the intention-action gap
• 00:09:53 Buy a dog — The power of one-time decisions
• 00:15:33 Commitment contracts that actually work
• 00:17:13 Taking away the joy of work — What leaders get wrong
• 00:19:51 Small teams, big autonomy — The Irrational Labs approach
• 00:21:35 Extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation — What actually works
• 00:26:26 Does confetti actually work?
• 00:27:30 Work harder — The contrarian take on workplace culture
• 00:29:04 Difficulty as fuel — The hero's journey at work
• 00:31:18 Social desirability — Why we're all a little vain
• 00:32:56 You've never arrived — The learning mindset
• 00:34:02 Living in a commune — Behavioral science in the wild
• 00:35:02 Behavioral contagion and seeing your partner perform
• 00:36:57 Relationships drive happiness — Make them easier
• 00:37:55 Low willpower, high design — How Kristen lives
• 00:39:40 The billboard — Compliment someone