When we think about ideas like selling or marketing, we usually think of getting people to buy products. But Loran Nordgren is talking about getting people to buy into new ideas. And the biggest obstacle isn't always motivation-its often friction.

Loran Nordgren is a Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. His research considers the basic psychological processes that guide how we think and act.

The overarching goal of his work is to advance psychological theory and to use theory-driven insights to develop decision strategies, structured interventions, and policy recommendations that improve decision-making and well-being. Loran’s first book “The Human Element: Overcoming the Resistance that Awaits New Ideas” spent multiple weeks on the Wall Street Journal Bestseller list.

Greg and Loran discuss fuel based mindsets, crafting brand empathy, status quo bias, and how American football is socialist in this episode.

Episode Quotes:

Fuel can be positive and negative

So we tend to think about fuel as these positive things. But the job of fuel is to simply ignite or incite our desire for change. And we often do that by dangling shiny things in front of people. So carrots, but we also use sticks. And so that kind of, yeah, the telling people, this is a limited opportunity. There's only one left. That is inciting our desire for change. It's not making it necessarily more fun, more pleasant, more intrinsically interesting. But really anything that propels, whether that's a push or a pull, we would consider fuel.

How to get people to change

So a good rule of thumb for people is anytime you're offering them one path, like you're putting one thing up in front of them, it's a good chance that the status quo is operating against you. Now, the better news is that once you see that, there are all kinds of ways that not only reduce that friction, but to take that thing and transform it in essence into fuel to make it a motivating force.

Fuel based thinking

We have this reflexive idea that the way you get someone to say yes is to elevate appeal, magnetism, attraction. And we intuitively think that if people are rejecting our offering, it's because that fuel is insufficient. And we refer to that reflex as thinking in fuel or a fuel based mindset.

Show Links:

Guest Profile:

Faculty Profile at Kellog School of Management at Northwestern University
Speaker’s Profile at the Lavin Agency
Loran Nordgren’s Website
Loran Nordgren on LinkedIn
Loran Nordgren's Human Element

His Work:

Loran Nordgren on Google Scholar
The Human Element: Overcoming the Resistance That Awaits New Ideas
The Psychology of Desire

Why Motivating Change is not Enough feat. Loran Nordgren

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc