Behavioral Science at Work: Persuasion, Bias & Change [EN]

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

People do not change their behaviour because the argument was good. They change it when something around them makes the new behaviour easier than the old one.

Why persuasion training does not stick

Because it teaches you what to say, and saying is the smallest part. You explain the reasoning, everyone agrees, and six weeks later the spreadsheet is still being filled in by hand. You attach a bonus to the outcome and performance on the creative part of the work quietly gets worse. You present the evidence and the person who most needs it finds a reason it does not apply to them — not dishonestly, but because confirmation bias is not a character flaw, it is how the equipment works, including yours.

What this course covers

Thirty-eight lessons across six layers, starting with your own reasoning. Critical thinking first: deduction, induction and abduction, strong and weak arguments, the standard errors, confirmation bias, anchoring and framing, telling fact from opinion, evaluating a source, and decision models for when the information is incomplete. Then why people differ: MBTI, DISC, PAEI, Belbin's roles, the Hogan assessment and the Big Five, including how to read a type in conversation without a test and how to use one without turning it into astrology. Then emotion as a channel: how state transfers between people, energising and draining, the role of stress and recovery, what low self-awareness looks like from outside, how people actually change, empathy as distinct from sympathy, and the three development zones. Then motive: what makes people work, the link between motivation and output, culture as amplifier or damper, loyalty, the twelve engagement factors, and Motivation 3.0 — why carrot and stick fails on non-routine work and what the three replacing elements are. Then designing behaviour with game mechanics, in selection, first weeks, motivation, culture and learning, including the low-budget versions. Finally moving a group: the eight standard failures, Kotter's model, honest urgency, the rider-elephant-path frame, vision, early wins and making it permanent.

A note on where the examples come from

Four of the six blocks were recorded for a workplace context, so the worked examples involve employees — gamification is demonstrated on hiring and onboarding, motivation on teams. The mechanisms are not specific to any of that. Confirmation bias, personality type, Motivation 3.0, the twelve factors and the rider-elephant-path frame describe a person, not a job title. If you are applying this to customers, students or your own household, the examples translate without modification.

Who is teaching this

I am Mike Pritula. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.

What is included

• Lifetime access to all 38 lessons

• Active instructor support in the Q&A section

• A Udemy Certificate of Completion

• Working models: the bias set, OODA and Cynefin, five personality frameworks, the twelve engagement factors, Motivation 3.0, game mechanics by purpose, Kotter's eight steps, the rider-elephant-path frame

• Attention to your own reasoning before anyone else's

Where to start

Think of one behaviour you have tried to change in someone and failed. Then ask which of the three you addressed: their reasoning, their feelings, or the path in front of them. Almost everyone answers the first. Enrol now and start today.