My Journey to Applied Behavioral Science
In the summer of 2012, I found myself in Kandahar City, Afghanistan tasked with identifying and locating roadside bombs before they exploded. I was a Captain in the Air Force at the time and an intelligence officer with expertise leveraging airborne intelligence assets to support ground combat operations. Over the course of my deployment, I became obsessed with finding better ways to hunt down roadside bombs. I spoke with everyone I could who might have solutions - route clearance patrols, intelligence collection experts, drone operators - and analyzed the data we were collecting to see what we could tweak to improve our capabilities. These efforts helped, but they didn't produce the large improvements I was seeking.
At the prompting of a friend and colleague, I started searching for answers in behavioral science research. That's when things really started to change for the better. By a stroke of luck, the first book I picked up was the now-classic Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. At that time, nudge theory wasn't mainstream and the insights from the book felt new and very powerful. I immediately got to work incorporating principles from the book into our intelligence processes. With some targeted and simple tweaks to the process, our ability to detect roadside bombs improved dramatically. I almost couldn't believe how powerful the concepts were. Although I wouldn't have used this term at the time, this was my first project in applied behavioral science. I was hooked.
My experience in Afghanistan with behavioral science was the most transformative professional experience I've had. It's not hard to see why - I was in a combat zone, hunting down roadside bombs, learning new information, researching at night and experimenting during the day, and quickly seeing the efforts pay off. Looking back, I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to applied behavioral science.
My brother and I meeting up in Afghanistan in 2012.
I returned from Afghanistan with an insatiable drive to share my findings and dive deeper into behavioral science. I worked to build out a niche in Air Force intelligence focused on the use of behavioral science research and I expanded my expertise beyond nudge theory. As my passion and experiences grew, I found myself increasingly wondering how I could further align my work around applied behavioral science. In early 2014, it become clear to me that a large career pivot was the right move. Leaving behind more than ten years of education and training in intelligence analysis and counterterrorism policy, I left the Air Force in late 2014 with an equal mixture of excitement and doubt.
If my first stroke of luck was coming across Nudge at just the right time in my deployment, the second was landing at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) after I left the Air Force. Over the last six years, BCG has massively accelerated my career. I've become far more effective as a person thanks to the learning enviornment and feedback at BCG - I can think, communicate, and collaborate at a level I never thought possible before arriving. My experiences at BCG have also supported my transition to applied behavioral science. In client-facing roles, I've gained invaluable insight into the challenges leveraging behavioral science to solve the real-world organizational problems, like the emerging skills gap or changing ways of work. In internal roles, I've had the opportunity to design and test solutions based on the latest research across career development, learning and development, diversity and inclusion, and other disciplines. BCG has been unendingly supportive as I've pursued my passion for applied behavioral science - no one more so than Julia Dhar, an incredible friend and mentor I've had along the way.
Outside of BCG, I've also aligned more and more of my life around my growing passion. I've spent thousands of hours researching, reading, and connecting with experts in the field. I've also put the research to the test in my personal life, most dramatically in my quest to become a skilled offshore sailor (successful) and as a parent to a young daughter (verdict still out!). These wide-ranging experiences - personal and professional, theoretical and applied, military and private sector - have served as a unique training ground for developing my robust expertise and credentials in applied behavioral science.
At the finish line of the 2016 Annapolis to Bermuda Ocean Race with fellow crew members.
I've come to realize three critical principles from these experiences. First, applied behavioral science - when wielded effectively - is immensely powerful at solving complicated and challenging problems. I've seen this firsthand in the Air Force, in my own life, and with hundreds of individuals and organizations. Second, we're not using it nearly enough. Many of the most common organizational practices are woefully ineffective - from if-then financial incentives to unconscious bias trainings - and better solutions are available within the research. Third, without an increased use of behavioral science research and methods (like experimentation and evidence-based decision-making), we'll never be able to solve our most pressing and complex national and global challenges.
A major obstacle to making progress on these fronts is the gap that exists today between organizations - business, nonprofits, and governments alike - and behavioral science research. As an applied behavioral scientist, I've been living in and exploring this gap for years. One of the key challenges I've seen is that behavioral science research isn't built for ease of consumption (that's putting it nicely). It's hard to access, hard to understand, and really hard to apply. After experiencing these challenges myself and seeing others struggle with them, I've become deeply engaged in efforts to help bridge the gap.
As a result, in early 2020, I launched Protocol65. Protocol65's mission is to make it easier to access and understand behavioral science research on a core set of topics related to human behavior - motivation, learning, performance, and bias reduction. We do this by synthesizing the best research into easy to use research reports, which we call Protocols.
It's been a truly fascinating decade and I consider myself very fortunate to have had many sources of inspiration along the way. However, there are three colleagues and best friends whom have been on this journey with me that have inspired me most - Brad DeWees, Matt Yarrington, and Alex Pedersen. Without their curiosity, encouragement, and partnership, I know that my path would have been far less interesting, far less meaningful, and far less fruitful. Guided by the ideal of the soldier-scholar that we learned together at the Air Force Academy, Brad, Matt, and Alex live "in the arena" - they have a combined four deployments and five advanced degrees between them. They are constant sources of inspiration and I'm incredibly grateful for their friendship and partnership.
Although I didn't know it at the time, a new chapter of my life started when I picked up Nudge for the first time. And as I approach the ten year mark since my deployment to Afghanistan, I couldn't be happier about the journey I've undertaken to become an applied behavioral scientist and the exciting path ahead.
