500Startups founder Dave McClure was quoted saying, “A ‘startup’ is a company that is confused about 1. What its product is. 2. Who its customers are. 3. How to make money.“

If there’s one thing I learned while earning my degree in Cognitive Psychology, it’s that context matters. It matters so much because it always exists.

In 1985, the story goes that Andy Grove, Intel’s former president, CEO, and chairman was stuck in debate with Intel’s chairman and CEO at the time, Gordon Moore. They were exhausted from their internal discussions around memory chips and what to do next, to put it simply.

In his TED Talk entitled ‘What’s the Difference Between Real and Perceived Value?’, Rory Sutherland, the vice chairman of Olgivy & Mather in the U.K, shares a remarkable anecdote about how engineers sought to make the train journey from London to Paris better.

Let’s try a simple exercise: Think about a new product you recently purchased and were excited to use right away. Make sure it’s something you knew you had very little chance of returning.

There you are. You’re standing in front of your audience of potential and existing customers, wanting nothing more than for them to take your intended action (such as requesting a demo or using the chatbot for customer support instead of calling).

When was the last time it took you less than four seconds to make an impactful decision?

In the Olympic sport of curling, a curling stone is released along ice with the goal of getting the stone to stop as close to the center of the target as possible.

In business, money does matter, but perhaps not as much as you think. Countless studies and findings have countered the myth that the best way to boost productivity is by way of monetary incentives. As always, context proves to matter. Yet still, many organizations are structured with financial incentives that aim to serve as extrinsic motivators.

If I told you that I knew what it would take to keep you reading, would you?

The future cannot be known for certain, but it is often predicted with great accuracy using information from the past. But, what happens when the world is overtaken by a pandemic that can only be described as “unprecedented?”

Why is it that we feel very annoyed when we get stuck in traffic behind a big truck that blocks the road, but we enjoy the experience of flying overseas for dozens of hours?

Why understanding human behavior is a key success factor for every business Less is more, right? Well, according to Betty Crocker’s marketing and data in the 1950s, context matters.

When approaching any type of design, it’s often said that, “The devil is in the details.” This same sentiment is applicable to the application of frameworks.

In life, moving from point A to point B rarely happens by way of one route. In the same vein, Behavioral Thinking has evolved by way of multiple and important histories. Let’s take a look at how this framework has come to be and its innate reliance on interdisciplinarity.

“We don’t know why customers are leaving us, and this is becoming a strategic problem that threatens our existence as a business.” These were the words of the CEO and Co-Founder of a growing start-up providing energy solutions in emerging markets. Two days later, I caught a flight to embark on a two-week journey to Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria to help find answers to his threatening problem.

Do you ever question why the people around you do the things they do? Chances are, you’re not even always aware of why you do the things you do. Behavioral insights provide such answers.