Nudge · 2-minute read
People speed up as a finish line gets closer and slow down when a new goal starts. Long programmes with one distant finish line stall in the middle.
In a café loyalty study, customers bought coffee more and more frequently as their stamp card neared completion — and then dropped back to their original pace once they started a new card.
Effort tracks perceived distance to the goal. A twelve-month transformation with one end date gives people very little pull in months three to nine. Short, visible milestones create many finish lines, and each one renews momentum.
The research: Kivetz, Urminsky & Zheng (2006), Journal of Marketing Research.
Adapted from Nudges at Work by Tareef Jafferi, shared in partnership with Happily.ai.
A quarterly event where employees nominate pointless rules and approvals — and leaders visibly scrap the worst ones on the spot.
A 24-hour sprint where anyone can work on any idea they choose, then demo it to the whole company.
Time how long it takes to do the behaviours your culture depends on. If it takes longer than 30 seconds or three clicks, fix the process.