Relational intelligence and the deeper work of transformation
✳️ 3rd of 3 articles in a series about the spaces in which Transformation Design meets Behavioral Economics
This article series explores twelve biases that shape (and sabotage) Transformation.
Welcome to the 3rd of 3 explorations into the friction and flow between Transformation Design and Behavioral Economics: where human bias meets systems thinking.
We live and design within systems that often treat behaviour as a set of predictable patterns, biases to be nudged, and choices to be influenced. In a capitalist framework, we're cast as rational actors, “homo economicus,” responding to incentives and defaults. But we are far more complex than these models suggest. Our biases don’t exist in a vacuum; they are shaped by the cultural stories we live in, stories that equate success with efficiency, growth, and competition. To design real transformation, we must first recognise this framing and then stretch beyond it. We are not only consumers or decision-makers. We are meaning-makers, relationship-builders, and imaginative agents. Transformation requires us to break the moulds and design for our full humanity.
Beyond behaviour change: new mindsets and collective intelligence
In the first article of this series, we explored why change feels so hard. The second showed how to design around our natural behavioural tendencies. Now it is time to go deeper, beyond behaviour, into how we think, relate, and imagine together.
In this final article of the series, we turn our lens inward and between. Toward how beliefs, relationships, and worldviews shape the way we engage with transformation. Behavioural economics, with its insights into cognitive bias and decision-making under uncertainty, offers interesting clues as we’ve seen thus far. But to apply those insights in design, we must be willing to confront the core of transformation: not just what we do, but how we think, relate, and make sense of the world.
We’ll now explore four behavioural patterns that often block transformation and the relational intelligence needed to work through them. This article draws from behavioural science, psychology, and systems thinking to offer insights on how transformation design can invite us into new ways of being and becoming. The numbering continues from where we left off in the previous articles (first eight principles), continuing with the 9th principle in the series.
9. Confirmation Bias: we see what we already believe
We all carry internal models of how the world works. They get programmed into us in early childhood experiences and become a part of us and how we see the world. Kept in place by our confirmation bias. Our human tendency to seek out and interpret information in ways that affirm their existing views and discount or ignore that which doesn’t. And thus, our mental models are kept in place to then shape what we notice, what we value, and what we believe is possible.
In design, strategy and visioning work, this confirmation bias is particularly dangerous. It narrows the field of possibility. It makes us blind to warning signs, alternative futures, or emergent signals that don’t fit our mental models.
As designers of transformation we must go beyond facilitation into the art of disruptive inquiry. This means designing collective processes that welcome dissent, elevate counter-narratives, and invite us to sit with cognitive discomfort. Techniques like red teaming, scenario roleplay, or speculative fiction can stretch the imagination beyond confirmation. Transformation demands that we question and evolve our mental models. Often, old mental maps no longer serve the complex, interdependent challenges we face today. But perhaps most powerfully, so can deep listening across difference. Transformation expands not just when new ideas are introduced but especially when previously excluded voices are finally heard.
Due to confirmation bias, people stick to what they already believe and know. So we need to create conditions that gently expand perception rather than trigger defensiveness. Because when mental models shift, transformed behaviour follows naturally and sustainably. Or, as the brilliant cognitive scientist Donella Meadows famously said, "The most effective intervention in a system is changing the mindset or paradigm out of which the system arises."
10. Choice Overload: Too many futures, no movement
The paradox of choice tells us that when people face too many options, they often freeze. This paralysis can be fatal in transformation. As psychologist Barry Schwartz explains. “Unfortunately, the proliferation of choice in our lives robs us of the opportunity to decide for ourselves just how important any given decision is.” Endless ideation, over-democratised roadmaps, or “everything is possible” brainstorming sessions may feel inclusive, but they often create ambiguity and stall commitment.
Designers can help by surfacing values first, then mapping viable pathways. Coherence is key. When a shared north star emerges, people are more willing to move, even through the fog. Clarity reduces overwhelm.
Barry Schwartz’s Paradox of Choice reveals that while freedom and autonomy are important, an excess of options can lead to decision paralysis, self-doubt, and dissatisfaction. When we’re faced with too many possibilities, we not only struggle to choose but are more likely to regret the decision we make, feeling haunted by imagined alternatives. In transformation design, the work lies in creating reflective processes that help people weigh possibilities, explore trade-offs, and step into alternative futures with intention. Here, speculative design becomes a powerful tool: inviting us to prototype parallel paths, stress-test ideas, and expand our sense of what’s truly possible even if it is unlikely. Art can also be excellent for this exploration, as it offers perspectives and ways of seeing the world that can provide a new level of understanding to help synthesise what we are sensing but cannot quite grasp.
If you’re wondering what speculative design is all about, I invite you to check out these examples of spectacular speculative designs.
11. Cognitive Dissonance: when new ideas threaten old identities
We experience tension when our beliefs and behaviours are misaligned. Cognitive dissonance kicks in and instead of changing, we rationalise. In organisations and teams, this often shows up when people support transformation in theory but resist it in practice. Their identity, history, or past decisions may feel threatened.
Transformation design recognises this as a deeply human response, not a flaw. We need spaces that allow for emotional processing, not just rational agreement. Reflective dialogue, storytelling, and ritual can create space for people to acknowledge contradiction without shame. If we dare to see dissonance as a sign of possibility, it can become a space to open up new and different conversations.
Our discomfort when values and actions don’t align, slows transformation. It’s like th elephant in the room. People might intellectually support change, yet resist it emotionally when it threatens identity, habits, or long-held assumptions. This is where rituals become potent design tools. In Rituals for Work,
demonstrates how well-crafted rituals help teams embody new values, not just talk about them.Rituals offer a space to develop shared understanding for navigating change and reconciling internal tensions. A ritual, when purposeful and practiced consistently, can gently bridge the gap between what people say they believe and how they behave. For example, beginning each strategy session with a “horizon check” ritual, where team members name one old belief they’re letting go of, and one emerging idea they’re testing, can help teams embrace uncertainty and learning as part of the journey. Another powerful practice is creating a storytelling ritual where team members share moments when their assumptions were challenged, intentionally reflecting on misalignments and course corrections, to make learning visible and dissonance transformational.
12. Scarcity Mindset: designing from fear vs. designing from possibility
When people feel resources (like time, money, attention) are scarce, they make short-term, survival-based decisions. Even super experienced leaders can fall into this trap, especially under pressure. But transformation asks us to design from a different place. It asks us to imagine abundance, even as we deal with constraints.
This does not mean pretending things are fine. It means cultivating a regenerative mindset as opposed to a scarcity mindset. One that sees potential in reuse, energy in slowness, and connection as a resource. Note that I am not suggesting an abundance mindset, because after all we are in a finite planet and we cannot infinitely grow.
What I’m saying is that framing ourselves as rational, calculating, ‘homo economicus’ is a fear-based response. And we need to move into a more intuitive, connected and possibilitarian mindset to design a better, kinder and more prosperous world that is fuelled by potential.
Designers can help organisations move from extraction to regeneration. Scarcity shrinks the horizon. Regenerative design can harness behavioural economics principles to create meaningful and lasting impact. Setting sustainable options as the default encourages greener choices with minimal effort, while immediate feedback loops provide short-term emotional rewards that make long-term benefits feel tangible. Community challenges and visible sharing tap into social proof, making regenerative behaviours contagious and socially accepted. Framing these actions as expressions of positive identity appeals to our desire for status and belonging. Offering a set of diverse options highlights possibility rather than scarcity, inviting exploration and easing decision paralysis through excessive choice. Commitment devices such as public pledges increase accountability and align behaviours with values, reducing internal conflict. Together, these practices create a supportive environment where sustainable transformation can flourish.
Designing beyond behaviour: a relational act
The final principles in this series point to something crucial: transformation is not just behavioural. It is also relational. It is requires trust, coherence, and shared sensemaking. It is about shifting and recalibrating the unspoken assumptions and emotional landscapes that shape our choices.
Transformation design invites us to listen with empathy, to design with intention, and to create conditions where people can transform not just their actions, but their understanding of who they are in the bigger scheme of things. The deep work of transformation is in spaces that we can build together: the pause before reaction, the moment of honest reflection and emotional sharing, the courage to see ourselves differently. And in the commitment to create futures that hold more than one truth.
We live in a time of paradigmatic change. This opportunity to transform ourselves and our world calls for more than surface shifts: it asks us to rethink the very lenses through which we see the world and ourselves. The twelve biases we’ve explored, endowment effect, status quo bias, loss aversion, sunk cost fallacy, hyperbolic discounting, social proof, framing effect, default effect, confirmation bias, choice overload, cognitive dissonance, and scarcity mindset, each shape our decisions, behaviours, and collective futures in profound ways.
Transformation design invites us to engage these human tendencies as biases to be questioned, using insight and intention to create environments where new possibilities can emerge. When we move beyond reaction and begin to co-create, to reflect deeply and act with relational intelligence, transformation becomes less about managing change and more about evolving the very fabric of what we believe is possible. The future is not fixed; it is ours to (re)imagine, design, and live.
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Previously in the series:
The inertia in all of us
How behavioural patterns like endowment effect, status quo bias, loss aversion and sunk cost fallacy keep people and systems from moving forward.
Designing with human nature
Excellent overview of our biases, Carola, and great suggestions for working with them. We need to remember that there ARE ways to change our thinking! We just need to begin with this informed perspective. Thank you for this insightful series!