Do new managers give teams a "bounce"? Read online In sports, it's common to hear about the "new manager bounce". It's an immediate improvement in performance following a change of manager. Like most sporting clichés, it's made its way into the working world. An old boss of mine justified a managerial replacement. by citing the need to quickly hit that quarter's KPIs. But is the new manager bounce real? One detailed study¹ on Polish football managers found that players initially ran faster...

The Framing Effect Read online "Does your kid have a ten-dollar head?" That's what Bell Helmets asked parents in this newspaper ad. It seems like a strange question until we understand the power of framing. Let's look at a study on beer to explain. In a study led by Donald Lichtenstein¹ from Colorado University, bar menus with descending price order increased average beer sales by 4%. Framing the menu with high-priced options first made the mid-range prices seem like a better deal. Sales for...

The Mere Exposure Effect Read online Loyal fans of Nudge will have heard me talk about the mere exposure effect. In 1969, psychologist Robert Zajonc¹ found that students rated unfamiliar Turkish words more favourably when they had seen them more often. It's not a revolutionary finding. We prefer things we're familiar with. And many great inventors knew this instinctively. Edison and the electric light bulb Thomas Edison understood that while the lightbulb was revolutionary, new inventions...