Bob Yurkovic

Business Growth, Customer Experience, Engagement, Digital Operations & Solutions

5 Pandemic Cluster Event

by

I started looking at COVID-19 as part of a big picture event and now I suggest that we are in the midst of a cluster pandemic event. We all see there are many things going on around us today. It is almost too much for us to understand and manage. It is rocking our world and lifestyle in a nasty way. This is more than COVID-19; it is a cluster of battles in a war for our livelihood.

If we are to win the battle of COVID-19, we need to fight 5 connected pandemics, a cluster pandemic, to survive. We are being crushed by adversity in amounts not witnessed before by our generation. If we beat all 5, we will be better for it individually, as a nation, and as a world.

cluster pandemic
  1. Biological pandemic (SARS-COV-2 virus)
  2. Info pandemic
  3. Cyber pandemic
  4. Science/Technology pandemic
  5. Culture pandemic

COVID-19 is a Biological pandemic running rampant in the US as data shows. We need to beat this and there are many initiatives underway to manage it. However, we need to understand all of the connected influences to this Biological pandemic and how they are impacting COVID-19. For one, the Biological pandemic is getting fueled by the Info pandemic and Culture pandemic.

The Info-pandemic is about wide spread misuse of information used to mislead and cause harm to people. This pandemic is also out of control with growing amounts of misinformation and unregulated communications channels in TV news and social media. Anyone can say anything with minimal repercussions and cause harm to people. The average person is not sure who to trust regarding COVID-19 information resulting in unsafe practices that cause an increase in the spread of the virus. The Info pandemic also distracts us from focusing on resolving the biological pandemic through its divisive manner of attack.

The Cyber pandemic is about how hidden, focused attacks are disrupting our way of life. Secure living enables comfort and trust in how we work and play. The Cyber pandemic distracts our focus and impedes our progress on resolving COVID-19 by causing distrust, business disruption, and data integrity issues. Hackers and foreign entities are increasing their battles while becoming more sophisticated and successful in their attacks. Being hidden, it is another pandemic, like the Biological pandemic, that makes it difficult for the average person to understand since most of us can’t see it. We need to depend on, as well as trust, that science will help us find solutions.

The Science pandemic, or Technology pandemic, is about our lack of trust in science.

On the R&D front, the US lags on R&D spending compared to the EU and China. The US has many dependencies on external sources to fuel its innovation. Innovation is the key in finding new ways to defeat biologic threats and to advance our capabilities, An exception to this is Amazon, who reinvests its profits into innovation, new business models, and business growth. Another aspect is our inability to embrace what science tells us as we continue to vandalize the Earth, commit to unimaginable amounts of waste, and refute our impact to the environment while not acknowledging the consequences. R&D is essential to identify solutions to protect our existence,

As far as digital, I have seen many businesses, particularly in the healthcare sector, show their reluctance to fully embrace digital methods with speed, investment, and sponsorship. The Culture pandemic is partly due to a lack of digital adoption as well since a digital mindset is imperative for digital initiatives to flourish.

The Culture pandemic is about our mindset as individuals and as a people. It is about how we think and behave while guided by strong leadership and focused direction. For example, in the US, we live in a ME culture that focuses on personal desires while celebrating our individual successes while other countries live as a WE culture that work as one to the benefit of many. Our way of thinking limits our ability to act in unity to combat COVID-19 and all the other pandemics. The Culture pandemic impacts the Biological pandemic in many of us by our wanting not to be told what to do and not conforming to precautions recommended by medical experts. This is exacerbated with some leaders providing conflicting information on what to do – the Info pandemic.

What a formidable task that lies before us. No wonder we have been having so much trouble in the COVID-19 battle – it is a war and not just one battle. If we want to manage COVID-19, we need to manage all 5 pandemics together since they are connected and impact one another. We have the ability to win this and our humanity depends on it. History will see this time as us battling the granddaddy of all pandemics – a 5 pandemic cluster event – so it is a time to rethink this and attack with vigilance.

Disruptive Waves and COVID-19 Part 2 – 2020

by

In Disruptive Waves Part 1, I discussed the concept of disruptive waves and the damage they cause to our environment, mental wellbeing, and disease recovery. Now, let us look at how to solve this dilemma.

Why is it getting worse? What can we do? We need to understand why we are in this situation and look at accountability and culture as possible causes.

So why are we here with new cases rising in some states? It is true that the disruptive waves have overwhelmed us. We see symptoms and aberrant behavior normally associated with PTSD. While PTSD usually comes from experiencing a severe traumatic event, COVID-19’s produces an ongoing barrage of smaller disruptive waves over a longer period of time. It is like a series of medium waves tearing away the beach over time. A few waves do not seem to cause much damage however, over time they can cause significant damage.

It is interesting how the US government is managing this slow, steady drip of disruptive waves from COVID-19. People get into arguments over insignificant issues in the streets as tempers flare showing their inability to cope with the situation. Some people call it COVID-19 fatigue. I believe it is more insidious and can have a lasting effect on society and our ability to manage the disease. We have not been able to adapt to our new abnormal in the US.

We see fragmented plans as states try to stop disease spread. The US is not working as one. What is interesting is there are different cultures in states that drive different behaviors and result in different approaches to manage the disease. We also see fragmented cultures in cities as they work separately on their own to combat the disease. The culture in the US is fragmented into many pieces and that results in difficulty in trying to manage programs to stop its spread. It is almost as though we are working against one another. Some states are closing their borders to people coming from high risk countries and states. This leads to more fragmentation.

It appears that the US has a culture of individuality and “ME” instead of a culture of “WE” that works together in unison. In the US, no one is accountable for the whole and we see state and local governments struggle to manage the disease in different ways. What if you were a patient in a hospital with a heart problem and every doctor and nurse wanted to treat you differently? You would not live long even though each medical provider thought they were right. Managing health issues and emergencies needs to be managed together as a team. Emergency departments have a very unique culture enabling them to work as one.

Is culture that important to in our recovery? Let us compare the US to another country with another culture.

New Zealand has done a good job in managing the disease compared to the US. NZ manages COVID-19 across its entire country while the US is fragmented in its approach. NZ works as one while the US focuses on individuality. NZ has a hive mentality for the benefit of the whole as the US exhibits a lone wolf mentality for the benefit of the one. New Zealand leadership is direct in telling people what to do and the people follow. Disturbances are there but minimal as compared to the US.

In the US, many people express individuality as their freedom which works in many cases, but not during a pandemic assault on our country. The US culture is so different and direct approaches do not work. I have heard, “The government is not going to tell me what to do” and with an attitude. Why is this?

NZ is a culture of “WE”, acceptance, and forgiveness. Even the Maori are integrated into NZ culture.

US is a culture of “ME”, stubbornness, and blame. Factions of race, age, gender, etc. Native Americans are not integrated into the US culture further demonstrating a fragmented culture.

NZ and US are almost cultural opposites. 

NZ’ers “embrace” cultural differences and absorb them living happily as one. 

US’ers “celebrate” differences thinking one is better than the other and live in a constant fight trying to prove it or be better than the other. The US has taught us competitive behaviors since we were children further emphasizing it is about ME as being better and not WE living in harmony.

Our culture of “ME” and individuality is hindering our ability to recover from COVID-19. Many blame government leadership for this and it is true that culture starts and is supported by leadership in government and business. However, we are all accountable for the culture we create in the US. Each one of us is responsible. So, in reality, the government AND the people are really accountable for the current situation in the US. No pointing fingers since the culture we created belongs to each one of us.

A cultural shift is needed to combat this disease. When we learn to work together as individuals and leaders, we may be able to weave a culture of “WE”. As “WE”, we can fight this disease quicker.

A culture of learning and sharing is needed. We need to learn from those that have contained the disease better. If we knew how and why a state or city is containing the spread better, we should capture that knowledge and share it throughout the US. Centralized control is needed from federal government to manage knowledge instead of state managed control. We need a unified US program that reaches out locally and manages/guides centrally. Governors fighting with Mayors on what to do is ludicrous as is a President threatening Governors.  

A culture of “WE” that works together is needed for the US to manage this disease and the next disease or catastrophe that hits us. All of us need to embrace that … government leaders and each one of us in the US. Cultural transformation is a difficult thing to do and requires our top leaders to recognize it and help us shift our thinking and behaviors during this troubling time. WE own it and WE can fix it if WE want to.

Culture is at the core of everything and WE create our culture.

How we react to disruptive waves and COVID-19 Part 1

by

We are living in a world that is changing due to multiple, complex issues occurring at the same time. It can seem overwhelming to manage through this so I wanted to break it down. I began observing how people react to COVID-19 back in early March. I noticed aberrant behaviors as panic set. People began to hoard paper products. After toilet paper, cleaning products were in high demand. Every week or two, another product fell victim to this phenomenon and shelves were emptied in stores. I also noticed that news about COVID-19 hit us in waves. Each wave disrupted our lifestyles and our ability to function in a changing world. The disruptive waves are not just one wave but a series of waves constantly pounding us. COVID-19 gave us the primary wave.

SECONDARY WAVES

Every time a new story came out or social media offered its opinion, secondary disruptive waves pelted us along with the disease news and its set of disrupted waves. These secondary waves first hit us in our economy as fears drove stock prices down. Stay at home guidelines affected many of our jobs – another disruptive wave. Social relationships had new barriers with social distancing – another disruptive wave. A new type of secondary wave kept emerging over the months. Since we live in a connected world, one disruptive wave can trigger another disruptive wave. We see this now as supply chains get disrupted on different levels. We started with paper products and now we moved into food products. The recent exposure to COVID-19 at pork processing plants is causing a meat buying panic.

Secondary waves have these signatures:

Economic: personal

  • Investments, cash flow, expenses

Economic: company

  • Sales, production, delivery, channels, employees, business models

Job related

  • Do I have a job, can I perform my job, job models

Education related

  • Learning models

Social related

  • Relationships, entertainment, vacations, and activities

Supply chains

  • Food, goods, services, medical

Services

  • Grooming, cleaning, medical

Medical

  • Precautions, identification, treatment and care
    • Assets: facilities, specialists, equipment

Disruptive waves are challenging our lifestyle and this alters our day-to-day reality. When our reality changes, it affects our behaviors as we try to cope and adapt with the changes. Our ability to adapt is based on how we react to the new norm and what behaviors drive our new thinking. Our inability to adjust and cope to the new norm can add stress and further impact our ability to function in the new environment.  

TERTIARY WAVES

While we are being exposing to all of this chaos with secondary disrupted waves, we get pummeled by tertiary disruptive waves. These are due to the behavioral actions we take as our mental and emotional health is impacted from the continuing set of disruptive waves hitting us. We create these waves based on our actions. You see this in protests and some strange decision-making (hoarding and domestic violence). The tertiary waves can also amplify the secondary waves from the actions we take and transform them into a more destructive force.

Secondary waves can expose new behaviors in our being.

On the negative side, new behaviors can emerge out of frustration in coping and adjusting to disruption. These behaviors may look like:

  • Pessimistic
  • Defiance
  • Deceit
  • Anger
  • Withdrawn
  • Conflict
  • Passive
  • Societal breakdown
  • Hoard mentality (me)
  • Distrust
  • Grateful

On the positive side, new behaviors can emerge out of hope and the internal belief that change from disruption can open new paths.  These behaviors may look like:

  • Optimistic
  • Responsive
  • Pro-social
  • Confidence
  • Investigative
  • Active
  • Creative
  • Cooperative mentality (we)
  • Trust
  • Ungrateful

Mental health support is vital to minimize the creation of tertiary waves and stabilize the fabric of society.

PRE_EXISTING WAVES

Yet, there are another set of disruptive waves that have been with us all along for the journey. These are pre-existing waves and include natural disasters, geopolitical problems, general hardships, and health other than COVID-19. Most of us can manage through these waves since they are part of our everyday life and if a new pre-existing wave hit us, we can deal with it on a 1 to 1 basis. However, add these waves to the new waves created by COVID-19 and our ability to juggle all of this becomes difficult.  

DISRUPTIVE WAVES

A diagram of the disruptive waves would look like this.

The actual destructive force to us is from the constant exposure to many disruptive waves that hit us one after the other. The destructive force to us is not just about getting the COVID-19 disease, the secondary waves occur from many other sources. As human beings, we realize we are now a punching bag from these hits and we need help.

I chose to call the “force of impact” a wave since it reminds me of being at a beach while watching waves constantly pound the beach and grind the shells into fine white sand. The waves always seem to win the battle of the beach. If you have ever stepping to the ocean during rough surf, it is an amazing experience of power as you get smacked by wave after wave. You cannot fight a wave especially if they come with a strong force and repeat one after the other. 

The ability to adapt or collapse from the force of the waves seems to come from two things. One is our ability to embrace and manage change on a personal level. Each of us can help ourselves and one another with mental and emotional support thereby limiting the destructive impact of tertiary waves. The second is the need for leadership to guide us during troubling times on a community, business, or social level. Our ability to manage some of these waves is limited and high level leadership is required to help us through a coordinated effort.

COMPOSITION

To manage a wave, let’s look at its five properties and find solutions by understanding what the wave is and how they interact with one another.

  1. Composition
  2. Velocity
  3. Volume
  4. Periodicity
  5. Additive nature of waves

This article is not meant to provide solutions. Its purpose is to provide an understanding of the destructive nature of the forces that are changing how we live, work, and play. Through an understanding, you can develop solutions to address the threat. COVID-19 is an example of a primary disruptive wave but there will be more and they will take shape in various forms.

You cannot stop a wave but you can learn to adapt to it through understanding that in turn may alter the impact and nature of the disruptive wave.

This is a perfect time to embrace digital transformation. Connected businesses can adapt faster to rapid change and find their new sweet spot in the market as well as drive optimum customer experiences. COVID-19 nudged our world into chaos so be flexible and adapt quickly if you want to survive.

4 Rules For Better Patient Health Engagement – 2018

by

As a whole, healthcare organizations want to improve patient and member outcomes, and help those people achieve their desired outcomes. Whether it’s an older patient wanting to stay healthy enough to live independently, or a child needing a set of ear tubes to reduce the frequency of ear infections, each patient has unique needs that require attention to detail.

That said, there’s a wide gulf between how patients perceive themselves and their relationships with healthcare organizations. How can healthcare organizations engage collaboratively with their patients and members in order to achieve their goals and help them become more engaged in their own health journey? And how can healthcare organizations keep up with the digital trends in the healthcare sector to meet those goals?

Health Engagement is a Cycle

Health Affairs says patient engagement is a concept that combines a patient’s knowledge, skills, ability and willingness to manage his own health and care with interventions designed to increase activation and promote positive patient behavior. The problem some healthcare organizations find is, , some patients don’t really want to engage with providers around their health, unless there’s a critical condition that presents itself, such as a heart attack, stroke, or cancer diagnosis–many of which could have been less severe had preventative measures been taken prior to the diagnosis.

Patient engagement is a repeatable cycle with opportunities for engagement at multiple points to improve patient outcomes. Healthcare organizations can influence patients to achieve successful outcomes – if they can approach patients with their needs in mind.

We see three types of health interventions that each offer unique openings to the patient engagement conversation. For each type of opportunity, patients have different “jobs to be done” and will interact with the healthcare system in different ways:

  1. Health monitoring – flu shots, vaccinations, screenings and check-ups. The patient’s “job to be done” is to complete the encounter successfully, one time.
  2. Immediate/acute need – accidents, broken arms, lacerations, strokes. With these events, the patient’s “job to be done” is to restore health and functionality, with multiple encounters over a defined period of time.
  3. Chronic need – treating chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension or obesity, or recovery from surgery, heart attack or other event. With chronic needs, the patient’s “job to be done” may be defined more individually and over a longer time period. One patient might want to achieve a “cure”, or return to pre-event functioning. Another patient may seek to manage symptoms and have good quality of life.

Four Rules for Better Engagement

Before healthcare organizations engage with a patient and provide helpful ideas and activities, it’s useful to think through the rules of engagement from the patient’s view. Patients want to achieve their healthcare goals, and don’t always realize that engagement with their providers can help achieve this, thus, the need for easy engagement programs. By starting from the patient view and designing the experience she or he wants, healthcare organizations can initiate contact from a position of trust and empathy.

Rule #1 – Help Patients Match Quickly

Does your organization make it easy for patients to understand their benefits? Can they quickly find the right physicians to match their needs? Are appointments available soon enough? Technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) physician matching for provider directory, online scheduling, and web visits can help smooth the process.

Rule #2 – Work with the Whole Person

Once a patient engages in a clinical setting, the goal of treating the whole person and identifying issues to better health outcomes begins. This includes clinicians taking the time to understand root causes that may touch on social determinants of health, not just current symptoms, and seeing the whole picture of health. Their discovery process should be collaborative and multi-disciplinary, leveraging colleagues, experts and data sets. With this, an individualized plan for patient success can be developed, that continues after a patient leaves the exam room.

Working with not only the patient, but also their family, friends, and other support systems can help professionals with changing patient mindsets throughout the process, leading to profound and lasting impacts.

Rule #3 – Be Accessible

In healthcare, patient access typically refers to whether a person can schedule an appointment and get to a facility within a reasonable timeframe. For patients in a rural setting, this can mean a long drive to a healthcare facility that may keep them away–or for those unable to drive, just finding transportation to see a provider in person.

This calls into play the ability of telehealth to help foster patient engagement for those who can’t physically be in a physician’s office very easily.

This also calls attention to clinician activities in the office–was the clinician distracted? If the patient presented new concerns or different information, did the clinician reconnect in the moment? In a world of increasingly impersonal medical technology, patients seek the human inside the white coat to guide them through any anxiety and confusion.

Rule #4 – Review and Revise

Building feedback loops explicitly for patient engagement into the interdisciplinary practice will help reinforce the habit among clinicians. Such loops can provide opportunities to review how patient engagement strategies are working with patients and their families, as well as chances to revise strategies as a patient’s condition or support eco-system changes. The feedback loop can help patients internalize the clinical solutions provided by their physicians, and create a sense of empowerment and capability.

Appian for Patient Engagement

Today, many healthcare customers are actively seeking ways to implement value-based care and move people from using healthcare as “sick care”, and helping people toward “well care,” using a spectrum of disciplines and tools to define health for each individual.

In a patient-centric world, when healthcare organizations think like consumer companies and relentlessly hack away obstacles, everyone benefits.

Appian’s automate more, code less, digital transformation platform makes it possible for a clinician to have their patients’ latest information before they even walk in the door. Our streamlined and automated processes also make follow up care, and creating a patient care plan easier

With unified data views, both clinicians and patients can be in touch virtually through real-time information sharing. This helps reduce readmittance, cutting down on costs, transportation hassles, or potential germ exposure that can happen during unnecessary in-person visits.

Want to learn more?

If you’re attending the MedCity Engage conference in San Diego this November, Appian’s Bob Yurkovic will be speaking on these topics, and more during his November 6 session.

Plus, hear now from Appian Vice President of Healthcare Provider practices Fritz Haimberger, as he sat down with experts from Nemours Children’s Health System and Northwell Health on this webcast as they discuss Leveraging Digital Tools to Treat Patients Along the Care Continuum. Hear how tools like Appian are helping patients take control of their health, and engage with their clinicians, even after discharge.

Real Sales and Marketing – Connections and Conversations

by

Being a sales rep is like being a doctor. First, you have to win the confidence of the person. You have to understand their pain – feel their pain. This makes an initial connection. Once you have earned trust by building confidence, they can talk about what ails them. A deeper connection develops through a conversation. Good doctors focus on the person and not on what meds they can push (one of their products). The doctors that see you and in 5 seconds and then prescribe meds have a bad track record. They do not take the time to understand the person. No connection – no warm fuzzies. No coming back to you!

Conversations take time and time is rushed in this crazy world so we must step back and yield to a more thoughtful approach. Marketing and sales is about making an investment in time and developing connections. So, instead of hawking your product with an “in your face” approach, invest time to build a conversation.

Sales and markeeting is really like a weird courting ritual. It is not about love but it is connected to it. What?? It is a human connection that can grow deep, loyal customers. Dating takes time and connections grow as you invest time and understand the person. If someone is courting a person and just talks about themselves (their product), there is little chance of a second date. Doctor, pursuer of love, or sales, it is about making a connection and having a meaningful conversation.

People really don’t NEED your product. There are always alternatives. So sales is driven by more than just need. In a B2B world, they really want a connection – human interaction is more important in an industrialized, technology driven society. So sales is about something much deeper. Good sales people and marketing folks understand this. So the conversation – not the message – has to be (1) well crafted and (2) timed. Yes, conversation. Not just an assault of sound bites. A conversation is needed to build a connection.

So for marketing folks, how can we initiate a conversation and allow it to blossom into a deep connection? Be thoughtful in your approach.

Thanks Zach Messler – you are the inspiration for this piece.

Challenge – an Art Form

by

It can be a scary word and yet it represents hope for the future.

Humans are all stuck in their present way of thinking and doing things. We need strong people who are challengers to expose a new way of thinking so we can evolve and change our bad habits and create new habits.

Forceful challenge can have a terrible impact if used as an ax to hack away at a way of thinking. Some of us come in swinging the big ax and strike down the status quo leaving a path of resentment. I believe we have all seen this at least once.

Good leaders understand that brute force is not always the path to change. “Do it my way or you are out!” I’ve heard that a few times throughout my career. It didn’t work leaving those leaders scratching their heads. “But, we have to change or perish! It is common sense.” Resistance to change trumps common sense every time … it is in our genes. So, it is how we challenge that can have the most impact for us to commit to change.

What if we take this big word, CHALLENGE, and strike the status quo with the power of a feather? What? Strike softly and plant a seed of ‘perspective’ in the minds of others. Nurture the seed and watch it blossom into insights so the “others” begin to challenge themselves and they influence others. What a powerful, yet subtle way to shift what we do and believe. Brute force is not always the answer and people’s habits do not respond well to it as we have all witnessed. Strike the mind with a feather of perspective. It is not as scary and let’s people gradually embrace change.

Challenge can be scary to some. It is important to know that. In the hands of a skilled leader, challenge can alter the status quo without leaving a path of destruction. The success of using challenge is in HOW the power of it is used. Use it wisely.

Influencing Decision-Making To Support Engagement

by

By Robert Yurkovic

April 15, 2016

Many businesses are focusing on customer experience, user experience, education, and incentives to engage people in healthy living for a healthier population. People are motivated by different things and we find that decisions play an important role in how people engage in healthy behavior. By focusing on how people make decisions, we engage them in a sustainable and meaningful ways.

Real engagement in health care is about constantly making good decisions that affects our health. For sustainable good health, the key word is constantly. In the HealthScape of things, it is a war out there and we are the victims. Supermarkets are loaded with bombs disguised as processed food. Physicians hand out meds at the end of each session because we expect to get something for the visit. If we do not receive our adult version of a goody bag, we feel unrewarded. Marketing has us confused with inconsistent, irrelevant labeling so we are not sure what to buy even though the product is labeled natural and good for you. Our day is loaded with stress and is compressed with work deadlines, family issues, and too many things to do and focus on. How can we focus on our health and stay focused? We need to understand how we make decisions on a daily basis and understand that we live around a stream of decisions that shapes what we do. I call the constant processing in our minds a decision stream, which is made up of micro-decisions, mini-decisions, and macro-decisions. If a person wants to do something, they have to make a decision to do it and if it is not in our crowded decision stream, it does not get done.

Engaging people to lead healthy lives is not about thrusting an informative paper or web page in our faces on how to sleep, what to eat, how to manage stress, work life balance, and what exercises you must do every day. A push strategy has shown little success and so we need to look inside of ourselves to see what makes us tick or, more simply put, how we make decisions on what we do and how we live. If we can influence decisions and gain entry into a person’s decision stream, we have a chance to obtain sustained engagement.

As human beings, we make decisions based on fact, fiction, and hearsay. We are easily influenced from a variety of sources and internal mechanisms. It is my theory that constant decisions form the basis for sustainable consumer engagement in healthcare so if we wish to achieve sustainable engagement, we must influence decision-making. I always thought of the mind as a balance of analytic and emotion components with emotional components having the greatest decision-making power. But I have learned there is much more to it, such as the unconscious mind, which influences our behaviors in subtle, but powerful ways. This increases the complexity of decision-making and makes engagement more difficult to understand. So far, I have identified five key decision-making influencers and am surprised to find that the analytic component does not have a major effect on decision-making in normal everyday life until the moment we are thrust into making difficult decisions due to an adverse event or situation.

In my recent book, “Commercializing Consumer Engagement”, I created a quote to set the tone for the material. In 2014, I said, “Human are extraordinary beings that rise to face adversity but need adversity to be able to rise.” We are truly motivated to make good decisions and act accordingly when placed in a position of adversity. In other words, we tend to eat the right foods just after we had a heart attack or reduce our sugar intake after we learned we have diabetes type II. But when things are good, we tend to relax on our decision-making expertise which often lead to experiences that are less than optimal.

I understand the meaning of the following saying, “Live life like it is the last day of your life.” If we believe we would die tomorrow, our decisions are more analytic in nature and lead to better outcomes. Mortality has a way to motivate us in making good life decisions. The question is, why wait until something goes wrong to make healthy decisions? Why not influence our decision-making now and achieve and maintain a healthy lifestyle?

Three Parts of the Mind Molecule

Before we get into the five influencers, let’s look at the mind and the role it plays in more detail. The mind plays 3 roles in decision-making and controls much of what we do and believe.

I found there is a middle brain and not just a right and left brain in how we think. I updated my earlier view of the Mind Molecule to include a third part … the unconscious mind. I moved knowing from mental part and habit/focus from the emotion part to the unconscious part. The middle brain or mind is the intuitive part of the mind.

We witness how the mind works in an event with potential danger. We can’t put our finger on it through analyzing our situation and while the event may seem like a lot of fun, we decide not to do it due to our intuitive mind advising us not to do it. While this example may keep us out of danger, it also provides the hurdle of inertia preventing us to make a change in our lifestyle.

The tree parts of the Mind Molecule make up three of the five key influencers in decision-making. That also means that two of the three influencers of decision-making do not even get processed in the conscious mind but are somehow connected to the unconscious.

Mind Molecule

Five Decision Influencers

The five decision influencers, which are identified below, show how difficult it is to make a decision since we are inundated with stimulus from multiple sources. Later, I will explore the need for decision mapping so we may understand what influences our decision-making behaviors with the hope of guiding us to make good decisions through positive motivation rather than experiencing an adverse event.

5 Decision Influencers

ANALYTIC

The analytic mind likes facts, numbers, logic, and quantitative data. We can get lost in the data and analysis with the emotional side of the mind finding it boring. In health, we don’t see a forthcoming threat until we experience pain. Facts and figures should be compelling enough to persuade us to do the right thing but this part of the mind only accounts for one-fifth of the decision-making process.

Even though data suggests a proper direction to be taken or a decision to be made, we often ignore it due to an emotion or “gut feel” that another viewpoint is more compelling. Sometimes, the first stage of the decision process is to perform an analysis so we can tell ourselves we did our due diligence to make an informed decision. Check mark! Then we move on to convince ourselves that this could be wrong. Why? Emotions and influencers are more powerful that logic and facts. Sometimes, rules are not to be followed and better judgement comes from other sources and sometimes, the data leads us in the wrong direction.

EMOTION

Most of us understand that many decisions we make are based on emotion, such as buying a car or clothes. Many companies use the coolness factor to influence our decision to buy and use. Advertising plays off of this premise so we buy products based on emotional impact instead of actual product content.

With regard to health, not many of us actually read the contents of food products we buy at the supermarket so packaging and brand influences most of our purchase decisions. Consumerism plays a huge role in decision making so we look for products that are convenient and easy to prepare. These products satisfy an emotional need for comfort and simplicity even if the decision is … I made my life easier. Health, on the other hand, is not easily attained and requires focus and work.

Emotions may not lead to rational decision-making and in the case of consumerism, convenience over powers a healthy lifestyle. Emotion can trick us into thinking that ‘easy’ provides a good lifestyle and we deserve it since we work so hard. Our mind is confused by good lifestyle and healthy lifestyle. The analytic mind is needed to focus our decisions so that good now means healthy and we are now emotionally satisfied with being healthy.

With emotions playing such as large role in decision-making, one would think that the emotional satisfaction of looking good in a bathing suit in the summer would be enough to persuade us to be healthy and lose our winter weight. But, no, the unconscious mind has a strong influence over our emotions and the habit of eating more during the winter is so strong, its inertia carries us through the summer months.

UNCONSCIOUS

The unconscious mind is an important part of the decision-making process and, like snowflakes; our unconscious minds are unique to each of us. Influences come from our habits, rewards, personal associations, ethics, and social proof. These are things that make us feel comfortable. We make decisions in this area before they even get to the conscious mind for emotional or analytic review. We tend to do what is expected by others and conform to an acceptable, comfortable norm. Yes, we are creatures that do not like change.

With many variables embedded in our unconscious mind, it may be challenging to understand what key influencers are impacting health related decisions. The unconscious mind is a very personal view of ourselves since the mix of variables makes us quite unique. It is important to understand how the unconscious mind affects out decision-making process by searching for hidden root causes. This is an another reason why hypnosis can work on treating chronic diseases since it has so much power of the analytic and emotion side of the mind.

BODY

Another major influence on decision-making is our physical bodies. Our bodies seemed to know what we need to eat when we need essential minerals or compounds. We get a craving that fires off an action to consume spinach for its iron or bananas for their potassium. I believe craving stimulates an automatic part of the mind that makes a rapid-fire decision that may not be rational, habitual, or emotional. The physical body bypasses the analytic, unconscious, and emotional decision part of our brain and we go from physical body right to action without conscious or unconscious thought … we immediately decide to eat something to satisfy a physical need.

The physical body is a real time trigger for decision-making. The body tells us to stop eating when we are full. This may be overridden by the desire to eat more ice cream or drink too much beer because we receive emotional value from it.

What if we use connected devices to monitor the body and inform us to take action for a specific need. We now combine body and the fifth influencer … digital.

DIGITAL

When we add connected devices (IoT) to the mix, we will probably see more decisions made through devices that bypass our mind for authority. Yes, these decisions are made for us as we enter a new wave of digital evolution called Controlled Living. The connected devices feed off of our body’s data and these semi-intelligent devices trigger a response or decision to do something. This can simplify a saturated, internal decision-stream by routing micro-data to devices for making micro-decisions so we don’t have to think about it. This concept makes our world more convenient but also removes the human element of health care. This certainly fits into the key tenets of consumerism – convenience and easy to use.

The implications cause some concern. While I like the idea of reducing errors through rules-based connected devices, I want important health or personal decisions to be made by my emotional, unconscious, rational, crazy mind. Maybe it is better to have devices make micro-decisions since I am not shedding 10 pounds by my present method of decision-making. I may need a kick in the butt by a digital conscience or motivator. Digital therapy can be useful if properly integrated into the other four influencers in decision-making.

In the years to come, IoT will play a larger role in decision-making so my question is, what will drop out of the decision stream to accommodate it or will the decision-stream become less cluttered to allow for more significant decisions?

Balance

There needs to be a balance of power between the analytic, emotion, and unconscious mind. We can also use the emotion side and unconscious side of the mind to influence healthy decisions instead of providing rational logic and information to people. Combine the mind with the body and digital devices and we can create influencers for a decision experience supporting decisions around healthy choices.

Since we may not be able to balance a person’s decision-making process, it is important to understand how they make decisions and which of their decision influencers are in control so we can focus on the key influencers from that part of the mind-body. I am not suggesting we manipulate the person’s mind, but instead work within their own framework to trigger decisions based on a healthy lifestyle.

The Mechanics of Decision-Making

DECISION STREAM

We process information at an alarming rate and I see people making multiple decisions every second. I call the small ones micro-decisions and the 5 plus decisions made every second makes up a decision stream. Micro-decisions may be thought of as seeing a color and deciding on whether you like it, seeing something and deciding to view it more closely, or seeing a person and deciding whether to talk to them and then another decision fires immediately about the topic to talk about. The decision stream is a crowded place filled with micro-decisions and big decisions. We prioritize what goes into the decision stream based on the influencers and their importance. I could say that micro-decisions add clutter and impedes our ability to focus on what is important so focusing on the ‘now’ and prioritizing health decisions as important is critical for our mind to process them.

As discussed earlier, decision influencers are the mind (conscious analytic, conscious emotional, unconscious), physical body, and digital. There is only so much bandwidth available in the mind-body to accommodate decisions so if we are to engage someone in a healthy behavior; we need influencers to be inserted into the decision stream as our thought processes occur. While decisions flow into the decision stream, they go through a four step process for action or for a person to engage.

5 DECISION-MAKING STEPS

There are 5 key steps toward making a decision that leads to engagement.

  1. If a person has a chronic health condition, they need to be aware of it and recognize it is a problem. At this point, the issue is now in the decision stream in which it can flourish or die.
  2. Next, they have to understand its effect on them and internalize it thereby making it personal. At this step, the issue takes root in the mind as a priority in the decision stream.
  3. The next step is about how a solution can help me as I seek to validate a solution before making a decision to proceed.
  4. The fourth step is about authorizing myself to do something. This is where many people get lost. They agree to do something with a ‘check mark mentality’ and enter a holding pattern of inaction. For fitness, they may buy a connected device to track activity, but fail to integrate it into their lifestyle.
  5. The final step in the decision-making process is to make a final commitment and prioritize a place in the decision stream so we constantly decide to do it over and over again.

DECISION EXPERIENCE AND MAPPING

As people, it is our habit to focus more on our health after something goes terribly wrong. The emotional aspect of a health event forces the analytic part of the mind to play a larger role in decision-making. We start to eat more healthy foods after a heart attack or stop eating so much sugar and carbs after being diagnosed with diabetes. Our decision-making priorities have shifted decision control to reason. It seems adversity is a key motivator for making smart health decisions. The trick to engagement is to force a decision to the analytic mind before we experience adversity in our health. We can capture our attention in the decision stream through feelings in the emotional mind and through influencing in the unconscious mind. We need influencers and raised awareness in the early stages of potential adverse health conditions to shift decision-making focus on them to avoid a drastic health event. If we want to influence decisions and engage people in better health habits, we need to understand their decision streams and what influences their decisions to engage people in healthy behaviors. We must get past the emotional and unconscious aspects before we tap into the analytic mind to educate people in making informed decisions. Customer experience and user experience does not cover this. I believe Decision Experience (DX) is required to account for this. Decision mapping may be the next thing in understanding how to engage consumers in better health.

When performing a decision map exercise, use personas as you would with a customer experience journey map. There are so many variables in the unconscious mind, the personas will allow you to focus on key influencers and group them.

Select a persona and a chronic disease, such as class 1 obesity, before proceeding. Develop an approach to engaging them with that chronic disease.  The approach includes influencers and tasks for each decision step. Ask the people if that influencer resulted in a positive decision for each step and apply a diamond to the appropriate layer. At the end, you should expose influencers that worked the most for that persona with a specific chronic disease. This will also allow you to focus on correcting influencers to provide a correct decision. The more positives in the Correct Decision band should result in sustained engagement.

Decision Map

Decision mapping identifies triggers and influencers along the path of engagement for people. Instead of identifying our emotional satisfaction or experience at interaction / touch points as we map Customer Experience journeys, we identify influencers and triggers at decision points along the person’s thought process. Understanding the DX for a person enables us to shape an experience in their decision stream and guide them along the 4 steps of decision-making to achieve sustainable engagement. The objective is a healthier population by engineering an environment to facilitate proper decision-making before adversity occurs.

Customer Experience is the New “Packaging” in Product Marketing

by

Many years ago, while heading up a product marketing group at AT&T, I learned the successful marketing is about 2 things: content and packaging. Most of the time, packaging wins on influencing decision-making over content, especially with Consumer Product Goods. No one looks at labels to see what is in the box of a product. Instead, we are heavily influenced by the packaging and brand. In the early days, the Brand was strong enough to influence decision-making and the packaging radiated the brand that supported all promotional marketing effort.

For example, I still buy Tide soap at the supermarket. Why? My mom used it so it is a familiar, comforting brand. Also, the packaging got my attention … it just looked right with orange bottles. I found that this also works for all kinds of food related products. I was a victim of packaging design. But, something changed as people started to focus on experiences a while back.

Over 10 years ago, customer experience came into play and I found my purchasing decisions influenced by the experience I had during the purchasing and use of a product as opposed to the packaging. My expectations had to met and clearly Amazon has been working hard on spoiling me. Was the purchasing process easy to use? Was customer service available and supportive when needed? Was I able to get prompt returns when a product did not meet my expectation?

Was my experience good before buying it, using it, and afterward and was I emotionally satisfied? The experience became the product and I attached the experience with the product’s brand.

In the business world, I like everyone else, have become so busy that we have little time to waste. Frustration is in ample supply during the day so, as I engage with a vendor that minimizes my frustrations or helps me along my customer journey, I feel better. Now a product must do its job and make me feel better. In fact, I will buy a slightly more inferior product IF the customer experience is superior. Experience is the new packaging and experience still beats content on the decision-making process to purchase.

Good experiences will continue to keep me buying from a vendor because this is how I see the company’s brand. If the company has a good brand (in my mind), then it has a good brand. Good brand = good experience, which means I feel better.

In a world of chaos and frustration, companies are trying to be more customer-centric and deliver better experiences but they are finding their back office operations hold them back since they have not fully embraced Digital. The back office cannot keep up with customer experience initiatives, which results in misfires. Amazon was born Digital so expectations are high. If I find a vendor is not Digital when purchasing, I am probably entering into a world of hurt and frustration leading to multiple bad experiences. Offering good experiences and embracing a Digital mindset in your company are essential components to develop a strong brand in the customer’s eyes.

So, when designing your product, also design the customer experience you will provide. Make sure your business model supports your strategies and tactics. Since customer experience programs require a dynamic, flexible back end, use digital tech to enable your operations and systems to support your CX programs.

Updated 2019

Digital Comes in Waves – IoT and Health

by

By Robert Yurkovic

January 24, 2016

Digital is not new, it’s just a hot topic as we make another leap forward in technology. Computers ushered in a new era in the 60’s and 70’s through automation to businesses and our lives. Digital continues to impact our lives every decade in a significant way. But only recently has it taken an interesting turn whose impact will be felt in every aspect of our lives and lifestyle. As computers invaded our lives, they started with industrial applications and shifted to consumer-centric uses. IoT is also experiencing the same shift and we see this in the growth of personal devices supporting uses such as health, fitness, and home automation. Is this a great time or what? Or is it a time to think about what we are doing with technology before it alters our lifestyle, or worse, eradicates the human element?

digital evolution

Health care needs technology to connect disparate services and provide relevant data enabling health professionals to collaborate and make intelligent medical decisions about our health. IoT can also help expose medical mistakes before causing serious harm. Connected devices are permeating the health industry with new applications and promises of better health. How we implement technology is as important as the technology we use.

Consumer Behaviors and Health

The era of online consumerism has forever changed the way we think as well as what we expect. We expect services that are easy and convenient, and products that appear at our doorstep only a day or two after placing an online order. The concept of quick and easy is seen in the marketing of health products offered to the public – lose weight, look younger, or get healthier in a few weeks. Consumers want to feel good and if we can do it quick and easy, it fits into our hectic lifestyle. With our busy schedules, we don’t have time to think and patience is a trait not worth waiting for. Unfortunately, good health requires an investment of time that is not often convenient to our lazy mindset.

Connected Living

The proliferation of connected devices reinforces the behaviors of convenience as we sit back and let micro-devices begin to control our life. Wouldn’t it be great if a device attached to your skin senses an abnormality, which could trigger a future heart attack, and then the device sends a warning to your smartphone, care-givers, or a local medical center? Perhaps a connected device samples your saliva and finds your glucose level is high, which could be a sign of pre-diabetes or finds a high level of specific bacteria in your mouth indicating probable tooth decay. These examples help the person to manage their health in real time and provide early treatment with a side effect of lower medical costs. They are examples of Connected Living. Connected health care has many benefits for the person, community and economy. Connected Living is good for everyone and the healthcare system also benefits.

Controlled Living

However, if we continue to follow our path of convenient and easy living, we can become too reliant on connected devices to make decisions for us. With a high number of connected devices residing on the network, there has to be a form of artificial intelligence (AI) among themselves since a trillion devices would clog the network and ultimately the connecting hubs. The connected devices could share data with each other and make, what I call, micro-decisions using light AI. A blood monitoring device could regulate insulin delivery based on data received by that device. This is good and the person benefits. The danger is, if a collection of devices expand beyond a specific function, such as insulin delivery, and makes micro-decisions affecting our environment; it alters our lifestyle and habits based on device data and micro-decision rules. When AI’s ability goes beyond light AI, we enter the digital stage of Controlled Living. Keeping the human element in our lives is important and especially important for our health and lifestyle. Just because I am feeling a little blue one day, I do not want a device to detect this and inject something to perk me up. The rule of “if feeling bad, correct by drug” may seem logical since who doesn’t want to feel good but not in a way that is manipulated by a device or logical rule. Perhaps I need to feel a little blue since my dog was injured and the experience is part of living. No amount of digital data and logic rules can replace the intuition and problem solving capability of medical professionals.

Artificial Intelligence

Stephen Hawking warned us about the risks of artificial intelligence. We need light AI to manage the network of connected devices to keep the network from over-saturating. But when AI takes over personal decision-making, we welcome an easier lifestyle and become lazy and complacent. The nation’s population is becoming unhealthier every year as we continue adopt lazy and complacent behaviors. Our bodies are deteriorating so let’s not let the mind suffer as well. Decision-making keeps us healthy and helps us learn as we experience life.

Decision-Making

Decision-making has three components – the analytic side, emotional side, and the unconscious side of the mind. We make most of our decisions based on the emotional side and the unconscious side. Last year, I created a Mind Molecule model showing the analytic and emotional elements of our minds. I added a new lobe, the unconscious side where decision-making occurs through influences, habits, and internal ethics. The model supports the components of how we think and behave. Emotions, such as compassion, are not logical and cannot be programmed into a connected device so the device has a limited ability to make complex, worldly decisions. Influences from other stimuli can provide good and bad outcomes and we have already seen this with social media. Now we can think about the impact of device media – shared opinions from digital devices.

Mind Molecule

Insurance Payers and Technology

Another issue that is surfacing recognizes many medical professionals are processing people quickly and not taking the time to discover root causes. In an effort to reduce medical costs, some Payers limit the time per patient and limit treatment to reduce waste. For doctors to make reasonable a profit, they quickly identify a symptom, treat it, and move on to the next person. The concept of value based compensation may change this if the Payers let the doctors do their job properly, but controlled devices will exacerbate this problem if Payers rely on technology to diagnose and treat people. Technology may not show all evidence of a health problem or the root cause; the health problem may require more than device data to solve it. This became evident when I interviewed a physical therapist. She stated the Payer would only let her treat the neck where the pain was located even though she knew, through her training, that the cause of the neck pain was from the hip area. Again, being quick and easy does not improve health care – we are complex systems and deserve more.

Digital Technology as an Enabler

Technology is not a solution, but an enabler to a solution. With technology, it is important to implement it in a way that does not interfere with the human element in decision-making. Effective health care requires the human element. We must harness the power of technology and manage it in a way that supports a better life and solutions that enable individuals and professionals. We are in a stage of Connected Living and it is important to chart our course carefully without making things too easy and convenient. Sometimes, low cost and a short cut is not the correct answer to support quality of life. I agree with Professor Hawking in that Controlled Living dehumanizes people so beware; we need to shift the current trend of removing the human element as we embrace IoT.

Key Influencers on How We Make Decisions

by

As human beings, we make decisions in the most peculiar ways. Decisions are influenced from a variety of sources and internal mechanisms. It is my theory that decisions form the basis for sustainable consumer engagement in healthcare so if we wish to achieve sustainable engagement, we must understand what makes us tick – what makes us decide to do things. I always thought of the mind as a balance of analytic and emotion components with emotional components having the greatest influencing power. But I have learned there is much more to it and this increases the complexity of decision-making and makes engagement more difficult to understand. It is interesting to explore the need for decision mapping so we may understand what influences and engages people.

Decision mapping will be a key to understanding how we influence and engage people.

EMOTION

Most of us understand that many decisions we make are based on emotion, such as buying a car or clothes. Many companies use the coolness factor to influence a decision. Advertising plays off of this premise so we buy products based on emotional context instead of actual product content. With regard to health, not many of us actually read the contents of food products we buy at the supermarket so packaging and brand influences most of our purchase decisions. Consumerism plays a huge role in decision making so we look for products that are convenient and easy to prepare. These products satisfy an emotional need for comfort and simplicity even if the decision is … I made my life easier.

UNCONSCIOUS

At the recent Next Edge Health Experience Summit in Philadelphia, I talked with a fellow speaker, Philip Graves, about his point of view that healthcare needs to consider the unconscious mind for engagement. He also said we cannot understand what it takes to make each one of us engage since we are so unique. The unconscious mind is an important part of the decision-making process and, like snowflakes, our unconscious minds are unique to each of us. Philip says influences come from habits, rewards, associations and social proof. We make decisions in this area before they even get to the conscious mind for emotional or analytic review. We tend to do what is expected by others and conform to an acceptable norm.

BODY

Another major influence on decision-making is our physical bodies. In a chat with Dennis Robbins during the Next Edge event, we were walking along the waterfront and talking about health and the importance of person-centric care. I mentioned that our bodies seemed to know what to eat when we need essential minerals or compounds. We get a craving that fires off an action to consume spinach for its iron or bananas for their potassium. I believed craving stimulates the mind to make a decision, but Dennis said the physical body bypasses the analytic and emotional decision part of our brain and we go from physical body right to action … we immediately decide to eat something to satisfy a physical need. The physical body is a real time trigger for decisions.

DECISION STREAM

Now to make matters more complex, I see us as making multiple decisions every second. I call them micro-decisions and the 5 plus decisions made every second makes up a decision stream. Micro-decisions may be thought of as seeing a color and deciding on whether you like it, seeing something and deciding to view it more closely, or seeing a person and deciding whether to talk to them and then another decision fires immediately about the topic to talk about. You get the basic idea. In reality, we make a lot of decisions all the time and most of them are small micro-decisions. As discussed earlier, decision influencers are the mind (conscious analytic, conscious emotional, unconscious), physical body, and soon to come … IoT. There is only so much bandwidth available in the mind-body to accommodate decisions so if we are to engage someone is a healthy behavior, we need influencers to be inserted into the decision stream as a priority over something else already in the stream. Whether that means squeezing out micro-decisions to make room for substantial important health decisions or raise the priority of health decisions in the stream. I could say that micro-decisions add clutter and impedes our ability to prioritize and focus on what is important so losing a few may make us saner in the long run.

DIGITAL

When we add connected devices, IoT, to the mix, we will probably see more decisions made through devices … yes, decisions made for us as we enter a new digital evolution wave of Controlled Living. The connected devices feed off of our body’s data and these semi-intelligent devices will trigger a response or decision to do something. This can simplify a saturated decision-stream by routing micro-data to devices for decision-making so we don’t have to think about it. This certainly fits into the key tenets of consumerism – convenience and easy. The implications cause some concern. While I like the idea of reducing errors through rules-based connected devices, I want important health or personal decisions to be made by my emotional, unconscious, crazy mind. Oh, maybe it is better to have devices make micro-decisions. I am not shedding the 10 pounds I need to lose by my present method of decision-making. I need a kick in the butt by a digital coach. In the years to come, IoT will play a larger role in decision-making so my question is, what will drop out of the decision stream to accommodate it? Scary question.

5 Decision Influencers

Five Decision Influencers

DECISION EXPERIENCE AND MAPPING

As people, it is our habit to focus more on our health after something goes terribly wrong. The analytic and emotional parts of the mind start to play a larger role in decision-making. We start to eat more healthy foods after a heart attack or stop eating so much sugar after being diagnosed with diabetes. We need other influencers in the early stages of potential health conditions that are not as drastic as a major health event. If we want to influence decisions and engage people in better health habits, we need to understand their decision streams and what influences their decisions to engage people in healthy behaviors. Customer experience and user experience does not cover this. I think I created a new term … Decision Experience (DX). Decision mapping may be the next big thing and I cover some of this as the 4 key steps to decision-making in my book, Commercializing Consumer Engagement. Decision mapping identifies triggers and influencers along the path of engagement for people.

Hosted by Studio IQ

Admin Login

Copyright

All books, papers, blogs, online writing, images, and decks created by Robert Yurkovic are copyrighted.