208. Worxogo: The AI-Powered Nudge Coach with Anant Sood

Welcome to episode 208 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm so excited to introduce you to Anant Sood, co founder of worksogo. Ready? Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today I am very excited to introduce you to Anant Sood, one of the co founders of the Nudge Coach worksogo. What the heck is a Nudge Coach, you ask? My definition is that it's an awesome amalgamation of behavioral science and AI to help people be better managers, improve employee performance, company performance, and so much more. Anant is going to share a lot more about it in the conversation, so I won't get too much into detail here, but just know when I heard about this, I absolutely knew I had to profile it in my book what your Employees need and can't tell you, which is currently on pre sale to come out 10-11-2022 and to follow that up with this episode. You're going to love this, trust me. Within our conversation, Anant and I talk about a lot of other concepts which have their own past episodes, but no need for you to take notes because I've already done that for you. There are links for you in the show notes for the episode which are waiting for you within the app you're listening to or atthebrainybusiness.com 208. Once there you'll find links to lots of other great related books, including mine, which is on pre sale, as I said, ways to learn more about work, sogo and how to connect with Anant and more. Again, those are at the brainy business.com208 now let's jump right in. Anant Sood, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.

Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

Yes. So I think the audience is used to by now me sort of laughing when we do the intros and I pronounce names and I am because we just talked about it and then it corrected how like I've thought it in my brain and so in the, you know, using our good terms here, I'm like anchored on the way I was saying it but I really want to make sure to say it right because I just asked you and so I end up saying kind of slow and awkward, even though I just said it fine, 10 seconds before. So anyway, you can play it at.

Double speed once it's done, right?

Yeah, I'll tell, I'll tell Mike, my editor. Right. So go in and if we can speed up when I say the name just a little bit to make it so it doesn't sound so weird, that'd be great. Great. Well, Anant, welcome to the show. Can you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and the really fascinating work that you do?

Thanks for having me. This is, I'm looking, really looking forward to this. I have been working for the last 22 years now and it's largely been in the area of transformation in organizations. I have worked with PwC, Ernst and Young have spent time in about six countries, including the United States, delivering transformation programs on the sales side. And the last six of those have been with, as a co founder with worksoko. It's essentially an AI plus neuroeconomics based company which helps improve productivity of salespeople in companies. So think of it like the best manager that you've ever worked for and how she or he was, you know, were able to extract the best out of you and do it in a uniquely personal way for every person, every member in their team. That's what worksoko aims to be. So we've kind of spent time with our advisors in Stanford and the department of Neuroeconomics and you know, we build this out to figure out what's the best way to make sure every salesperson, every employee in a team gets to be more productive. Was that a good enough introduction?

Of course, it's perfect. And so I'm curious with. And you know, we've talked a bit, of course, but as far as finding your way, can you talk a little bit about your path? So was it sort of this tech side and then you found the behavioral side, did you care about behavior and then wanted to do tech? Like, how did this all come about for you?

Awesome. So one of the things we, the co founders, six of us, we felt when we were delivering these transformation programs for our customers, right. Was this common theme that would run across every time we'd come in and solve a problem. So deploy a new software, change the process, put in new policies to make the team more effective. The one common thing we'd hear from our customers every time was, hey, you know what, the first three months, six months, when we brought in a change, it was excellent. All the parameters on your dashboard were green and six months, nine months in a few quarters in the Change or the improvement seems to have tapered off. And this was something that we would come across consistently over the years. And it was a chance meeting with our advisor, Professor Baba Ship, who is in Department of Neuroeconomics in Stanford. And he said, hey, you know what? The problem that you guys face is not really a technology problem or a process problem. It's a behavioral problem. So we spent more than a year with him kind of noodling around, figuring out what's the and, you know, while he did point us in one direction, we, you know, that's where behavior that this 2014 is when, you know, we got interested in it. So while we were still in our earlier careers, we started tinkering with the idea of saying, okay, how does this come about? And that's when we decided let's, instead of just being advisors to organizations, let's productize the solutions. That's where the tech angle came in. So to answer your question, Beriena, interestingly enough, this came about neither from a tech side or from a behavioral side. It was a business problem, and it was something customers were saying. This is something that we struggle with. We want to change. Change doesn't stick. And no matter what you throw at it beyond a point, it just goes back to the way it was. And so started with a business problem, it was by chance we got into figuring out what behavior can do for it. And then we built a tech product around awesome.

And I, you know, coming from being the brainy business, there's everybody I'm sure is listening and you can tell why Anant and I got along so well and have had, I would say, far too many conversations. But that's not true because I know there are many more to come. But Anant, we got connected on LinkedIn, which I think is a pretty common thing I end up saying here with guests on the show. And when I did a call out for the second book on what your employees need and can't tell you, which will be coming out October of 2022. Very exciting. And was asking just for stories, you know, what, what do people have of, you know, businesses that are already using change, you know, how are we using change management? Businesses, behavioral economics applied in business having to do with change. And you reached out to me and said, hey, we're doing this. And I think you were talking about a study that you all were working on at the time that didn't have data yet. But then we started talking more and the solution you have is so fantastic as an opportunity for really applying this within teams. Like you said, the best manager, but helping to make everyone have the opportunity to be the best manager and the best employee. Of course. We'll talk in a minute about how that all works, but I just love that and that I was able to feature worksogo in the book because it is such a really elegant, I think, solution in elegant and incredibly complex behind the scenes. There's a lot of stuff going on to make this work. Just like with the brain, there's so much going on, picking the right levers and things to be trying at various points and whatnot. So I know there are a lot of concepts that you all work into the program and how it works. But let's start with, I guess this would be similar to the I get your elevator pitch right for somebody of, you know what, what the heck is this solution? Why does it work? How does it help a team? You talked a little bit about the problem. Like, how does this help solve it?

Great. So yes, I just to your point on the number of conversations. Absolutely. I found it very fascinating and I came across your podcast. So that's how this whole thing started. And I then saw the book that you were doing and the ideas and stuff. So yes, the concept behind the elevator pitch fundamentally is. And again, there's a little bit of concept which says left brain, right brain system one, system two, depending on which book you're looking at and concept you're looking at. But fundamentally what it does is it tries to appeal to to each individual in a uniquely personal way, like a coach does or the best mentor or the best manager that you worked for. Right. The message that you get and how you get it impacts the way you actually want to do something. So if I were to give you a very simple example what new year resolution and gym memberships have not been able to get us to do, which is be consistent, we all have the ability to do it. Most of us want to be fitter than we are today, and we have the intent of doing it as well, which is why we end up buying an annual gym membership. But 15th of Jan, and a lot of us, me included, we fall off the wagon. There's a million reasons why I don't have the right shoes or, you know, it's too cold outside, it's too hot outside, depending on whatever. So there will be reasons why we don't follow through, even though we have the intent to improve. We have the ability to improve, but we don't follow through. So the elevator pitch, while it's not been one, but the Elevator pitch is most organizations, and I'll take a sales example, most sales teams have a sales force, a CRM, they'll have some analytics tools, etc. All those tools essentially assume that they appeal to the left brain of the individual. Meaning If I give 10 people in a team, 10 employees, 10 members in a team, the same data, they're going to respond in the same way where they assume that all of us are just robots in our own way. And as long as we give you the data, we'll act in the exact same prescribed way that we are supposed to. That doesn't happen. And that's the reason why, going back to what I said earlier, our customers came back saying, you've put in a new process, you've deployed Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics or whatever, some CRM, but people don't follow through. And why is that happening? Why is that? Our elevator pitch, we are the behavior layer in a team to ensure everyone gets the personal attention that they deserve on a daily basis. And as a consequence, everyone improves by 0.1 or 0.2% every day. So and when you do that, you're no longer looking at getting everyone to be a superstar. But everyone is improving every day. So as a consequence the, the team is happy, the managers are happy, the business is happy.

Right. And you're able to get, while it's the team members go up the 0.1%. I feel like this really kind of does a 10x on what the manager is able to do and support the team with and being able just to understand how the people are motivated in a way that is where we know the problem being the and can't tell you part. Right. So someone may say, oh no, I'm really motivated by or I hate public praise or I hate being praised for the word. I don't need to be praised, I don't like that. But they might actually respond really well to it in the right circumstance. But they don't on that cognitive level think that they like that. And where some people, I know where we've talked about this, are motivated by competing against themselves and others are motivated by not letting the team down and others are more motivated by beating someone else on the team, that those are all proper ways to be motivating people. And if you don't know how someone is going to react, you could, you know, try to go with the be a team player to the person who wants to be better than everyone else. And it's going to be, you know, not hit them right in getting them to Take the next action. So how, how does the solution identify what's going to work with various team members and sort of what, what sort of levers can be pulled or buttons can be pushed to help the team nudge them along the way.

Great. And this is essentially the core of what our product does. Melira. So I'd like to just point out one more thing. In organizations today, the only way you're able to figure out ability, motivation, how are people doing is through surveys. And one of the tenets of behavior science is always about my sense of who I am is always not what I exhibit as a behavior. To your point, exactly what you said, right? So in a group, if you ask 10 people, how many of you are above average drivers or, you know, writers or whatever, you know, salespeople, and this is empirical evidence, it shows 8 out of 10 say they're above average. That's just not possible. Right. So, and to answer your question, now, fundamentally, the engine works on observed action rather than stated intent. So there is no surveys or questionnaires that people have to fill in which say, what are you motivated by? The way the engine is built is it observes how every team member, every sales rep in a team responds to different kind of nudges, pretty much like a manager does, right? You have a new team member join in. You'll try and figure out how to get them to be their best, to motivate them to act, to perform. So the manager tries different ways and over a period of time figures out saying, for Anant, he's competitive in nature, but only during the end of the month, not really at the beginning of the month. And these are all intuitive things that great managers pick up. So our engine is built essentially to do that. It sends out these nudges to every individual in the team every day. And at the back, using machine learning and AI, it figures out what's the probability that this kind of a motivational factor will work for this individual today. And the other thing that we are very proud of is the fact that it's, it's not trying to put all of us into boxes. If you recall, there are all these personality type questionnaires and surveys. We fill out the Myers, Briggs and so on. They essentially give you a bunch of every interview. When you fill in a questionnaire, it'll give you a profile and that's it. That essentially means that's who I am every day for the rest of my life. That's what I'm going to be like. The survey again, whereas we are not Built like that, we are motivated by different things at different points. So that's a critical input that the engine assumes that nobody is motivated by the same thing every day. So it is a new day. There are some bits that we understand. So it's a game of probability. So every time it'll figure out saying what's the best probability, the best chance that Anant will respond to a competitive based nudge or a personal best based nudge. And over a period of time, like a good manager, it learns and gets better at predicting what will work for you, for me and everyone in the team.

Right. And even for the best manager and someone that is just epic at doing this sort of thing. Assuming you have a team of even, we'll just be on the low side and say you have five people on your team being able to think through, okay, it's the beginning of the month and where are they on this goal? And if it's the beginning of the month and last month they did this and how did they compete against that person? And previously when I've said this or that, I mean, oh my goodness, it's so complex. And even where someone may think they're thinking through the variables or you have some survivorship bias.

Right.

Of saying, well, I'm sure that what worked is when I, I said this and the team did well. And so I'm going to say the same thing over and over again. But that maybe wasn't the thing that did anything, it was something else that you are totally forgetting about and didn't even realize that you said or did that tanked or helped and that even, you know, you send the email and you don't know what the employee then does, right?

Yep.

And so this being able to know they saw the loss aversion nudge in the dashboard and then what did they do? And this is not in a weird like Big Brother over your shoulder being a creeper all the time watching what you're doing, but being able to know. And salespeople want to be better at selling stuff.

Absolutely.

In general. Right.

No one doesn't want their incentive at the end of the month.

And so the, you know, the managers want their teams to do well, the company wants everyone to do well. And so you're able to of course set up and customize based on goals. So having it so that the system is understanding what motivates me, I think is something where you can then have some transparency in explaining how the brain works, why we do it this way, and being able to let people know that you just. You do you. And it's going to figure out the right way to help you to get and reach and achieve and exceed your goals. And it'll. It'll learn along with you. And even if you operate differently than everyone else on the team, it's okay. Right? And if I don't get that as your manager, it's going to give me a nudge of a way to help you, too. Can you talk a little bit about kind of the other side of those nudges?

Sure. So far. So right now I've been talking about what it does for the seller or the salesperson or the individual in the team, the team member for managers. And this is one of my favorite analogies, Merida. This is since Top Guns coming out very soon.

Yes.

It's so Workso's nudge coach is like your productivity wingman. So it's like your goose to your maverick. Even though you're, like you said, the example you gave, you're the best manager. You have a view of what worked in the past. You know how to give that feedback. But there's tons of stuff that will probably get missed out a because you do not have that much time to process all the bits of information that you have in front of you. So for managers, it's like your wingman. It gives you situational awareness of your team. Precisely what you said. So for Melina, she's early starter in the month. She's blown past her goals by the 15th of the month, and she just needs a pat on the back to keep her going. Now, as a manager, you would probably know that, but that's not something you would remember what happened three months ago or six months ago. That's where the wingman comes in and tells you, saying, hey, you know What? It's the 10th. If you just give this kind of a little bit of a nudge to Melina, saying, great job. I know you're going to blow past your goals, objectives, whatever, by the 15th or 20th. That's going to supercharge you. So it gives you the situational awareness as a manager for every individual and the way it's been built. That's the whole concept of the nudge is it's not directive in nature. It's not going to say, hey, you haven't sent that email to her and you suck. It's going to say, you know what, if you end up sending this kind of a message to this person in your team, they're probably going to do a little better this month. So it's taken that cognitive load off you as a manager to kind of remember what's the trends, the patterns in your team. And it's the way it's built is two clicks and you're able to give feedback to every person in your team. And that's like a huge positive for managers to, you know, become better at coaching their teams to. To deliver on the outcomes they need.

Right.

It's like a coach for the frontline team, but it's a wingman to the managers.

Yeah. And so I would think, too, that is helping train the manager for things to notice and look for. Right. And that's especially if you're promoting from within and somebody's new to being a manager and they're not really sure how to motivate the team or what, because especially often in a sales culture, whoever's the best salesperson gets to move up and be the manager. And they don't necessarily have any managerial skills and they think that what motivates them is what's going to motivate everyone else. And it becomes this thing that can be quickly, very demotivating when they don't understand that, you know, it's not that you only did well and the only way to do well is the way that you got there. Right. Kind of in that survivorship bias problem again. But instead, instead, you know, being able to help them to help others.

Right, Absolutely. And that's precisely the point of becoming a wingman to managers, especially even the experienced ones in those, you know, in some of the experienced managers have a big, very strong entrenched view of saying this is the only way it works. And we've seen that because they get these. And these nudges are, in a way that they're. They're not forced to do anything about it. But my managerial style might be different. As an example, I might just give feedback only on the number of sales dollars I've brought it. That's the only thing I give feedback to my team on. But the engine figures out saying, you know, what if you also look at the lead indicators or the activities that your team is doing and you kind of build that habit in you to talk to your team about those, that makes you a better manager because your team responds to those. So it does that both for new experienced managers by helping them get over their blind spots at their own pace. And to your point, it's completely not Big Brother, because it will just say, hey, look, this is what you might want to try. And if, if an individual or a manager Responds to those the engine learns, say aha. This kind of way of getting a tip seems to work for this manager. So it's learning both to what are your managerial styles and kind of modulating around it to make sure it works for you.

Right. And I would hope it's not like it's giving you a canned message of like click send on this robot sounding email, as much as saying, you know, here's something you might want to try here. I don't know if it does it give language suggestions of ways to think about writing the email, but not, you know, don't copy and paste it.

It does. So it will. And that's the fun part. So it will give you a bunch of choices. That's the way it's built. It's a Here are three ways in which you can talk to Melina about today. And by the way, you don't have to use any of. You can use a fourth way of your own choice as well. But it's generally giving that option for you to choose from and doing it in a way that it kind of makes you think about the best way to do it.

And then you're able to see a little bit about the language that could work. And then maybe you make a hybrid version or you try something else, but you're able to then send. And I remember from our conversations previously that so with a system like this, you know, stats are based on the daily active users. The engine is only as good as having everyone go in and use the thing. Whether it's like you said, a CRM or something else. You need people to be in it for it to be usable. And so can you talk a little bit about kind of stats in general and the impact that you have with worksogo?

Sure. So you're absolutely right. And maybe just add a little bit to what you said. It works alongside a CRM. Absolutely. But a lot of our customers, and this is a statistic for you, Salesforce talks about Saying typically about 35% usage is great, which means a third of your people are using it consistently. We've seen this across a whole host of deployments where you've got the system, it's just not being used. One of the things the Nudge Coach gets used for is actually usage of Salesforce. So for our customers, one big use case they have is just making sure the tools that they've given the team start getting used. And this is for a Fortune 20 company, a telecom player, where for their customer support and sales team, they had this very complicated Deep system that they created to help them, you know, sell more and whatnot. They had 15% usage. So, you know, 85% of the team wasn't even using it to drive it. And just by introducing the nudge, and one of the objectives in the nudge was just, you know, the nudge coach was can we get everyone to use that system at least once a day? And just by doing that, they got a 3% sales increase as a consequence. So our experience has been anywhere between 4,5% up to 20% sales increase because A, more people, more of your team start using the tools, B, they start complying with the process you want them to follow, and three, as a consequence, their productivity numbers move up. So if you do, you know, if you're hitting enough number of lead indicators, meeting enough customers, making enough calls, pitches, what have you, you will essentially start doing better. So it's in terms of impact anywhere, but like I said, 5 to 20% sales increase within a quarter of deployment of this tool. And it works seamlessly with pretty much any industry standard CRM that exists out there.

Yeah, I know where you're talking about the, you know, if you just by nature, if you ask more, you'll get more sort of the way that that works. And when Vanessa Bonds was on the show talking about her book, you have more influence than you think and how asking feels like the worst. It feels really excruciating. But you have people have a much higher success rate than they may realize. And so getting people to just do the thing that they're supposed to do that you may feel a little bit anxious about is so impactful. And I know we've talked about in the context of a sales team, but you also just general call center and there are some back office applications as well, right?

Absolutely. So we do have, so we have three specific use cases. Field force sales, sales and service contact center, as well as back office, which is your typical. And this could be, you know, across industries, but we've seen a lot of success in the banking, financial services, credit unions, kind of space insurance and pharmaceuticals, the other one, as well as retail and high tech. So those, those are the use cases where again, that pretty much covers a large variety, but what it says is pretty much any team where you have a set process and you have some basic CRM in place and you know, you're looking to increase productivity, the, you know, the behavior nudge coach will deliver the outcome for you.

Awesome. Well, I feel like that's just a great kind of putting a bow on it. But if we're gonna tie that bow here for everyone who now is super excited, they want to learn more, they want to get onto, you know, I know you have a newsletter or whatnot. You know, they want to connect with you. What's the next best step for everyone who wants to learn more about work?

Zo Everything that I've talked about, including case studies, what our engine does is on our website, worksogo.com it's W R X O G O. It's a tongue twister. But I am reachable on anant that works.com in any case. So all the details are out there. We have a very. The newsletter is also on the website and that's once a month look at behavior science in the workplace. And it's completely focused on how you can apply it without having to buy work. Zoho. So it's more about concept and saying, you know, we really at work zogo, we're big believers in behavior science can make an impact and we think this is the future of work. Everyone's moving hybrid. It's not. The earlier ways of working are completely changing and the current tools that everyone has are not going to be enough. So you do need a behavior layer to manage your team. And in the newsletter we talk about how that's actually possible with live customers who talk about their journey, their experience, etc.

Awesome.

That's on our website.

Well and you know, I could not agree more and that there's just so much value in the behavior information. And I know you were saying like you re so the episode you mentioned so you recently had a. One of your newsletters was featuring the Dunning Kruger effect. The episode I just did on Dunning Kruger. Well just. Just quote unquote when we're talking here. But 198 is resonated so well with people there reaching out and just saying, oh my gosh, I didn't know this had a name. This is. I've seen this for me and my kids and my team members and everybody. You know, it just is something that people get and really love that concept. So I think it's, you know, that and so many others like you said the halo effect and others you've been talking about. So great to just have more resources and seeing different angles about how people are talking about applying behavioral science in business. Which I know is what basically everyone is here listening to. And just as a reminder, you know, and all the longtime listeners know, I don't. While Anant said his email address, I don't type them in the show notes because I care about our guests inboxes and spam is real so it won't show up on the website, but you get that benefit from listening that you have his email there. And of course you can send me a message if you want to get in touch with Anant. I'm happy to make that connection. So again, thank you so, so, so much for joining me on the show and for all the time that we've been talking in the interviews, for including stuff in the book. And I just really love what y' all are doing and thank you for sharing it with the world.

Awesome. Thanks for having me. This was a fun talk. And yes, best of luck for the book. I look forward to getting my hands on it once it's out.

Absolutely. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Thank you again to Anant Sud for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I've really been focused on helping people to have a better experience at work. In my research for my upcoming book, what your employees need and can't tell you, I found a study by Gallup which said that over 80% of people currently in management roles don't have the talent to be a great manager. It went on to say that one in 10 people is a natural born manager. Two more can be taught and the other seven out of 10, which as you know from that stat I just shared, are the majority of existing managers are not suited for the job and using past methods can never be. To me, this stat, to put it bluntly, sucks. And one of the things they said was that because most people don't manage more than 10 people on a team, the chances are one of the people in your group does have the skills to be a great manager. So you just have to find them. Uh, yeah, in theory that's great, in practice, not so much. You know, what are you supposed to do? Demote all your existing managers and let them know they now report to someone who used to be their direct report? Or wait for the bad fit managers to leave and then replace them with a natural born manager someday, knowing full well they're likely not the ones who are going to stay with you, Especially if they're in a position bad, long term toxic sort of work environment and that would take too long anyway. Plus, even if you did go about any of these approaches, how are you supposed to really know who has the natural talent or can be trained and who is everyone else? For most companies, I think that would be a roll of the dice, and if that's the case, you might as well just stick with what you've got, which isn't a great outcome either. Or to say it again, kind of sucks. This is one big reason why I wrote my book. It can help everyone who wants to be a better manager to understand change and get direct insight for how to lead those on their teams through helps make change, which is more than just those big massive things, but really is in micro moments. You're going to hear about it more in an upcoming episode when we get closer to the book launch, so I'm not going to get into it too much more right now, but know that it helps to make change easier and more natural for everyone and can help anyone to be a great manager. And I love that work zogo is using AI and machine learning to help people be more motivated to meet and exceed their goals and generally perform better at work, which can be a really virtuous cycle. It's also this opportunity for any manager, even if you aren't naturally intuitive to these little tendencies of your employees, something that's increasingly difficult in our virtual world anyway to better lead their teams. And in my opinion, everyone deserves a great manager. Worksogo can help make that a reality. If you want to learn more about worksogo to get a demo or learn about how they can work with your company, connect with Anant using the information in the show notes. I'm also always happy to make connections, so feel free to email me Melina at the the brainy business.com and as a reminder, those notes are waiting for you within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 208. In them you will find, of course, a link to learn more about work zogo links to past episodes, including others on the intersection of AI, machine learning and behavioral economics, related books, including mine, and so much more. Again, that's all waiting for you atthe brainy business.com 2z thank you again to Anant Sud for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Next week, Dr. Agnes Steeb is here to share about his fascinating work, including being an advisor to the literary who you've heard me talk about on the show quite a bit. It's going to be a lot of fun. You won't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me Me. And remember to be thoughtful.

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