362. Anticipating Errors: The Secret to Guiding Behavior and Influencing Decisions

Welcome to episode 362 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Today's episode is all about the E in Nudges. Expect Error. 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, Malik Mellena Palmer hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today's episode is one from our seven part nudges series, which originally aired back in 2019. If you aren't familiar with nudges in the case of behavioral science, this is one of the foundations of our work. Small shifts that influence a decision someone makes without forcing a choice so people still always have free will. The word nudges is an acronym proposed by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, who also wrote the book Nudge, and each letter stands for a type of nudge. I will of course link to all the episodes on nudges in the show notes for you, but today we're specifically talking about the E in Nudges, which is to expect error. We humans make errors in judgment and decision making all the time. We intend to eat right, but don't we forget to put the gas cap back on before driving away? We leave our card in the atm. We mean to pay the bill on time, but forget to put it in the mail. The list goes on. In our everyday work, we may forget to send an email, we miss a deadline or say something we know we shouldn't. We know that we do this and that others do as well, but for some reason we don't naturally design interventions that can support the behavior. This is where the G in Nudges comes in and you're going to hear me talk about it a bit in this episode. That episode on the GN Nudges, which is to give feedback, is my top recommended next episode for you to listen to, which is linked for you in the show notes. I'm not going to talk too much more about expecting error now, because that's what the episode is for. What I will say is why I chose to refresh this one today. I've done that because of my conversation with Leanne Potter in this upcoming Friday's episode. She is a cyber anthropologist and yes, we will talk all about that in the episode. You don't want to miss it. It's so cool. So if you aren't yet subscribed to the Brainy Business podcast. Now is a really good time to do that. So in that conversation we are discussing her work and how easy it is to overlook little errors in decision making, like with passwords or other areas of security. Planning for those and incorporating nudges into the system is so important for keeping companies safe. Whatever your role is or the work you do, there are lots of errors you can expect and plan for to make processes better. So as you listen to the episode today, be thinking about a spot where you know there are errors, either for you personally or for your teams or customers and and just consider what the errors are, when they happen, why they happen, and things like that. We'll revisit this at the end of the show. Don't forget there are links for everything, including past episodes, books and articles, all waiting for you in the show. Notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 362 all right, let's talk about errors. I think this might be my favorite of all the categories of nudges and thus the episodes we'll do in this series. Why? In many ways, this is really the reason we need nudges at all, and why choice architecture even exists. You see, if we humans did not make errors, we would not need help in making decisions. We would be able to evaluate all the possible options and make an informed decision every single single time. Because we don't and can't. We need choice architecture and it's all built on expecting these errors and properly building in nudges. I also like this section because it lets you think through all the spots where things could get messed up and all those little nuances and silly things we do and come up with ways to help people do and be better. When it comes to errors, we can expect humans to err on nearly anything. No matter how brilliant brilliant someone is, they'll still make errors throughout their lives. One of my favorite quotes from Nudge is that Beethoven wrote his incredible ninth Symphony while he was deaf. But we would not be at all surprised if we learned that he often misplaced his house keys. How can people be simultaneously so smart and so dumb? This is what makes us humans and not the fictitious species of econs that traditional economic models build their predictions for. We're complex and we have flaws, unlike econs, who can do complicated math in their heads quickly and make the most rational choices all the time. They never forget their keys in the morning or leave their card in the atm. Because econs do not make silly errors like this. You've probably heard that to err is human or to be flawed is human. Well, that's pretty much why my field of behavioral economics exists. Errors come in many fashions. As I said, it can be as simple as forgetting your keys or leaving the card in the atm. These are actually part of a subcategory of error called post completion error. Post completion error occurs whenever we have a task to do and once it's partially done, we mentally check it off the to do list. You may remember me talking about this in episode 32 on the overwhelmed Brain and how I'm really good good at starting a load of laundry but almost always forget to move it over to the dryer. This is post completion error. My brain marks the task of do the laundry as done once I start the process, even though I've not fully completed it yet. That leads to error and a lot of rewashed clothes. Smart washers and dryers have been created to make a noise when they're done to alert you to to move the wash over or take the clothes out of the dryer. But because my office is far from the laundry, I don't always hear it and often I will flag it as something I will do when I get up. And by the time I get up, I've forgotten. Even if laundry isn't your post completion error trigger, I am sure you know what I'm talking about and have your own errors to deal with. Maybe you have a hard time remembering where you put your wallet, or maybe you used to forget to put the gas cap back on before it was attached by a little piece of plastic, or left your card in the atm or walked into the kitchen and forgot what you went there for. The list is truly endless. As I mentioned earlier, we've shifted this week and next week around because expecting error needs to come before we give feedback. Giving feedback is something that's more useful on more robust kinds of errors, which is why we will build to that for next week. As I've said, the list of potential errors just goes on and on. It's truly endless. But I'll give a few more quick examples before jumping into the air conditioning purchase. That's been my example profile throughout the series. You know how your car makes a dinging noise when you forget to put your seatbelt on? That is a nudge put in place because the manufacturers expected you to make an error at some point. Or what about the light on your refrigerator that comes on when you need to change the filter or the check engine light on your car, or the light that lets you know you should get your oil changed. Those are all nudges. You know you're supposed to get your oil changed every six months, but when the time comes around, would it be on your radar without that light or the company giving you a call? Same with the filter on the refrigerator. Or a Brita if you have one. You know you're supposed to change the filter every three months, but probably forget until the light comes on. And if your refrigerator is like mine, it makes a really annoying series of beeps when you use the water function until you change that filter. This is a much more invasive nudge, but likely the one that will do the trick. I could ignore a light on the fridge much easier than that noise. Every time it went off, I would turn to my husband and say have you ordered that filter yet? Which of course I could order the filter, but I don't know what I need and I don't want to take the time to look into it. These are the series of errors you can expect. And as you may have noticed in these past examples, I talk about lights coming on, sounds happening. Definitely look at incorporating all of the senses in the way that you might be doing a nudge. If someone's going to miss something when they're reading, putting something in the words that's reminding them isn't going to be as helpful as something that's going to trigger one of their other senses. If you have not listened to the series on the five senses, I have a link for you in the show notes. Anytime something is not consistent enough to become a habit like these, you know, three months out, change the water filter. Six months out, you need to get your oil changed. It's a prime candidate for error. And again, there are links to episodes 21 and 22 on Habits if you want to check those out in the show notes as well. This is why consistency is key in business, and I'm going to get into that during the examples later on in the episode. One place this can be seen is in things like medications. If you have a medicine to take regularly, it's best to have it daily versus every other day or every few days. And it's best to take it at a consistent time to make it so you're less likely to forget you want to build it into your routine. If you have some days where you do something and others where you don't, you could quickly get swept up in error and mess the whole thing up. That's why birth Control pills include a placebo week. If instead they were set up to take for three weeks and then not take for a week and then start up again, it would be impossible for most humans to stick to. So they come in 28 day packs and one of the weeks is truly just so you keep in the habit and don't forget to take them. This is also why a doctor will recommend you take a weekly medication on Sundays, because it's already different than all the other days of the week in your mind and you're more likely to remember than if you took the pills on a Tuesday or Wednesday, which can sort of just blend into each other at some point. Logically, you know to take them. Your optimism bias, episode 34 makes you think you're capable of always remembering. But the doctors know better and incorporated a nudge where they anticipated an error would be made. This helps you keep up with the choice to take your medicine as prescribed. And now you see how simple and brilliant a nudge can be. Now that you know a little about what the errors are, let's talk about the air conditioning example we've been working through on the series. Last week in the episode about defaults, I talked about subscription models and they're really useful when an error is expected for two reasons. First, they help the customer do what they're supposed to do and they're thankful to the company. This is reciprocity and it gives the business a built in reason to follow up regularly and stay top of mind, which is important so people do not forget about you. In the case of an air conditioning unit, it's important to have the ducts cleaned on a regular maintenance schedule to help prolong the life of the unit and keep the mechanisms all working well. According to the National Air Duct Cleaners association, yes, apparently that's a thing. This should be done every three to five years. Yeah. How many people do you think forget to have that done? I'm guessing a lot, especially when the homeowners sell and new homeowners move in. I would guess this happens a lot and air conditioning companies lose business that they could otherwise retain. So if they anticipate this error, what could they do? If they were my client, I would recommend regular check ins with their customers on more than just maintenance tips. That way you can check in more than just once every three years, which is longer than you want to go. If you want to remain top of mind, you could look at doing an annual check in to make sure everything's calibrated properly and that the ducts are clean. They could also do a quarterly tip of the season for their clients. What the normal temperatures are in the summer versus winter where you can get the most value from your H Vac. Warning signs your unit's working too hard how to save money and consider the environment even though you have the ability to keep it at 65 degrees all summer long if you want. Could people get this information somewhere else? Sure. Does it take time to create? Yes, but not as much as you would think, especially when it's sent to an entire list and it gives you an opportunity to promote your side services in the off season. H Vac work is primarily done in the winter and summer. People want heat when it's cold and AC when it's hot. This is availability bias episode 15 what about fall and spring? This is a good time to send an email and remind people to have their annual check in or to have their ducts cleaned. You could also have a message about what to do if they're moving or have moved. To help the new homeowner know about the unit and how to keep it in its best shape. You could look at creating some sort of certification to show the unit has had all its regular maintenance checks like they do with cars before selling them as a way to increase the value when selling a home, which can then be a benefit for the realtors. And you can partner with them to be on their list of names passed on to the new homeowners. Then you're a warm lead instead of a cold one. Someone who's just being friendly, not asking them for anything right away. But now you have the contact information and an in on the maintenance schedule through the life of that unit and when it does need to be replaced. Who do you think they will call or think of first? That's right, you and the people you worked with originally who moved to a new house will probably remember you as well and not want to go to someone else if they need to install install air conditioning again like we just did. All this benefit from a little strategic foresight and understanding when people will make errors so you can step in and be the solution. And that is just the surface level errors in any company. There are bound to be tons of places where people will make errors, both employees and customers. So if this air conditioning company was my client, I would work with them to dig deeper deeper and look for more opportunities to solve errors before they happen. For example, customers might be likely to forget when their appointments are, so it's good to check in two days before to make sure it's on the calendar. Still, this is very common with doctors, dentists, massage therapists and hairstylists for a reason. While we all hope staff will be perfect every time, employees are bound to track dirt into the house or drop something on a hardwood floor, leave insulation remnants on the carpet when they're working, or maybe trample some flowers in the yard by accident. In these cases, why not give each employee a discretionary budget they can use on the spot to make it right for the customer? They don't need to call and get approval from anyone. Say they have $250 per job or $500 a month or whatever makes sense in case something goes wrong. They will not need it every time, and most people will not ever hit that limit even though you think that they will take advantage of it in general, studies have shown people don't, but knowing they have the authority to make the call is incredibly empowering and creates an air of customer service they might not have otherwise. Ritz Carlton is the gold standard in this area, and they've started doing consulting for other people to come in and learn the Ritz way for their own business. They're discussed in probably every business program ever in schools. Because they do this so well, they know people will forget things and mess up, and staff have the ability to do whatever it takes to make it right without asking a supervisor for permission. There are stories of staff members doing amazing things, like one who realized a customer left their briefcase, so he left the hotel, got in a taxi, went to the airport, got on a plane plane to get the briefcase to the client as quickly as possible, and he was celebrated when he got back to work. This is not common, but those stories say something about a brand that a customer will be taking care of even when they make an error or two, and it makes them more comfortable staying there and being able to know that again, they'll be taken care of. You don't have to go quite this extreme, especially if you don't have that high of margins, but it shows you how easy and important this is to implement. Lastly, the guy that came out to do our quote had to do math on his phone to figure out the numbers for our quote, even though, as I've said through the series, this is based on some very standard information like square footage and number events. So why not give them an easy table to reference and get the price so it looks more professional and helps reduce the likelihood someone might misquote or do the math wrong on their phone calculator? It also feels more official for the customer, which is a benefit as well. As you can see from this air conditioning company example, when you're trying to anticipate errors to nudge, you should be looking all over the company. Not just at customers, but employee processes as well. And remember last week on the Defaults episode, I talked about the computers at the credit union that were all set to automatically print receipts and staff would throw 90% of them away before me. No one thought to ask if they needed to be printed and how to change the setting, which as I said was very simple. One mouse click this is an error on behalf of the staff at the company, so it takes some investigating and effort to find these opportunities, but they can be so worth it. I personally love asking questions like this, digging deeper and challenging the status quo. Episode 4 Questions or Answers went into depth on this and gave you tips on how to be a better questioner, so check it out. There's a link in the show notes to help support your quest for errors and if you have not yet downloaded your free worksheet, go ahead and do so now. If you can, use it to write down three customer errors, three staff errors, and three process errors you could fix with a nudge in your business using the insights I've already given and the others which are about to come throughout the rest of the episode. There are so many errors out there, it's a good idea to separate them into categories to help you consider them in your own business. Let's call them Busy Slash Overwhelm Product to solve a problem. Hot, Cold and Top of Mind. First is Busy or overwhelmed brain which we talked about in episode 32. This is where post completion error comes in, which I've already touched on in the episode. This is the overarching category for error and really where the root of the problem lies. Our conscious brain can only focus on so much and the subconscious is making the vast majority of our decisions and using rules of thumb. As you know, this is the basis for behavioral economics. So when we get busy or overwhelmed we tend to forget things and have more errors than usual. Things that are not a habit are easily forgotten, but those that are habits are also forgotten because they become a victim of post completion error. It's a bit of a double edged sword and the main recommendation is to be in the moment and as thoughtful as you can as often as you can. If you know your customers and staff will be busy and can get overwhelmed, leading them to make errors like forgetting to buckle their seat belts or grab their credit card after paying at a restaurant. What can you do to help nudge them to remember and know that there's a balance to this. You do not want to set up too many alerts for too many things because then they will become easy to ignore. When the nudges get overwhelming, you've created one more thing to stop paying attention to and that is not a rule you want applied to your business. Try to get into the mindset of your current or potential customer or a member of your staff. What are they doing? Why are they doing it? What are the steps they may miss or forget? What is the nudge you can place to help them avoid that error? For a financial institution, it could be realizing that people have a lot going on and while they intend to pay their loans on time, they might get busy and forget sometimes. So setting up autopay can actually be a huge benefit for those people. Don't let the fact that a service is good for you and your business cloud the benefit it brings to your customers as well. Or think about the opportunities for subscriptions I mentioned earlier. Or if you have a product that comes without batteries or the right nails or screws to hang it up, why not include them in the packaging or have a recommended add on item? You can't assume people will read all the instructions and relevant information and remember it in the moment. If you assume they would make an error, where will it be? And know that if you do add these items in, you can charge more for them. You don't have to absorb all that cost yourself. You're adding a benefit, which means it can cost a little bit more. It's the same with staff. If you know expense reports are a pain for everyone to fill out and they cause errors because they're hard to track and find everything. Stop trying to change the behavioral errors and force people into a system that doesn't work. Instead, look at what you can be adding to the process or taking away to make it easier. Phone scanning has made this a million times simpler, but not every business allows it for some reason. If people can scan receipts as they get them, how much easier is the process for everyone involved? And no, this is important for more than just product based businesses. Expecting error has been shown to be incredibly effective in places like hospitals. Consider doctors. Most of us are probably not surprised to hear that they're incredibly busy and they're trying to multitask a lot of different items at once. We also know they're very smart, so it's easy to assume they know all the things they should do and wouldn't need to be reminded of the steps for simple routine tasks, right? Don't be so sure. One study found that 82% of the critical incidents involving anesthesia were caused by human error rather than equipment failure. 82%. One of the most common errors was hooking the patient up to the wrong drug, which happened because all the ports and nozzles were the same. So instead of trying to ask people to change and to do better on something they didn't really want to make an error on, they redesigned the equipment so the gas nozzles and connectors were different for each drug. It became impossible to make this previously common mistake which could be life threatening for patients. Checklists for basic tasks in a hospital may seem silly. Doctors should know and remember the basics and do them every time, right? But remember all the basic errors we make and how post completion error comes up. A busy brain and commonly repeated tasks are a breeding ground for errors. Johns Hopkins created a checklist with five simple steps for treating line infections, including washing your hands with soap and putting a sterile dressing over the catheter site once the line is in. Seems unnecessary, right? I mean, do you think logically that this should not be needed and that a checklist like that being out and about wouldn't have an impact? I mean, doctors know to wash their hands, right? Well, the checklist serves two points. It helps with memory in the moment, which can be tricky when there's a lot going on to distract you. Remember, your subconscious is scanning the environment. 11 million bits of of information coming in per second. So even if you don't consciously think about the steps that are on a sheet, your subconscious is going to take them in. It also broke the goal, the ultimate task, into smaller steps to make it clear to staff what was expected of them, putting a very fine point on their performance standards. So what were the results of the simple five item checklist of obvious things the doctors logically knew how to do? The 10 day line infection rate fell from 11% to zero after 15 months. Only two patients got line infections and this simple nudge prevented 43 infections and eight deaths. Oh, and it also saved $2 million. If a stage simple checklist can do that for doctors, what opportunities are waiting in your business? Hint anytime you say someone should be able to do this or they know better. Or if you have multitasking staffers, there are prime candidates for nudges just waiting to be exposed. Next, let's look at opportunities to create products that solve problems. This could be a new vertical for you and your business or an extension of an existing product line. You can think back to the example I just gave about the different nozzles that can't be put into the wrong port. That is a product potentially that was created to help people to not make an error that was very, very costly and that it's actually creating a lot of opportunity for the business, but it's super beneficial for everyone that's using it. It's a real win win win. I like to watch videos of people making and frosting cookies and cakes on Instagram. It's a way I relax and live vicariously. I also like baking shows and know that a lot of people struggle with making macarons in a uniform size and shape. They can be difficult to pipe and you look sloppy when they're misshapen and of varying sizes. So Silpat, those non stick baking liners you use for cookies and things, started making them with markings on them. For perfectly uniform cookies and macarons. They also have round versions if you were making pizza or something like that. So multiple styles of the silpat where you could just have one for everything and assume people should be able to pipe the same amount each time. But in reality, customers are willing to pay for a product that helps them to avoid making an error. They would probably buy a pack of silpats with different markings on them, one for cookies, one for macarons, one for biscuits and be happy to have them all. Another error that plagues a lot of people is having a hard time getting out of bed. Too many people hit snooze and oversleep even when they know they shouldn't and tell themselves they won't next time. Enter Clocky, the alarm clock. The that runs away from you in unpredictable patterns. Of course, there's a link in the show notes it was designed to roll off the nightstand and around the room so you have to catch it to turn it off. That is annoying to be sure, but it helps people who are notorious for oversleeping get out of bed in the morning. And if the snooze button isn't your issue, perhaps you're always late leaving the house. This is a big one for me. I tend to think I can do just one one more thing in the 90 seconds I have before I'm supposed to leave. Optimism bias anyone? And then realize three minutes later I need to rush out the door. Maybe you've tried to set all your clocks ahead by five or 10 minutes, but then you know you set them fast so you don't really pay attention if that sounds familiar. You should check out the Procrastinator's clock. It's an app you can install which is guaranteed to be up up to 15 minutes fast, but you never know by how much it changes. So you might be three minutes ahead today and 13 minutes ahead tomorrow. So you can't default to thinking, well, I know it's five minutes fast so I can just write this quick email. Pretty cool idea. One of my favorite examples of this started with Gmail and has been placed on many other email clients at this point as well. Have you ever sent an email and forgotten to add the attachment? If not, you may be the only person in the world it might happen to you less now that Gmail set up their nudge. If you write the word attachment in the body of your email and there's nothing attached to will alert you and ask if you're sure you want to send it or if you need to attach something first. It can't fix everything for you. Say if you needed to attach four things and only added three, but it's still a really helpful nudge. Gmail has also started putting emails back to the top of an inbox after a few days when nothing has happened. Say I sent someone an email and they haven't responded in five days or something has been in my inbox for a week without me addressing it. Once it's been pulled to the top of the inbox, it now has a little message that says something like follow up in a different color text like orange. And when you hover over it, a box appears that says Dismiss nudge, which you can click on to make it go back to wherever it was in your email. Pretty cool. And I love that they use the nudge terminology. The next category involves understanding a hot sample state and a cold state, and we'll get more into this when I talk about time discounting in a future episode. When someone is in a cold state, it's easy to say they will do something or not do something. But then when they're in their hot state, it's a lot harder to stick to that commitment. Let's say someone is addicted to gambling. When in a cold state, they may know they want to stop and all the logical reasons why they don't want to gamble. But in the heat of the moment, they can get sucked in. So what can be done in a cold state to help someone keep from gambling in the hot state? There are lists they can put themselves on so that a casino will not give them money or allow them to gamble. They put themselves on the list when in a cold state when they know they don't want to do this anymore. And if they experience an error and try to get gamble, their name will pop up on a list in the casino system. So it's taking that control out of their hands in a point when they're not able to do that themselves, but their previous self has set this up for them to help them stay on track. Similarly, an alcoholic can take disulfram to keep them from drinking. It triggers negative effects similar to a hangover, including vomiting when even tiny amounts of alcohol alcohol are consumed, making the negative come up much closer to the error taking place taking place of the benefit that they might have felt or thought that they would feel, which can help associate the consequence with the action and hopefully keep them from drinking. There's also a special nail polish someone can put on that tastes terrible to keep them from biting their nails. These are all products that have been created that someone can put on or use or take or do in a cold style state because they know they will make an error when they're in that hot state when their subconscious is taking over. Similarly, programs like Save More Tomorrow, which I'll get into more in a future episode, have been used to increase the amount someone will pay into their retirement using a pre commitment in a cold state. Essentially, people are asked today if they want to commit a percentage of their future raises to go directly into their retirement allocation. A high percentage say yes and most of them stayed in the program. In the test Thaler and his team did, 78% of people offered the plan joined and 80% of those people were still in the program. After four pay raises, the average contribution raised from three and a half percent to 13.6% over that time, which is pretty phenomenal. The final category is about staying top of mind and a reminder for why consistency is so key in business. I'm sure you've heard plenty of people say you need to stay consistent in your business and be in front of people all the time so they remember you well. Now you know why people mess up. Even though they wanted your lead magnet and wanted to read it and intended to read it and we're sure they would have the time. Optimism bias. They will probably forget. This is why you put them into a drip campaign with a series of emails to help remind them of why they were interested and stay on their radar. If you have not yet listened to episode three on Lead Magnets, there's a link in the show notes for you. This is also why your blog or podcast or YouTube channel or newsletter needs to go out on a consistent basis. You want to become part of the routine again. There are links to the episodes and habits in the show notes as well. Looking at your own error, you're probably busy in your day, and even if you know you should be posting on social media consistently, it's easy to forget and make an error. So set up one of the many systems that can post on your behalf to to create a baseline. I currently use Recur Post, which keeps content going to social every day in case I get too busy and can't post something new that day. It also has settings so it can post at an optimal and random time of day, which is nice. And it chooses my content as well so I don't have to try and remember what I posted last week to avoid posting the same thing too close together. Remember, people make mistakes and it's your company's job to find a way to make it easier for them to use your product or service. You cannot expect your customer to do that for you. Even if they want to use your product, they will likely mess up without a little help. And even though we wish people could tell us where they mess up and articulate what they need for our research teams, it's often not the case either. People do not always know what's possible or where they could be making errors, so an outsider needs to step in and see where a new product or simple checklist can help. This is where observational research studies can be very useful. Instead of asking people questions like on a survey, you follow your customers throughout their day or have them on video per their consent, to see how they interact with with the product provided. Think back to those doctors. Do you think anyone working at Johns Hopkins would have said that they would have forgotten to wash their hands and that a checklist would help reduce line errors? No, very likely not. But by doing some sort of observation, you can see them in the act and find places where they're using something wrong, where they're doing something wrong, or where they're missing a key feature. I remember an example from business school where a manufacturer of laundry detergent had done some observational studies and saw that nearly every customer struggled with the gross sticky mess while trying to dispense the liquid. Some had made their own little contraptions to help pour out the liquid without making the mess. No one thought to tell the company it was a problem though, and when asked about it, they sort of brush it off. Said things like, oh, I'm Sure, I'm just spill sometimes it's no big deal, but they clearly struggled with it. It was an inarticulated pain point, so the company came out with pourable spouts that reduce spillage and they were a hit. Looking for errors takes some work, but it can help you find new marketing messages and product lines and ways to increase efficiency and save money without a lot of upfront expense. In many cases, it's absolutely worth the time to create these nudges. So take a look at your company, customers and products or services you offer for errors you can anticipate and ways to place a nudge to help relieve those pain points. Don't forget to use the free worksheet I've created for you to help you work through this in your own business. So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about expecting error today? For me, I think this is one of the most important nudge categories there is. Because really expecting error is kind of at the center for all nudging. Without errors like the ones I talked about in today's episode, we don't need behavioral economics. And if I may, I think the biggest and best learning from this is to know that humans are prone to errors. Tons of them. Constantly, when you may feel inclined to sit by and watch someone make a mistake that you know they're gonna make so they can learn a lesson. While that is good, sometimes you can't micromanage everything. But if you're watching, say, a looming deadline and you've ever said something like, oh, I know they forgot about that deadline, but I'm just gonna wait and see what happens. Let them rise up to the occasion. I highly, highly recommend that you instead look for opportunities to incorporate a nudge. This is where giving feedback really comes in. Which as I said at the top of the episode is my top recommended next episode for you to listen to. It's linked for you in the show notes. If you know that people forgot the deadline and there's time now to fix it and help them meet it, why wouldn't you help them? For customers who forgot things in their cart, these reminder emails have extremely high open rates and lead to sales. People are thankful when you can expect the error and give a little nudge. Whether that's for those deadlines at work or things we left in a cart or reminder to order more milk. Whatever those errors are, remember you can't give the feedback nudge about everything. You want to pick the important stuff, but always look for a way it can be a win win for everyone. And where you can be supportive of other humans knowing that we all make errors, you do too. And so hopefully then someone will return the favor and give you a nudge so you don't miss a deadline. As I mentioned at the top of the episode, I chose to refresh this one today because of my conversations this Friday with cyber anthropologist Leanne Potter. In addition to talking about what a cyber anthropologist even is, you definitely don't want to miss this. We also talk about her work in helping security teams. This can be with their communication, like with helping people to choose things like stronger passwords or to not click on bad links and lots and lots of other things. Expecting error is such a key part of that process and all sorts of communication, so it made for the perfect refresh today. I also encouraged you to think about some areas where you have errors either for yourself or for people on your teams or your customers. What did you come up with? What nudges might you be able to put into place to help prevent those errors from happening? Come share them with me on social media. You'll find me as the Brainy Biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. And to make it easy, there is a link in the show notes of course, along with links to related past episodes, books, your free worksheet that you can be using to write down and think about some of these errors, timestamp, summary of the episode and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthe brainy business.com 362 and just like that episode 362 on Expecting Error, the E in Nudges is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with cyber anthropologist Leanne Potter. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be thoughtful. Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.