Reframing the Problem Statement as a “Desired Behavior”

My first job after my undergraduate degree entailed developing new and interesting revealed preference measures for intangible and relatively abstract behaviours - like trust, rationality, morality, risk preferences, and so on, in a domain-agnostic, empirically-oriented setting, across various spheres of social sciences, ranging from political science and management to sociology and linguistics. I genuinely enjoyed this vocation of dissecting such simple to experience and yet complex to articulate behaviours. Since then, I have worked in various different roles across several distinct sectors, each requiring its own unique approach of critical thinking and problem solving. 

Ranging from consulting for India’s Department of Financial Services on demand generation for its national pensions program to conducting reaching for OECD’s Innovation Team on organization-wide institutionalization of innovations within development-focused bilateral agencies, I have followed a consistent approach that involves reframing the problem statement as a “desired behavior”, identifying significant barriers to or facilitators of that behaviour and then classifying those using the Motivation, Ability and Opportunity (MAO) Framework. So far, it has been a useful tool in breaking down a complex challenge into smaller pieces, identifying the critical pieces that require work and focusing our energy only on those.

It was only after my team’s first meeting with our client, as part of this course, that I realized how much of this approach of behavioral enquiry I had internalized and had been using till now. Our client primarily specializes in the field of ESG standard-setting aimed at enabling efficient sustainability reporting and disclosure by firms as well as effectively informing ESG-conscious investment decision-making by investors. Over the years, these ESG standards have come to be widely used by its first stakeholder group (i.e. firms for sustainability reporting), in an attempt to attract capital form investors, signal awareness and quality to other stakeholders or even incentivize socially and environmentally positive internal changes within the organization. However, the client is now interested in increasing its engagement of the second stakeholder group (i.e. investors). As soon as the client mentioned this, I started my process of a behavioural enquiry:

• Sample of interest – Investors
• Desired behaviour – adoption of ESG standards in investment decision-making
• MAO Framework:
  • “Is there sufficient motivation for the behavior to occur?” – value-alignment, impact-seeking, risk aversion, financial returns
  • “Can be behavior be accomplished in principle?” – lack of consistent and standardized ESG metrics, too many ratings, limited access non-self-reported data
  • “Is there sufficient opportunity for behavior to occur?” – knowledge of and access to ESG-focused investments in both domestic as well as emerging markets, several options of financial products and instruments (with varying levels of risk and liquidity)

I believe structuring available information in this format enables me to think through steps clearly identify critical pieces of the puzzle and dig deeper into them, without losing sight of the main aim/question (i.e. the final desirable behavior).