Library
Talk to the Elephant: Design Learning for Behavior Change · 13 of 13
Talk to the Elephant: Design Learning for Behavior Change
learning-design HIGH

Communicating Value: The Value–Effort Equation

Talk to the Elephant: Design Learning for Behavior Change Julie Dirksen
value-effort hyperbolic-discounting wiifm wcidwt motivation elephant-communication

Key Principle

The brain runs an implicit calculus before any behavior: does the perceived value of this action, minus its perceived effort, exceed the value of competing alternatives? The equation must be positive — and must beat the competition — for behavior to occur. Two variables suppress value in ways designers routinely underestimate:

Hyperbolic Discounting: The non-linear collapse in perceived reward value as delay increases. The psychological gap between "now" and "tomorrow" is vastly larger than between "11 months" and "12 months." A reward arriving next week is worth dramatically less to the Elephant than the same reward arriving today. This is why future-oriented benefits ("your career will improve," "patients will be safer") fail to motivate: the delay alone discounts them below the threshold of Elephant activation.

The Four Dimensions of Elephant-Accessible Value — for value to register with the Elephant, it must be all four:

  • Significant: Large enough to be worth the effort
  • Immediate: Arriving soon enough that hyperbolic discounting doesn't eliminate it
  • Tangible: Perceivable through the senses — something the Elephant can picture, touch, see, taste, or hear (the "Kettle Bell to Doctoral Dissertation" scale)
  • Likely: Believable given the learner's past experience. If prior training or initiatives produced no results, the Elephant has been trained by Resulting (attributing poor outcomes to poor methods) to discount new promises.

Why This Matters

WIIFM ("What's In It For Me?") is the standard L&D frame for learner motivation and is almost always directed at the Rider: career advancement, certification, compliance with policy. The Rider understands these arguments and agrees. The Elephant doesn't experience them as motivating because they are abstract, delayed, and low-likelihood (from the Elephant's felt experience).

The Calculating Value failure modes:

  • Not Significant: The benefit is real but too small for the effort required ("this will save 2 minutes per week")
  • Not Immediate: The benefit is real but too delayed ("in 18 months you'll see performance improvement")
  • Not Tangible: The benefit is real but imperceptible ("you'll have better relationships with your colleagues")
  • Not Likely: The benefit is real but the learner doesn't believe they'll achieve it ("I've tried this before and nothing changed")

Resulting (Annie Duke): people attribute the quality of an outcome to the quality of the decision that produced it. Learners who have been through failed initiatives have been trained by experience to assign low probability to new training benefits. This is not cynicism — it is rational Bayesian updating.

Good Examples

WCIDWT reframe (Chapter 4): Instead of "you'll be a better manager by the end of this program" (future, abstract, low-likelihood), ask "what is the most frustrating management situation you faced in the last month?" Then demonstrate that this specific technique addresses that specific situation. Now value is immediate (applied today), tangible (that specific problem), and likely (they just saw it work).

Point of Learning = Point of Use (Chapter 4): A training intervention delivered immediately before the learner needs the skill produces dramatically better Elephant engagement than the same training delivered weeks in advance. The felt need is immediate; the reward of applying the skill is immediate. When scheduling cannot close the gap, Immediate Use design (problem-first learning) simulates it: give learners a realistic scenario they cannot solve, let them try, then teach the solution.

Tangibility test (Chapter 4): The kettle bell (something you can hold, feel, see) represents maximum Elephant accessibility. The doctoral dissertation (abstract, complex, requiring extensive inference) represents minimum accessibility. "You'll improve patient outcomes" is a dissertation. A short video of a patient describing the moment they felt their diagnosis was understood is a kettle bell. Same factual claim; radically different Elephant activation.

Counterpoints

"Intrinsic motivation is the goal — we shouldn't use carrots" conflates SDT's autonomous motivation with the Rider's rational appreciation of future value. Intrinsic motivation means the behavior itself is rewarding. Until that develops, the Elephant needs perceptible, immediate consequence. External motivation is the bridge to intrinsic motivation, not its enemy.

"They should care about their patients/company/colleagues — that should be enough" assumes the Elephant can act on abstract relational value. It cannot. Relational value must be made concrete: a specific person, a specific outcome, visualized. "Your patients" is a dissertation. "Mrs. Rodriguez in Room 7" is a kettle bell.

Key Quotes

"If the value is delayed, abstract, or feels unlikely based on your learner's previous experience, it won't motivate the Elephant." — Julie Dirksen, Chapter 4: Communicating Value

"What Can I Do With That? is a better question than What's In It For Me? because it focuses on immediate, practical utility." — Julie Dirksen, Chapter 4: Communicating Value

Rules of Thumb

  • Test every value claim against four dimensions: Significant? Immediate? Tangible? Likely? Any failure disqualifies it for Elephant-level communication.
  • Move down the Kettle Bell to Doctoral Dissertation scale toward the physical, sensory, and concrete. Abstract = for the Rider; tangible = for the Elephant.
  • When learners have been through failed initiatives, address the Resulting effect directly. Acknowledge the history and offer specific evidence this intervention is different.
  • Use Immediate Use design when training cannot be delivered at the point of use: start with a realistic problem learners cannot solve, then teach the solution.
  • WCIDWT is a design question, not a motivational speech. It forces you to identify the single most relevant scenario for each learner group and build to it.

Related References