Your organisation measures attitudes.
We diagnose behavior.
Surveys tell you how people feel, training tells them what to do.Neither explains why the behaviour isn't happening. We find the actual behavioral barrier, whether it sits in the workflow, the norms, the risk, or the system, and give your team a strategy and tools they need to execute
Does this sound familiar?
These are the patterns we hear from the organisations that come to us. The details differ,but the underlying problem is the same: conventional approaches target awareness and motivation that is weak when the real blocker is somewhere else entirely
Change & Transformation
"Everyone attended the training. Comms went out. Sponsors are visible. But six months in, the old way of working is still the default."
The plan assumed information and visibility would drive adoption. Nobody diagnosed what makes the old behaviour easier, safer, or more rewarding than the new one.
Leadership Behaviour
"Leaders say the right things in the room. But the way decisions get made, meetings get run, and feedback gets given hasn't actually changed."Assumes people resist change and focuses on managing resistance
Leadership development programs build knowledge and intention. They rarely redesign the conditions, routines, cues, and incentives, that shape what leaders actually do under pressure
Psychological Safety
"Our scores have been flat for three cycles. We've invested in workshops and leadership messaging, but teams still don't speak up when it counts."
Psychological safety is a behavioural outcome, not a training problem. If the system still punishes candour in practice, no amount of messaging will close the gap.
Culture Change
We've defined the culture. We've communicated the values. But when you watch how work actually gets done, the old culture is alive and well."
Culture lives in behaviour, not in value statements. Until you identify the specific behaviours that carry the culture and the system conditions that sustain them, nothing shifts.
The pattern behind all of these
Most organisations respond to behavioural problems with tools designed to shift attitudes: communications, training, engagement campaigns, leadership messaging. These tools assume that once people know what to do and feel motivated to do it, the behaviour will follow.
It usually doesn't. Because behaviour isn't just a product of knowledge and motivation. It's shaped by the system people operate in: the workflows, the time pressure, the social norms, the perceived risks, the tools, the incentives, and the way the organisation actually works day to day.
What most approached do
Diagnose attitudes through surveys and sentiment tracking and treat low scores as the problem to solve
Prescribe awareness via comms, training, town halls, and leadership sponsorship
Escalate pressure when adoption stalls, more messages, more reporting, more targets
Measure readiness and engagement and call it progress
Our change approach
Specifies the behaviour that needs to change, in observable terms, in the real context where it happens
Tests hypotheses about what's blocking it: workflow friction, competing incentives, skill gaps, risk, norms, tools
Designs interventions that match the actual constraint instead of defaulting to comms and training
Measures observed behaviour to know whether something actually changed, not just whether people feel differently
We diagnose and equip. You execute.
We're not here to run your change for you or embed indefinitely. We bring behavioral expertise your team doesn't have yet, apply it to your real challenges, and hand you a strategy you can act on and tools to execute.
Every engagement is designed to leave your team more capable than when we arrived. We diagnose what's actually blocking the behaviour, design strategies that target those barriers, pilot them where needed, and transfer the thinking and tools so you can keep going without us.
If you guess…
You start with a solution you’ve seen before (usually comms, training, targets).
You treat “resistance” as the problem.
You build a pressure plan: more messages, more town halls, more escalation.
You measure awareness and sentiment and call it “progress.”
You over-index on individual motivation.
You roll out “training” before the system can support the behavior.
If you behaviorally diagnose…
You start with the behavior that must change (who does what, in what context).
You realize the system is part of the problem: time, workflow, tools, permissions, incentives, risk, norms.
You build an adoption plan: remove friction, redesign the moment-of-action, install enabling structures.
You measure real behavior: completion in-workflow, consistency, quality, and drop-off points.
You get work-as-done change: the new behavior is easier, safer, and more normal than the old one.
You install the system components first, then train execution.
How we work with you
Three engagement models, each designed around what your team needs and where you end up when we're done.
01
Find the real barriers
We run a behavioral diagnosis of your challenge or opportunity. You get a clear map of which behaviors need to change, what's blocking them in the real system, and which levers to pull. Your team walks away knowing where to aim and why previous efforts missed.
Timeline: 4-6 Weeks
You get → A behavioural diagnosis and targeted recommendations your team can act on
02
Diagnose + Design & Test
We go deeper: after the diagnosis, we build a toolkit/playbook of strategies that match the diagnosed barriers, we pilot them with your team, and measure real behaviour change. You walk away with tested strategies and the evidence to decide what scales
Timeline: 12-14 Weeks
You get → A piloted strategy with behavioural evidence, ready to scale
03
Build the capability internally
We work alongside your team on live challenges so they learn to run behavioural diagnosis and design themselves. This includes embedded coaching, the SHIFT Practitioner Programme, and hands-on support until the capability sticks.
Timeline: 12-14 Weeks
You get → An internal team that can do this repeatedly, without us
The SHIFT method
SHIFT is our diagnostic and strategy methodology. It's how we systematically find what's blocking adoption and design targeted strategies to fix it.
Specify the Behavior
We define the behavior in observable terms, in context. Not “use the system,” but “enter customer notes within 24 hours of contact.”
Hypothesize the Barrier
We generate testable hypotheses about what’s blocking the behavior (time, workflow, skills, tools, permissions, risk, norms)
Design Interventions
We design interventions that match the constraint—so you’re not defaulting to comms and training when the real issue is system friction.
Facilitate Stakeholders
We design for the humans who sponsor, approve, and unintentionally block change, so decisions and ownership hold
Test and Iterate
We pilot, measure actual behavior change, and iterate quickly, so you can scale what works with confidence
Who we work with
Primarily we help and enable:
Change & transformation leaders who need adoption without turning the program into communications and policing
Transformation offices / PMOs coordinating multiple initiatives and struggling with consistency across teams
HR/People teams driving culture and leadership change and needing behavior to move in day-to-day work
L&D teams when enablement isn’t translating into behaviour and managers need practical reinforcement routines
We also apply the same methods to:
Digital Health & Product Teams
User engagement challenges, feature adoption, behaviour-driven product design. Why aren't patients completing the onboarding flow? Why aren't users returning?
Government & Policy
Citizen behaviour change, service uptake, policy implementation. When a policy should work on paper but citizens aren't responding, it's usually a behavioral barrier we can diagnose.
About us
Aim For Behavior is a consultacy focused on organizational change and transformation. We are behavioral scientists, anthropologists, designers and practitioners with a deep understanding of how behavior changes inside systems.
Founded by Robert Meza, we are based in Amsterdam, we work globally with start-ups, private sector companies and governments around the world.
Our mission is to make change practical and achievable, by designing the conditions that make adoption succeed.
Build capability in-house
We run a 3 or 6-week Behavioral Change Practitioner Programme where your team learns the SHIFT method by applying it to your live transformation.
The programme includes
3 or 6 weeks of live working sessions with your team
A live diagnosis on your transformation (behaviors + constraints)
SHIFT toolkit, templates, and decision tools
Implementation support after the programme to help you deploy what you built
Want to learn more?
Describe your change challenge. We'll tell you whether we can help and what a diagnostic engagement would look like.
