I have been thinking a lot lately about “choice architecture” – an important concept in the book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein.  According to Thaler and Sunstein, “ a choice architect has the responsibility for organizing the context in which people make decisions.”  It’s a really helpful frame to think about how we make decisions in our lives and our professions.

An example of this came to me recently in Chicago – home to the book’s authors coincidentally.  A friend and I were downtown and trying to get to the White Sox baseball game when the skies opened up and it started to downpour.  We decided to head to a local watering hole to wait and see if the weather improved, which it eventually did.  Approaching game time, we asked the bartender if it would be quicker to take the train or a cab, he responded immediately. “The train….it’s way faster.”  The decisions of a number of choice architects in how Chicago has been built over the past decades created an environment that influenced on our decision to take the train to the game.  For most cities in North America, the choice architects would have likely led to us taking a cab.

How are the decisions in your job or your family nudging the decisions of others?  To find out more about how to create positive “nudges,” you can check out Thaler and Sunstein’s blog.

- John, June 16, 2011