Sharing What Works and What Doesn’t Work in FP/RH

“Social norms” refers to when people are influenced by their peers and the behaviors of those around them. In the first experiment, participants primed with social norms framing were told that “most other participants taking these assessments chose to share information with their partner.” Information sharing among participants who received the social norms nudge was nine percentage points higher than among participants who did not receive a behavioral nudge.

Personal recognition for an act or behavior can serve as a non-monetary incentive to perform the desired behavior. In the recognition treatment of the experiment, participants were told, “We will let your partner know that you chose to share your information with them using your first name only.” Ms. Yusuf explained that we did not find significant results for this particular type of recognition nudge but that other forms of recognition may be more effective in nudging sharing behavior.

Ms. Yusuf explained that all participants were paired with a hypothetical partner and were asked if they wanted to share information with their partner. For the gender identity treatment, participants who received either the social norms or recognition nudge were informed that their partner was of the same or different gender identity by sharing the name of their partner using a traditionally masculine or feminine name. We found that sharing behavior was higher when participants were primed that their partner was of the same gender identity, and this was even more pronounced for women than men. Information sharing was 18 percentage points higher for women when primed that their partner was of the same gender identity than for men who received same-gender identity priming. 

Mrs. Saldanha confirmed that social norms framing and social proofing has been shown to work in other settings and for other purposes besides information sharing. For example, when hotels inform their guests that other guests reuse their towels, they are more likely to reuse their towels as well. As for incentives, the findings from other studies are mixed. Sometimes incentives are shown to be effective while other times they are not. Mrs. Saldanha suggested that the recognition given in the Knowledge SUCCESS experiment may have been too subtle and that a stronger type of recognition may be needed to encourage information sharing. 

Ms. Abdur-Rahman spoke to the experimental findings related to gender homophily, which is the tendency of individuals to interact with the same gender identity as their own. Ms. Abdur-Rahman highlighted that gender homophily can act as a barrier to knowledge sharing, including among the FP/RH workforce, and could lead to a loss of social capital that can help people work more effectively. For example, women may be excluded from certain networks, especially in leadership circles that are dominated by men. It can also affect men’s access to women’s diverse experiences and knowledge. Ms. Abdur-Rahman pointed out that research has shown that gender-diverse teams perform better than single-gender teams. 

In the word association game, respondents had only a few seconds to indicate a positive or negative reaction to words appearing on their screen. These words were alternatives for the word “failure.” Ms. Yusuf shared a list of terms that were categorized as positive by 80% or more of the participants, which included phrases such as “improving through failure,” “what works what doesn’t,” “reflections for growth,” and “lessons learned.” Terms that were ranked positive by less than 50% of participants included “failing forward,” “intelligent failures,” “bloopers,” “flops,” and “pitfalls.” 

In the final email-based experiment, we tested three aspects related to people’s intention to share professional failures: 

1. Behavioral nudges to encourage sharing of failures. The behavioral nudges used social norms framing (“more people like you are sharing their failures”), self-efficacy framing (“you will receive a simple template and coaching to help you share your failures”), and incentives framing (“you will be entered into a raffle to have conference registration fees covered if you choose to share your failures”).
2. Three alternative terms for failure that were ranked positively in the word association game and were deemed by the project team to most directly communicate the notion of failures (“improving through failure,” “what works and what doesn’t,” and “lessons learned from failure”). 
3. Gender identity differentials to intention to share failures when participants are informed there would be a live Q&A session following the sharing of failures.

Ms. Yusuf shared that using the phrase “improving through failure” rather than “failure” when inviting participants to share their failures at an upcoming virtual event increased intention to share failures by 20 percentage points. The experiment did not find significant effects on intention to share failures for any of the behavioral nudges tested.

When participants were told there would be a Q&A session following the sharing of their failure, the percentage of participants who indicated their intention to share a failure was 26 percentage points less compared with those who were not told there was a live Q&A. Ms. Yusuf explained that we did not observe significant differences between men and women, suggesting that irrespective of gender identity, live interactive Q&A sessions may discourage health professionals from sharing their professional failures openly.

Ms. Ballard Sara was part of the team at Knowledge SUCCESS that hosted a series of failure-sharing events. She shared three important takeaways from her experience with implementing those events. First, more people are warming up to the idea of sharing their failures and recognizing the value in sharing what’s not working in addition to sharing what is working. While some individuals dropped off during the sharing failures component of the event, the ones that stayed provided positive feedback. They were comforted by others’ experiences and found it helpful to learn lessons that were relevant for their own work. Second, the events addressed the component of self-efficacy by sharing a template and tips on how to share their failures. Notably, the events made use of “curious questions” that were formulated by Ashley Good from Fail Forward, in contrast to using a problem-solving approach. An example of a curious question is “Why is this story meaningful to share?” Such types of questions not only help people who are listening but also people who are sharing to reflect on and derive learnings from the failures, instead of pointing fingers or laying blame. Third, Ms. Ballard Sara found the experiment findings around the choice of words to refer to failures was helpful because they reinforced the notion that we should stress the learning aspect from sharing of failures.