Behavioral Science Meets Technology Adoption — Will Leach, Mindstate Group

About this episode

In this episode, Donna P. Mitchell interviews Will Leach about the intersection of behavioral science and technology adoption, highlighting the emotional aspects of decision-making in organizations.

Messaging is not the same thing as meaning. And until executives understand that, 70% of technology transformations will keep failing for the same reason. In this episode of Pivoting to Technology Adoption, host Donna P. Mitchell sits down with Will Leach — founder and CEO of Mindstate Group, behavioral science professor at SMU Cox School of Business, and bestselling author of Marketing to Mindstates — to expose what most CIOs, CTOs, and C-suite leaders miss when rolling out AI and enterprise change. Will spent years building the Frito-Lay Smart Lab at PepsiCo — a $20 million behavioral science laboratory created specifically to close the say-do gap that traditional market research could not explain. His work has shaped behavioral strategy at PepsiCo, Mars, New York Life, and Amazon. In this conversation, he applies that same model to the most expensive failure point in modern enterprise: human resistance to technology adoption. People make roughly 35,000 decisions every day. The vast majority happen at the non-conscious level. If your AI rollout, your change management plan, or your healthcare transformation is treating employees as rational actors who will respond to a clear…

People in this episode

Host: Donna P. Mitchell

Guest: Will Leach

Topics covered

• behavioral science
• technology adoption
• executive leadership
• human behavior
• decision making
• change management

Keywords

• technology transformation
• human resistance
• AI rollout
• behavioral model
• workforce behavior
• emotional decisions

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Mindstate Group, SMU Cox School of Business, PepsiCo, Mars, New York Life, Amazon

Products: Frito-Lay Smart Lab

Books & works: Marketing to Mindstates

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