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Speaker 1: Everybody. It's Bill Courtney. Welcome to shop talk number eighty six.

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Speaker 1: Heine's words number Alex. What can I help you with

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Speaker 1: in the shop? You're looking for some bacon, soda or

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Speaker 1: maybe some rice or flower sam thinking old school.

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Speaker 2: Shop, cigars, old fashioned women.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty much. It's not a bad shop. I tell you.

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Speaker 2: My uncle would actually say the important bees in life,

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Speaker 2: what books, babes and bodybuilding. Oh, you gonna add bourbon

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Speaker 2: and the Bible in there, But there's some good bees.

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Speaker 1: We'll hold it. One of my favorite restaurants in Vegas

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Speaker 1: is called Oscars, and it's Oscar Goodman, who was the

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Speaker 1: Mayor of Vegas before his wife is now the mayor

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Speaker 1: of Vegas. Oh really yeah, And the name of his

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Speaker 1: restaurant is Oscars and the tagline is beef, booze and broads.

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Speaker 1: Nice yeah, And I mean that guy ran on that

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Speaker 1: platfor Foreman was mayor of Vegas for about twenty years

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Speaker 1: based on beef, booze and broads, So apparently it works

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Speaker 1: in Vegas. It's good food too. If you ever go

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Speaker 1: to Vegas, go to Oscars. It's in the Plaza. It's

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Speaker 1: in a crappy old hotel. But the restaurant's awesome. All right, everybody,

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Speaker 1: shop talk number eighty six, How behavior really spreads why

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Speaker 1: we need twenty to twenty five percent of the population

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Speaker 1: to win. We're gonna unpack that right after these brief

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Speaker 1: messages from our general sponsors. Okay, everybody, welcome back. Shop

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Speaker 1: talking number eighty six. Beef, booze and broads has nothing

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Speaker 1: to do with shop talk, but I thought i'd say

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Speaker 1: it again because I like oscars. Okay, how behavior really

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Speaker 1: spreads why we need twenty twenty five percent of the

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Speaker 1: population to win. I'll set the frame. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: spend a few minutes today talking about something that's influencing

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Speaker 1: our thinking, with an army normal folks, our local chapters,

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Speaker 1: and honestly, how change actually happens in the real world.

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Speaker 1: This isn't theory for theory's sake. This is about why

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Speaker 1: some movements take off and why others don't, even when

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Speaker 1: they have money, media, or good intentions. The idea comes

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Speaker 1: from a sociologist named Damon Sintola. You got it right,

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Speaker 1: Good job, hot dog, all right? Who's Damon? Damon Sintola

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Speaker 1: is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies

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Speaker 1: how behavior spread through real social networks, not how idea

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Speaker 1: is spread on Twitter, not how something goes viral online,

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Speaker 1: but how some people actually change what they do in neighborhoods, workplaces, schools,

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Speaker 1: and communities. He's worked in public health systems, civic institutions,

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Speaker 1: and large organizations, trying to answer one basic question, why

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Speaker 1: do some behaviors catch on and why do others not?

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Speaker 1: His research shows something that's both surprising, daunting, and incredibly hopeful.

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Speaker 1: Here's this big idea, Lasting social change does not require

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Speaker 1: persuading a majority. First, I already love that. Instead, once

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Speaker 1: about twenty twenty five percent of community consistently and publicly

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Speaker 1: adopts a new behavior, change can tip and spread rapidly

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Speaker 1: to everyone else. That's it, Not fifty one percent, not everybody,

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Speaker 1: just about a quarter. But and this is important, what

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Speaker 1: kind of quarter matters? So let me explain why only

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Speaker 1: twenty five percent and the role of the can tagent theory.

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Speaker 1: Sintola makes a distinction between simple contagion and complex contagian contagian,

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Speaker 1: as in contagious simple contagian is easy, You see it

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Speaker 1: once and it spreads. Think of viral video of ourl

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Speaker 1: disease like COVID nineteen one. Exposure is enough, But the

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Speaker 1: things we care about, service, civic responsibilities, showing up for neighbors,

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Speaker 1: changing community norms. Those are complex contagions. They don't spread

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Speaker 1: after just one exposure. They spread after multiple reinforcing signals

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Speaker 1: from people you trust. In other words, people don't change

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Speaker 1: because someone told them to. They change because they see

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Speaker 1: people like them doing it over and over and over

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Speaker 1: again consistently. Don't be a turkey person what the twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five percent actually means. And here's where people often

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Speaker 1: misunderstand the twenty to twenty five percent kind of bell cow.

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Speaker 1: To make complex contagion work, it's not people who privately agree,

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Speaker 1: it's not passive supporters, and it's not folks who say

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Speaker 1: that sounds great, call me later, checks on the mail.

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Speaker 1: It is people who act, people who are visible, and

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Speaker 1: people who are consistent over time. Once about a quarter

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Speaker 1: of a real social network is publicly modeling a behavior,

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Speaker 1: everyone else starts running into it again and again at work,

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Speaker 1: at school, at church, at the grocery store, and at

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Speaker 1: that point resistance doesn't get debated away, it just collapses.

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Speaker 1: That is really interesting and so true. It makes so

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Speaker 1: much sense.

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Speaker 2: Waits to get to the examples.

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Speaker 1: Let's see it. Here's some examples nice transition workplace wellness.

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Speaker 1: One of the clearest examples of this comes from the

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Speaker 1: insurance company Humana. Their leadership rolled out wellness platforms, things

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Speaker 1: like tracking steps, participating in health challenges, engaging in preventative

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Speaker 1: care tools. What they found was fascinating. Employees didn't change

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Speaker 1: their behavior just because the company told them to, and

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Speaker 1: they didn't change because an executive sent an email to

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Speaker 1: HR or made it policy. What actually drove adoption was

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Speaker 1: when employees saw multiple coworkers, not just leadership, consistently using

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Speaker 1: the platform. Once a visible minority of peers were actively participating,

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Speaker 1: engagement spread quickly and the behavior became the norm. People

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Speaker 1: logged in because people like them were logging in. The

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Speaker 1: lesson is simple, people don't follow policies, they follow peers.

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Speaker 1: That's a really good one community health example too. You

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Speaker 1: see the same pattern in community health research, especially in

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Speaker 1: paces like Massachusetts. Building on decades of work from communities

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Speaker 1: such as Farmingham, Framingham, Framingham, Framingham, Okay, public health researchers

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Speaker 1: weren't just looking at individual behavior. They were studying dense

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Speaker 1: local social networks, things like walking regularly, smoking, cessation, I'm

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Speaker 1: not quitting cigars, preventative health visits. I don't care how

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Speaker 1: many of you twenty five percent are doing that. But okay,

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Speaker 1: these behaviors didn't spread because someone saw billboard, I got

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Speaker 1: a pamphlet. They spread when people saw several neighbors participating,

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Speaker 1: not one person, multiple people. A neighbor walking every morning,

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Speaker 1: a friend talking about quitting smoking, someone down the street

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Speaker 1: going to the clinic. It's really interesting. Example three, same

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Speaker 1: sex marriage. Wow, that's a great example. I haven't even

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Speaker 1: read it yet, but that makes so much sense. Even

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Speaker 1: Barack Obama spoke out against same sex marriage six years

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Speaker 1: later supported it. And it's because he saw consistence, support

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Speaker 1: forward guarantee it. Support for same sex marriage, whatever you

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Speaker 1: personally think of it didn't slowly grind its way to

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Speaker 1: a majority. It tipped Why people came out publicly, friends

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Speaker 1: and families shared personal stories. I think that has a

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Speaker 1: big one to do with it, and support became visible

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Speaker 1: and unavoidable. Visibility changed what felt normal faster than debate

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Speaker 1: ever could. Yeah, that makes tons of sense. Civil rights movement.

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Speaker 1: The civil rights movement didn't begin with a majority approval.

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Speaker 1: Either it began with a disciplined, visible minority consistently modeling courage, dignity,

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Speaker 1: and nonviolence. Over time, repeated exposure made neutrality impossible. Consistency

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Speaker 1: visibility more character Over time, repeated exposure made neutrality impossible.

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Speaker 1: That is exactly how that happened. What this means for

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Speaker 1: our army of normal folks local chapters. First, we don't

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Speaker 1: have to have everybody. We need a committed core. Second,

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Speaker 1: we're not chasing by in. We're not going to ask

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Speaker 1: who is willing to do this publicly, who will model

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Speaker 1: this consistently. Third, depth beats reach. Small groups where people

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Speaker 1: actually know each other are outperforming big audiences every time.

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Speaker 1: And fourth, visibility beats persuasion. People don't change because they're convinced.

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Speaker 1: They change because they see people like them acting repeatedly.

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Speaker 1: So here's the takeaway, here's the sentence you have to hear.

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Speaker 1: Social change doesn't start when everybody agrees, or even most

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Speaker 1: people agree. It starts when a visible, committed minority make

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Speaker 1: a new behavior unavoidable. That's how culture shift, that's how

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Speaker 1: movement grow, and that's exactly what we're trying to build.

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Speaker 1: One Chapter one neighborhood, one group of normal folks at

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Speaker 1: a time, and each of you have an opportunity to

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Speaker 1: be a part of that cultural shift that can change

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Speaker 1: our country. All you gotta do is join an army

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Speaker 1: a normal Folks chapter and be one of the loud, proud,

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Speaker 1: visible few.

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Speaker 2: Is that a fascinating idea?

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Speaker 1: Well, the chapters are already a fascinating idea. What's fascinating

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about Damon Santola's research is a science behind

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Speaker 1: it and why these chapters are going to make an

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Speaker 1: Army and Normal Folks the greatest social outreach program of

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Speaker 1: this century or maybe this this generation. Let's go baby,

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Speaker 1: well why not? Yeah? And if we do have a

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Speaker 1: committed few that stay consistent with it and other people

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Speaker 1: start seeing it as the norm, it becomes normal.

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Speaker 2: So that's something that I've been studying in general for

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Speaker 2: our chapter work, but I think it's also relevant to

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Speaker 2: listeners for anything in your life, whether you're you know,

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Speaker 2: so you're running a church, or you're running another social club,

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Speaker 2: or you have a restaurant in town or whatever it is.

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Speaker 2: This this idea starting a business, So trying to get

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Speaker 2: twenty to twenty five percent of people you know on

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Speaker 2: board and visibly showing it is the key to tipping over.

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Speaker 1: I love it how behavior really spreads why we need

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five percent population to win. So that's that's

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Speaker 1: fascinating data. It's a great entree and to trying to

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Speaker 1: explain to people the importance of our chapters and how

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Speaker 1: they're going to work and how we're going to win

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Speaker 1: with them, and how we're going to change our culture

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Speaker 1: and our country for the better, all from this little

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Speaker 1: old podcast that we're doing hanging around. So it's pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: Let's not screw it up. Yeah, don't screw it up.

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Speaker 1: That's shop talking numb Brady six. If you like this episode,

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Speaker 1: please rate it, review it, share it on social, subscribe

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Speaker 1: to the podcast at normal folks dot.

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Speaker 2: Hope you subscribe to the podcast or whatever podcasts happy.

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Speaker 1: You listen to. Oh yeah do that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll go to normal folks dout us to sign

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Speaker 2: up and join the army.

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Speaker 1: Yeah you can do that too.

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Speaker 2: Technology if no, I know, yeah.

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Speaker 1: I have the first clue works. But I can tell

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Speaker 1: you this. If you have ideas for shop talks or

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Speaker 1: guests for an Army and Normal Folks, you can email me.

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Speaker 1: Go old fashioned email at Bill at normal folks dot us,

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Speaker 1: and I will respond, and uh we will. We will

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Speaker 1: take up your ideas and take them very seriously. Alex

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Speaker 1: will respond to sometimes most times, all the time, all

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Speaker 1: the time perfect. That is shop talk number eighty six.

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Speaker 1: How behavior really spreads, and how we're going to spread

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Speaker 1: behavior with our chapters and an army and normal Folks.

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Speaker 1: I hope you guys will seek it out and join.

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Speaker 1: Until next week, do what you can