Matt Wallaert on how to design the future you want (and actually get there). Applied behavioral science to go from insight to impact: leadership, profits, your life.

Ever wondered why changing habits feels like an uphill battle?

What if culture change, product design, or even personal transformation wasn’t guesswork but a process as reliable as engineering?

In this episode of Change Wired, I sit down with behavioral scientist, author, and “empathetic scientific activist” Matt Wallaert to talk about the science - and the humanity - behind designing change that actually happens.

We get into everything from M&Ms to meeting culture, VR boxing to corporate ethics, and why fuzzy words in leadership are killing your results. 

Matt breaks down how all behavior results from competing forces. Matt demonstrates how small environmental changes can create massive behavioral shifts.

Perhaps most fascinating is Matt's insight into organizational change. While companies obsess over changing customer behavior, they often neglect internal behavior design. "Fuzzy leadership language" about wanting "more engaged employees" or "better culture" fails because it doesn't translate to specific, observable behaviors. Matt provides a framework for creating workplaces where people thrive by applying the same rigor to internal behaviors that companies apply to customer acquisition.

Whether you're looking to transform personal habits, lead organizational change, or design products that genuinely improve lives, this episode offers effective frameworks for making behavior change systematic, ethical, and effective.

We dive into:

• Why defining specific behaviors is the missing first step in almost every change effort
• The difference between naïve behavior change and evidence-based design
• How to think about promoting vs. inhibiting pressures (and why it matters more than motivation)
• Real-life examples from parenting, product design, and internal culture change
• Ethics in behavioral science: intention–action gaps, autonomy, and long-term thinking
• How leaders can stop hiding behind values statements and start engineering cultures that work

It’s practical. It’s funny in places. And it might just make you rethink the way you design… everything.

BIO, Links & Resources Mentioned

• Matt’s Website: mattwallaert.com 
• Free Behavioral Science Course: SIDE Model Training (recently made free)
• Matt’s book: Start at the End: How to Build Products That Create Change
• Connect with Matt on LinkedIn

For almost 20 years, Matt Wallaert has been applying behavioral science to practical problems.  After leaving academia, his career as an executive lead from startups (Thrive, Churnless) to the Fortune 500 (Microsoft, CapGemini) and back again, before founding BeSci.io (Behavioral Science in organizations), where he and the world’s most experienced behavioral science leaders help companies grow applied behavioral science capabilities within their organizations.

These days, Matt is the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Oceans, helping to bring high-quality job opportunities to international markets so that talented people don’t have to emigrate to grow. More about Matt

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Change Wired Podcast
• 7:54 Meet Matt Wallaert: Behavioral Scientist
• 21:35 What Is Applied Behavioral Science?
• 38:42 Behavioral Science in Business
• 53:56 Cognitive Offloading and Satisficing
• 1:01:37 Ethics in Behavior Change