Amid the constant uncertainty of the modern economy, adaptability is more important than ever before – but change can be a frightening prospect for staff and management alike, leading to poor implementation. Louisa Bell, a senior consultant at Enfuse Group, explains how the firm deploys behavioural insights to help its clients succeed with their transformations.
“After graduating with my master’s degree in psychology, people were really confused about my move into management consultancy,” Bell tells to Consultancy.uk. “But to me, the two fields complement each other perfectly.”
When asked how those two fields intersect, she explains that “human behaviour, cognitive biases, decision-making, emotional responses to change” and many more factors can influence how successful any business change initiative will be. Taking them into account when developing a change management plan is therefore “crucial”.
Sharing a few key skills she has brought to her career in consulting, Bell notes that she took “a deep understanding of the science behind human behaviour” from her studies in psychology and behavioural insights. At the same time, she has picked up “frameworks and strategies to help interpret behaviour in specific contexts and environments”, and the ability to “critically analyse situations and design robust research studies”.
Behaviour-driven change
Responding to a question on the most important factors for change management, Bell says “we could walk through why each component: vision and strategy; stakeholder management; business involvement; communications and engagement; capability and behaviour; and sustainability” as these are each “critical to successful change”. But in particular, she chooses to highlighting one element that she feels is often overlooked.
“Understanding how behaviours are influenced by the context and environment people are working in. For example, during a recent assignment, we were tasked with creating a global training strategy for a major service delivery transformation. While I’d developed training strategies before, it was important not to assume that what worked well for a previous client would automatically apply here.”
The Enfuse Group team took the time to “really understand the environment different teams were working in”. For example, the consultants noticed that one group – shipping port operators, spread across nearly 300 global ports – had day jobs that were significantly impacted by the change. A notable challenge for them was simply accessing a computer to complete digital training.
“So, we adapted,” Bell continues. “We developed a training course that could be completed on smartphones, making it easier for port teams who spend most of their time outdoors to access bite-sized learning on the go. Taking the time to understand their context – and designing a solution that fit around it – was key to engaging them in the training and, ultimately, supporting successful change.”
Resilient consulting
Over the last year, a study from Source Global Research suggested that the UK consulting industry had actually entered negative growth for the first time since 2020. Amid that, a number of large consultancies have announced hiring freezes and layoffs. But at Enfuse Group, the firm recently announced you are hiring – while last year, the consultancy was found to be among the 14 fastest-growing advisory firms in the UK.
In her two years with Enfuse Group, Bell has seen first-hand how its behaviour-driven advice has helped it maintain its rapid growth trajectory. Citing “a unique company culture” which “feels different from some of the bigger companies” she has worked with in the past, she notes that even though the firm is “no longer as small” as when she first joined, Enfuse Group has prioritised maintaining this culture – and that has helped to carry it “through times of hardship”.
“Everyone rallies around to help,” Bell expands. “Regardless of seniority, there’s a strong sense of ownership and empowerment across the team. That mindset encourages us to find more creative ways of working, like pivoting how we support clients when budgets are tight.”
She concludes, “As a collective, we’re all driven by our business purpose and understand how important it is to stay responsive to the challenges around us. I believe that’s a big part of what helps us stay resilient. It’s also why we continue to grow, even as others in the industry have felt a greater impact.”