🧠🥤 “If you want to change behaviour at work… change the environment, not the willpower.” 🥤🧠

Most leaders I work with assume that healthier choices require more education, more motivation, or more discipline. But the science of behaviour change says something far simpler… and far more powerful. A large field study at Google by Baskin et al., 2016 - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666316301465 examined what happened when snacks were positioned closer to, or further from, beverage stations in a workplace kitchen.

No lectures.

No calorie labels.

No nudges about “healthy choices”.

Just distance.

When employees used the beverage station closest to the snacks, the likelihood of taking a snack increased significantly:

• Men: from 12% to 23%

• Women: from 13% to 17%

That’s nearly a doubling for men… from just a few extra feet of proximity.

This aligns with decades of behavioural science showing that environmental cues strongly shape consumption patterns. Accessibility reduces friction. Reduced friction increases behaviour. Often unconsciously.

Importantly, this was not about shame or restriction. It was about choice architecture.

For senior leaders, this has real implications.If your office is stocked with high-energy snacks positioned right beside coffee machines, you’re not testing discipline… you’re designing behaviour. Small environmental shifts could include:

✅ Increasing distance between snacks and beverages

✅ Placing whole food options at eye level

✅ Making water the most convenient choice

✅ Designing friction thoughtfully, not punitively

None of this removes autonomy. It simply recognises that human decision-making is not always linear…a conscious decision is often different to a reflex one…especially when stress is in the system.

And here’s the bigger leadership insight…

Culture is built through systems, not slogans.

If we want sustainable performance, metabolic health, and steady energy across the day, the workplace environment matters more than the wellness poster on the wall.

Small shifts.

Compounded daily.

Scalable across organisations.

At Essentio Health and Build a Bridge - Live Your Best Life Pty Ltd we work with leaders to design systems that make the healthy choice the easy choice… not the heroic one.

Because sustainable high performance isn’t about willpower….it’s about design.