This book would have been impossible to write without the support, advice and research findings of our amazing colleagues at the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), or the Nudge Unit as it is more commonly known. While there are now too many people working at BIT to name everyone, we would like to give special thanks to the founding members of the team, with whom we started this ride back in 2010: David, Samuel, Simon, Felicity and Michael (Hallsworth). David is our chief executive, and continues to be the driving force and intellectual heart of BIT. He has been incredibly giving with his time and thoughts over the years and shaped our thinking and lives in ways that he, or we, will probably never fully realize. Sam and Felicity now head our offices in Singapore and Manchester, and Simon and Michael lead our programmes on home affairs, international programmes, health and tax. Their sharp thinking, wit and friendship have kept us laughing and learning along the way.
Alongside the founding team, we quickly brought in a group of people who helped to develop the BIT’s expertise in new areas. So we would like to say a huge thanks to Michael (Sanders), who oversees our research and evaluation, and Elspeth, who heads our New York office; to Hugo, Jo, Alex (Gyani), Alex (Tupper), Raj, Marcos, Ed, Olly, Andy and Nicky, who were brave enough to join BIT in its early days; and to everyone in our Australian Office and the New South Wales government’s dedicated unit, who work alongside Rory. Finally, we’d like to say thank you to our Board and Executive team – including Peter, Philip, Helen, Janet, Nicky, Ian, Elizabeth and Zhi, who have all played crucial roles in making BIT what it is today.
What makes BIT such a special place has been our ability to blend academic research with real-world policy interventions. We are especially indebted to some of the finest minds in behavioural science who have supported and mentored the team over the years. Top of this list is Richard Thaler, who helped set up the team in 2010 and has been a trusted advisor and friend ever since. Alongside Richard has been the inspirational Cass Sunstein, who together with Richard wrote the book Nudge, and who continues to offer support and guidance to the eponymous unit. We would like to thank our group of UK academic advisors, including Professor Theresa Marteau, Professor Peter John and Professor Nick Chater. They have all been with BIT since its earliest days. And we’d also like to thank the academics at Harvard University, and in particular Professor Max Bazerman, who co-chairs Harvard’s Behavioral Insights Group and has been a long-term source of advice and support to the team.
We have further been fortunate enough to have the support of two superb Cabinet secretaries, first Lord Gus O’Donnell and more recently Sir Jeremy Heywood, who have overseen the BIT’s core government programmes from 2010. Both Gus and Jeremy continue to be big supporters of our work, and we are indebted to them for their help over the years
In writing this book, we would also like to say a big thank you to Jo Stansall, our editor at Michael O’Mara Books. Jo and the MOM team have been hugely supportive throughout the writing process. We are immensely grateful for their help and suggestions along the way.
What has made this book so interesting and appealing was the blurring of the professional and the personal. At its core, it’s about applying the insights we developed at work to our everyday lives. Which brings us to our final and most important thank you, which is to our families, and in particular our ever supportive, insightful and understanding wives – Sophie and Elaine. This book has happily coincided for us both with the wonderful challenges of starting new families, which has made their patience and encouragement for early-morning, late-night and weekend writing even more remarkable. Thank you.