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We are here for the stubborn optimist

We are here for the people who believe in breakthroughs. Who think in possibilities rather than limitations. Who would rather put their energy into progress than into explaining why progress is impossible. And who want to discover how Behavioural Design can help make it happen.

Illustration SUE Behavioural Design
Why stubborn optimism is not naivety

Choosing to focus on opportunity

Cynicism is the easiest position in any room. It costs nothing, risks nothing, and is almost always wrong about what is possible. “That will never work.” “We have tried that already.” Those are not insights. They are a refusal to look properly.

Our optimism is not naivety. It is a conclusion. We believe change is possible because behavioural science gives us answers for how to influence choices and behaviour in a positive direction.

An enormous amount is already going well in the world. People in technology, healthcare, urban planning and education are quietly solving problems we were told were unsolvable. Almost none of it reaches us. We receive a constant stream of what is breaking down, and almost nothing of what is being built.

The stubborn optimist refuses to accept the status quo and does the work. Not the dreamer who hopes things will improve, not the cynic who is certain they will not. The person in between, which is harder to be than either. Someone who looks at a stuck situation and does not ask whether it can be different, but how.

And we want to contribute to this by giving as many people as possible the tools of behavioural science. So that you do not only think in possibilities, but also see them become reality. In your organisation, your team, your personal life, or the world around you.

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The Stubborn Optimist — articles

The search, step by step

Each article takes a stubborn problem and looks for the place in the world where someone has already solved it. And what behavioural science tells us about why it worked.

Astrid Groenewegen

This is the blog series I have had in my head for years. Not as inspiration content. As a search. Each article is a question: where has someone already solved this? And what does that tell us about how behaviour really works, and how you can design it?

Behind all those questions sits the same conviction: behaviour is not fate. It is a design choice. And anyone who shares that conviction can learn the tools to do something with it.

Astrid Groenewegen — SUE Behavioural Design
Learn to apply it yourself →
SUE Behavioural Design
Manifesto · Vision

Here is to the stubborn optimists

How do you change human behaviour without trying to change the human? The starting point for everything we do.

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Children learning in the open landscape of Vittra Telefonplan school in Stockholm
Education · Learning environment

How do you design a school children actually want to walk into on Monday?

Vittra Telefonplan in Stockholm has no classrooms. Five types of space instead of one. The curiosity followed naturally.

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Woman on a bicycle during the Ciclovía in Bogotá
Urban · Sport & movement

How do you design a city where moving is the obvious choice?

Bogotá closes 120 km of main roads to cars every Sunday. Two million people take to the streets, without a campaign, a fine or a reward.

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The cheese and salumi counter at Eataly Los Angeles
Retail · Consumer behaviour

How do you design a shop where people buy less, and walk out happier?

Eataly built its reputation on the opposite of every retail instinct. Smaller baskets, slower shoppers, higher satisfaction.

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Interior of a Maggie's Centre with glass wall looking onto a green garden
Health · Care

How do you design a building that helps people heal instead of holding them still?

Maggie's Centres gave the building a role in cancer care. Lower anxiety, greater sense of control. Not despite the architecture. Because of it.

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Learn to apply it yourself

From stubborn optimist to behavioural designer

If you believe behaviour can be designed, the next step is learning how. Our training programmes give you the methods, the tools and the practice to turn that conviction into real change.

SUE Behavioural Design Academy — Manifesto

We are here for the
stubborn optimists

For the people who…

Refuse to accept that the way things have always been done is the way they must continue. Who do not believe in “that will never work” or “we have tried that already”. Who know that cynicism is easy, and that it gets you nowhere.

We are here for those who think in possibilities, not limitations

Who think in “what if?” instead of “yes, but”. What if we looked at this differently? What if we treated a problem as an interesting starting point? What if we saw it from another angle? What if we put our energy into progress?

Because an enormous amount is already going well

And that is what we want to talk about. Not because we are naive, but because the examples are there. Because optimism is not a denial of problems. It is a choice about where you direct your energy.

Behavioural science has answers

Not for everything. Not always. But for far more than people think. Decades of research into how people really decide, what moves them, why we do what we do and why habits stick. How changing context shapes choices and behaviour. That knowledge exists. Those insights are real.

We make them accessible, usable and tangible. Not as tricks. Not as manipulation. As instruments for positive change. For breakthroughs that matter:

Greater wellbeing
Better teams
Smarter organisations
More liveable cities
Products worth having
Leaders with real impact
We are not dreamers

We are evidence-based optimists. We work with data, with experiments, with iteration. We test, we measure, we learn. Always with the conviction that things can be better. That is not soft. That is stubborn. Stubbornly holding on to the idea that progress is possible. That behaviour can be designed. That small changes can have large effects. That the future is made, not fixed.

If you catch yourself thinking…

“There must be a better way…”  ·  “This can be done differently…”  ·  “I believe this is possible…”  ·  “I want to put my energy into progress…”

Then you are in the right place. Then you are a stubborn optimist. Then you are a changemaker. Then you are a professional who gets things moving.

And those are exactly the people we give the tools of behavioural science. So that you do not only think in possibilities, but also see them become reality. In your organisation, your team, your personal life, or the world around you. Because Behavioural Design takes you further in every part of your work.

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