Team

One of the famous opening sentences in Brené Brown's talk goes like this, "Connection is why we're here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives."

This, it seems to me, is at the heart of a recent campaign The Billion Steps Challenge. In essence, we were encouraged to sign up into teams of between two and five people, who then log in our daily step count by syncing our mobile device.

It is a beautiful example of what behavioral scientists mean by nudging healthy behavior with group-based incentive, a far more effective tool than individual incentive. Some years ago, scientists have experimented with the two types of incentive to help people shed pounds. Slimmers were randomly organized into groups of five people or separate individuals. Offering groups a collective reward for meeting target weight loss is more successful than incentives offered to each individual.

Whether you call it social pressure or peer motivation, the trick simply works wonder.