Research & Impact

Imagine having a team of scientists obsessed with talent problems you haven’t yet been able to solve. At NLI, we listen to the market to hear what questions keep talent executives up at night, and we deploy our in-house PhDs and extended scientist network to find reliable, practical solutions.

This is not research for research’s sake. Our team distills vast scientific literatures into simple, actionable strategies that help companies perform better. We do this in three ways: original experimental work, original industry research, and synthesizing thousands of academic studies. This mining for patterns of insight informs better talent practices.

Not only are the contents of our partnerships steeped in the latest scientific research, but so is their delivery. We are experts in behavior change, and we design our consulting and learning solutions to bring out the best results from the brain’s strengths and constraints with the least cost.

Change Methodology

Our approach is informed by the constraints and possibilities presented by the human brain — how people take in new information, approach their work, and interact with each other.

Changing habits

We believe organizational change involves helping large numbers of people build new habits. As such, we closely follow the science of habit formation in our implementation process, and we measure the success of an initiative by how frequently a new habit is activated. In doing so, we deliver behavior change, not only plans or statistics.

Measuring change

Conventional wisdom may lead you to believe that the best way to measure the effectiveness of a learning experience is by asking participants how much they liked it.

At NLI, we know that these kinds of measures rarely predict actual behavior change. Instead, we take a science-based approach, looking specifically at reliable indicators of new habits being built. This allows us to see the change as it happens.

To see this in action, read our case studies with Nokia, HP, and more.