What a Spud
One of our favourite stories of change involves the 18th century King Frederick the Great of Prussia. This tale begins with the monarch worried about nutrition: it was the age before agri-tech and the age where famine was one bad season away. Soldiers needed to be fed and the populace needed to stay productive.
The answer? The potato. More reliable to grow, full of carbs, and durable. You think the soldiers and serfs would be queueing up to get their sackfuls.
Alas no. For the potato suffered from a PR problem. It looked ugly, it was thought to be the Devil’s favourite in his shopping bag, and it wasn’t cool enough.
So Frederick tried what all leaders first do: he cracked the whip and pushed it down their throat (perhaps even literally). No luck. Then he had a brainwave.
The story goes that Frederick made the potato a Royal, Off-limits vegetable. He had fields protected by soldiers, but with rules to be lax. The populace was now intrigued: perhaps there was more to the starchy mess than met the eye?
And so, it is said, the potato took root in Europe. It’s a great example of nudging-and-sludging.
So if you are a changemaker, make sure you’ve got sneaky psychology in your toolkit!