Guest Spotlight: Katryn Wright, Behavioral Scientist on Driving Organizational Change

By Ilse Heine

The Article One team recently had the pleasure of hosting Katryn Wright, a behavioral scientist specializing in organizational change, as part of our guest speaker series. Katryn is a Managing Director at MoreThanNow, a behavioral science research practice that focuses on improving how organizations work by applying rigorous, evidence-based methods to drive behavior change.

Katryn’s work focuses on understanding how people behave within organizations and using experimentation, particularly randomized controlled trials, to test what works to change behavior. Her approach challenges many conventional assumptions about training, incentives, and organizational change, offering a data-driven lens that is highly relevant to the business and human rights field.

Katryn shared compelling insights on how companies can move beyond policy commitments to driving meaningful, lasting behavior change.

From Silos to Change: Rethinking Approaches for Impact

The discussion began with a reflection on how momentum around human rights in business has shifted in recent years. A recurring concern is that human rights efforts remain siloed within small sustainability or ethics teams, often lacking the cross-functional engagement and senior leadership buy-in needed to influence real system-wide decision-making.

Bridging this gap, particularly with commercial teams and executives, remains one of the field’s central challenges. This is where organizational behavior change can help. There are tried-and-tested methods from other domains that provide a roadmap for organizational change. Katryn introduced MoreThanNow’s 4T model of behavior change—which shows that change is most effective when designed in ways that are:

• Targeted: Focus on specific behaviors, not abstract goals
• Timely: Intervene at the moment decisions are made
• Theory-based: Ground interventions in behavioral science
• Tested: Use experimentation to measure what works

From Activities to Outcomes

A central theme throughout the session was the distinction between activities and outcomes.

Many organizations invest heavily in training and awareness campaigns yet struggle to translate these into measurable change. Katryn shared a case study from her research demonstrating that even highly rated, best-in-class, expensive training programs often fail to shift actual behavior.

For example, rather than delivering generic diversity training, one organization tested behaviorally designed training—targeted training sent to managers right before a moment where they could behave differently. These results were published in Science—one of the world’s foremost journals—as a rigorously tested way of improving outcomes over traditional training approaches.

The takeaway is clear: changing behavior requires precision, not just intention.

Making Human Rights Tangible Across Organizations

The discussion also focused on how to engage teams that do not have human rights expertise.

For many functions, such as procurement, sales, or product development, human rights can feel abstract or disconnected from day-to-day responsibilities. At the same time, some teams may react defensively, perceiving human rights risks as personal accusations rather than systemic issues.

However, Katryn emphasized that messaging alone is not enough, and the key is translating human rights into concrete actions tied to individual roles. Specifically, what each team, function, or employee needs to do differently.

The Power of Experimentation

A defining feature of Katryn’s approach is the use of experimentation to test assumptions.

Rather than relying on intuition or best practices, her team runs controlled trials to determine what drives change. These experiments often yield surprising results—challenging widely held beliefs about what works.

For example, in one study, a direct diversity-focused message proved more effective in improving hiring outcomes than a more neutral “team effectiveness” framing—contrary to expectations about potential backlash.

Importantly, these methods also help identify unintended consequences and track longer-term impacts, ensuring that interventions do not inadvertently create new risks.

Key Takeaways for the Business and Human Rights Field

Several insights from the session stand out for practitioners:

• Move beyond awareness: Training alone is unlikely to drive change without clear behavioral targets
• Align incentives: Employees must be rewarded, not penalized, for ethical decision-making
• Embed human rights across functions: Success depends on engaging all key groups, often commercial and operational teams
• Test, don’t assume: Experimentation can reveal what truly works and what doesn’t
• Focus on behaviors, not just policies: Real impact comes from consistent, intentional, and often small daily actions which can drive systemic change over time

Ultimately, advancing business and human rights requires shifting from high-level commitments to practical, measurable changes in how organizations operate.

If you’re interested in joining our internal guest speaker series or exploring a collaboration with Article One, please reach out at hello@articleoneadvisors.com. Additionally, if you would like to get in touch with Katryn at MoreThanNow, please reach out to: https://www.morethannow.co.uk/contact.