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Turning Solidarity into Action: A Behavioural Design Approach
- Projects at Colectivo
- Aug 1
- 2 min read
In large institutions, values like “solidarity” and “social responsibility” are often stated, but not always practiced. In this week’s Behavioural Design for a Sustainable Future feature, we spotlight Liliana María Quintanilla Viaud, a financial analyst and project manager currently pursuing a dual MBA and Master in Customer Experience and Innovation at IE Business School.
Drawing from her work on a cultural transformation project at a Latin American university, Liliana explores how behavioural design can bridge the gap between stated values and lived behaviours, turning passive support into collective engagement.
Designing for Cultural Transformation
In her visual insight, Liliana addresses a challenge familiar to many large organisations: how do we activate people around shared values in a way that feels real, accessible, and ongoing?
Her target behaviour? Moving students from passive support for social issues to active participation in student-led social impact clubs, aligning with the institution’s core value of solidarity.
Using a combined COM-B and EAST framework, she designs a low-friction, high-impact behavioural intervention with a focus on:
Capability: Building confidence, coordination skills, and time-management strategies so students feel equipped to contribute.
Opportunity: Making participation easy and visible through onboarding at club fairs, reducing bureaucracy, and providing access to digital and physical infrastructure.
Motivation: Framing involvement as purposeful, rewarding, and identity-affirming, backed by public recognition, emotional connection, and social proof.
“Students care about making a difference,” Liliana notes, “however there are no visible pathways, peer involvement, or small starting points, they rarely move from intention to participation. There is a latent interest without collective action.”
Her work highlights the potential for behavioural design to support institutional transformation, not through mandates or messaging alone, but by creating environments where aligned action becomes the default.
About the Author
Liliana María Quintanilla Viaud is a financial analyst, project manager and leader with seven years of experience in innovation and digital transformation in the banking space. Currently pursuing a dual MBA and Master in Customer Experience and Innovation at IE Business School, she is passionate about designing systemic change at the intersection of behavioural science, business, and technology.
🔗 Connect with Liliana on LinkedIn
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