Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 313
The barrier may not be the message
COM-B separates capability, opportunity, and motivation so leaders can stop treating every behavior problem as a communication problem
Premise
Organizations often answer unwanted behavior with another campaign, reminder, leadership message, or instruction. COM-B asks a prior question: what condition is actually preventing the behavior? People may understand what to do and still lack skill, physical access, social permission, habit support, or sufficient motivation to do it.
That distinction changes executive intervention design. Communication is justified when the diagnosis shows that information, persuasion, modeling, or another communicative function can touch the limiting determinant. When the bottleneck is access, practiced skill, incentives, supervision, or policy, more messaging can be perfectly executed and still be the wrong instrument.
What the model is: COM-B Model and the Behaviour Change Wheel in Knowledge →
Continue in the series
- The essential model
- Why this matters
- Risks and limits
- Executive takeaway
- Key questions
- Selected sources
The full brief is in its volume, with the other works of the series.
Need the full brief now? Request it under NDA →
New works are announced in The Debrief. Subscribe →
- FamilyModel
- CategoryAnalytical Frameworks, Typologies & Heuristics
- DomainPersuasion & Argument
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Analytical Frameworks, Typologies & Heuristics
Organizes dimensions, distinctions, types or questions so that a situation can be examined systematically. A framework supplies structure, a typology distinguishes forms, and a heuristic offers a usable way to orient judgment.