Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
by Chip Heath, Dan Heath
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Book Summary Information
Author: Chip Heath, Dan HeathEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2010-02-16
ISBN: 0385528752
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Crown Business
Book Reviews of Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
Book Review: Founded on real research and have some depth to them
Summary: 5 Stars
I read an awesome book by Chip and Dan Heath called Switch - How To Change Things When Change is Hard. I really enjoyed their previous book Made to Stick.
What I like about Chip and Dan's books are that they are founded on real research and have some depth to them. Although I love reading business books, I am finding that many of the books I read are fairly shallow. This one is not shallow.
One of the key concepts that the book uses is that of the elephant and the rider. The elephant is that part of you that is automatic and does things without thinking. Although they don't call them this, I would call these habits (or in my case I like to think of them as success habits). The rider is the self discipline which can cause the elephant to do certain things.
One concept of the rider is the rider actually does not have an inexhaustible supply of energy so when the rider has to do too many course corrections, the rider simply wears out and the elephant ends up taking over and doing things the way the elephant wants to do them. I think it's an interesting concept to thing in terms that self-discipline as a limited resource and as such we need to figure out how to use it well.
The gist of the message is use the rider to develop habits so the elephant has the right habits.
I have always said change is opportunity and I have always loved change at one level. However there is clearly a part of me that does not like change
The book has many practical examples on how to make a switch (or change). They include :
Follow the Bright Spots - Investigate what's working and clone it.
Script the Critical Moves - Don't think big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors
Point to the Destination - Chang is easier when you known where you're going and why it's worth it.
Motivate the Elephant
Find the Feeling - Knowing something isn't enough to cause change. Make people feel something.
Shrink the Change - Break down the change, until it no longer spooks the Elephant.
Grow Your People - Cultivate a sense of identity and instill the growth mindset.
Shape the Path
Tweak the Environment - When the situation changes, the behavior changes. So change the situation.
Build Habits - When behavior is habitual, it's "free" -it doesn't tax the Rider. Look for ways to encourage habits.
Rally The Herd - Behavior is contagious. Help spread.
I interviewed Dan Heath:
Can you describe any tie ins and differences between Made to Stick and Switch. After Made to Stick - why Switch.
When Made to Stick came out, we had the opportunity to work with a lot of people who were trying to make their ideas stick. Most often, they were trying to create some kind of change: a museum director who wanted to inspire other museums to be more accessible to the visually impaired; an entrepreneur who wanted IT directors to adopt his software; a teacher who wanted to change the culture of his private school.
So that was our "duh" moment--the realization that people were using the book's ideas to lobby for change. Made to Stick discusses effective communication, and that's one tool that a leader needs in creating change, but it's not the only one. So we set out to research the question, "How can you improve your odds of changing things?" And in combing through the psychology literature, we began to find really compelling answers--answers that sometimes surprised us. For instance, psychologists have found that our self-control is exhaustible. It gets fatigued, like a muscle. So one consequence of that is that we shouldn't try to change too many things at once, if we can avoid it. Because when our self-control is exhausted, we'll find change very difficult.
In short, we got excited by the research and stories we found, and so we started writing Switch.
How did you find working with your brother? Has writing the book made you closer or not? (I was in business with my 3 brothers for many years so it is a point of curiosity.)
It has been a great experience. In the beginning, we had some kinks to work out in our workstyles--Chip is a planner and I'm a procrastinator, so you can imagine the resulting "issues"--but we've been collaborating closely for over 5 years now, so it's smooth sailing these days. The books have given us something to work on together, which is nice. Some brothers fix up muscle cars; we write non-fiction books. Before we wrote Made to Stick, we'd talk maybe once a month, and now we talk almost every day.
Summary of Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives?The primary obstacle is a conflict that?s built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed bestseller Made to Stick. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems?the rational mind and the emotional mind?that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort?but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.
In Switch, the Heaths show how everyday people?employees and managers, parents and nurses?have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results:
? The lowly medical interns who managed to defeat an entrenched, decades-old medical practice that was endangering patients.
? The home-organizing guru who developed a simple technique for overcoming the dread of housekeeping.
? The manager who transformed a lackadaisical customer-support team into service zealots by removing a standard tool of customer service
In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, a pattern you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline.
Chip Heath and Dan Heath on Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
"Change is hard." "People hate change." Those were two of the most common quotes we heard when we began to study change.
But it occurred to us that if people hate change, they have a funny way of showing it. Every iPhone sold serves as counter-evidence. So does every text message sent, every corporate merger finalized, every aluminum can recycled. And we haven?t even mentioned the biggest changes: Getting married. Having kids. (If people hate change, then having a kid is an awfully dumb decision.)
It puzzled us--why do some huge changes, like marriage, come joyously, while some trivial changes, like submitting an expense report on time, meet fierce resistance?
We found the answer in the research of some brilliant psychologists who?d discovered that people have two separate ?systems? in their brains?a rational system and an emotional system. The rational system is a thoughtful, logical planner. The emotional system is, well, emotional?and impulsive and instinctual.
When these two systems are in alignment, change can come quickly and easily (as when a dreamy-eyed couple gets married). When they?re not, change can be grueling (as anyone who has struggled with a diet can attest).
In those situations where change is hard, is it possible to align the two systems? Is it possible to overcome our internal "schizophrenia" about change? We believe it is.
In our research, we studied people trying to make difficult changes: People fighting to lose weight and keep it off. Managers trying to overhaul an entrenched bureaucracy. Activists combatting seemingly intractable problems such as child malnutrition. They succeeded--and, to our surprise, we found striking similarities in the strategies they used. They seemed to share a similar game plan. We wanted, in Switch, to make that game plan available to everyone, in hopes that we could show people how to make the hard changes in life a little bit easier. --Chip and Dan Heath
(Photo © Amy Surdacki)
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