Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, by brothers Chip and Dan Heath
The biggest obstacle to change is our minds: specifically, their dual nature. Whether you think of it as the emotional self and rational self, we have an instinctive side and a deliberate, analytic side.
The Heaths borrow an analogy from Jonathan Haidt’s book The Happiness Hypothesis
Perched atop the Elephant, the Rider holds the reins and seems to be the leader. But the Rider’s control is precarious because the Rider is so small relative to the Elephant. Anytime the six-ton Elephant and the Rider disagree about which direction to go, the Rider is going to lose. He’s completely overmatched.
The book is structured into three sections, each one suggesting specific behaviors you can follow:
I. Direct the Rider:
– Find the bright spots
– Script the critical moves
– Point to the destination
II. Motivate the Elephant:
– Find the feeling
– Shrink the Change;
– Grow your people
III. Shape the Path:
– Tweak the environment
– Build habits
– Rally the herd
Switch breaks down into three main categories: Direct the Rider, Motivate the Elephant, Shape the Path.
Directing the Rider includes giving specific, concrete actions that lead to a specific, measurable destination. A goal like “I will do better” is almost as bad as no goal at all; your Rider will just spin his wheels, going in every direction at once. The authors caution against information that is TBU: True But Useless, and instead advise you to focus on bright spots—places where things are working and going according to plan.
Motivating the Elephant is important, and is probably harder for many. The Elephant is what makes you reach for the snooze button even when your Rider knows it’s time to get up. Sometimes your rational self can force you to do something for a limited amount of time, but it turns out that self-control is an exhaustible resource. Eventually, unless the Elephant wants to go in a certain direction, it won’t. The Heaths give a few steps toward changing how you (or your organization) feel about a change. One in particular is “Shrink the Change”: breaking things down into small, easy-to-swallow steps, because often small changes can have huge impacts.
Shaping the Path includes anything that changes the environment of the issue at hand. One example is a study done about popcorn eating habits. Basically the finding was this: if you give people larger buckets, they will eat more popcorn. So if you’re trying to get people to eat less popcorn, one thing you can do is use smaller buckets—it requires no appeal to the Rider or the Elephant, just a simple change in the environment. Building habits is a good way to shape the path as well, and Switch has several suggestions on how to create new habits.
Self-Control Is Exhaustible
