Some months ago I was given a galley addition of the new book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. I am a reader- I love to read, have learned a lot from reading. But for some reason I read the first couple of chapters of this book and set it down, only to finally pick it up 7 months later. I shouldn’t have waited so long because it’s great.
Here’s the gist of the book: change is hard for people to internalize, but there are ways that we can break down changes so that they are less intimidating and more likely to be lasting improvements. As with the previous book from the Heath brothers, Made to Stick, the book is well written and made to be applied by leaders everywhere.
Here are a few of the lessons I found to be most useful:
Appeal to both the rational and emotional: the book uses the illustration of a human RIDER on top of an ELEPHANT as an example of the relationship between our rational, reasoning mind and our emotional self. The Rider of reason may be on top, but the Elephant of emotion is much bigger and can easily override our reasons. This explains why you can set a rational goal of change in diet, habit, self-discipline, but the next morning your emotions easily override it. To deal with this balance you’ve got to institute changes that are both rational and have a motivational component
Break Change into small bites: It’s not that we can’t change, it’s that we are slow to get started and then often drop the new habits quickly. The book shows with repeated examples how this can be overcome by breaking the change into small bites that can be built upon.
Instill a Growth Mindset: It’s so much easier for us to change, both collectively and individually, when we have a mindset and identity that believes it can change and that is always in the process of growing. Yet as this book points out effectively, many people instead have a “fixed mindset” which makes it difficult to change. A fixed mindset is simply a belief, articulated with phrases such as: “This is just the way I am”, that people have a set biology, personality, and talent base that cannot be expanded. A growth mindset, which they prove can be developed, looks at abilities as muscles which can be developed with repeated use.
I’d recommend the book to leaders who are trying to manage change and to people who individually want to develop their abilities but lack an understanding of how to motivate themselves.
David
