Home > Work > Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
61 " How can you create a habit that supports the change you’re trying to make? There are only two things to think about: (1) The habit needs to advance the mission, as did Pagonis’s stand-up meetings. (2) The habit needs to be relatively easy to embrace. If it’s too hard, then it creates its own independent change problem. For "
― Chip Heath , Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
62 " Suppose that you go to bed tonight and sleep well. Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved. When you wake up in the morning, what’s the first small sign you’d see that would make you think, ‘Well, something must have happened—the problem is gone!’? "
63 " In tough times, the Rider sees problems everywhere, and “analysis paralysis” often kicks in. The Rider will spin his wheels indefinitely unless he’s given clear direction. That’s why to make progress on a change, you need ways to direct the Rider. Show him where to go, how to act, what destination to pursue. And that’s why bright spots are so essential, because they are your best hope for directing the Rider when you’re trying to bring about change. "
64 " Checklists educate people about what’s best, showing them the ironclad right way to do something. "
65 " You have to back up your destination postcard with a good behavioral script. That’s a recipe for success. What you don’t need to do is anticipate every turn in the road between today and the destination. It’s not that plotting the whole journey is undesirable; it’s that it’s impossible. To think that you can plot a turn-by-turn map to the end, like a leader’s version of Mapquest, is almost certainly hubris. When you’re at the beginning, don’t obsess about the middle, because the middle is going to look different once you get there. Just look for a strong beginning and a strong ending and get moving. "
66 " motivation comes from feeling—knowledge isn’t enough to motivate change. But motivation also comes from confidence. The Elephant has to believe that it’s capable of conquering the change. And there are two routes to building people’s confidence so that they feel “big” relative to their challenge. You can shrink the change or grow your people (or, preferably, both). "
67 " You can’t count on these milestones to occur naturally. To motivate change, you’ve got to plan for them. "
68 " Don’t obsess about the failures. Instead, investigate and clone the successes. Next, give direction to the Rider—both a start and a finish. Send him a destination postcard (“You’ll be a third grader soon!”), and script his critical moves (“Buy 1% milk”). "
69 " the sequence of change is not ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE, but "
70 " developers understand what’s being asked of them but resent being forced to change their beautiful code for the dummies in their audience. "
71 " Our struggles with e-mail are a bit pathetic, but the larger topic is worth considering: Is it possible to design an environment in which undesired behaviors—whether yours or your colleagues’—are made not only harder but impossible? As it turns out, lots of people actually make their living contemplating how to wipe out the wrong kinds of behaviors. "
72 " They think if something is simple enough to be put in a checklist, a monkey can do it. Well, if that’s true, grab a pilot’s checklist and try your luck with a 747. "
73 " People find it more motivating to be partly finished with a longer journey than to be at the starting gate of a shorter one. "
74 " Many people have discovered that, when it comes to changing their own behavior, environmental tweaks beat self-control every time. "
75 " To change behavior, you’ve got to direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path. If you can do all three at once, dramatic change can happen even if you don’t have lots of power or resources behind you. "
76 " This hypothetical comes from author Marcus Buckingham, who says that nearly all parents will tend to fixate on the F. It’s easy to empathize with them: Something seems broken—we should fix it. Let’s get her a tutor. Or maybe she should be punished—she’s grounded until that grade recovers. It is the rare parent who would say, instead, “Honey, you made an ‘A’ in this one class. You must really have a strength in this subject. How can we build on that?” (Buckingham has a fine series of books on making the most of your strengths rather than obsessing about your weaknesses.) "
77 " We want what we might call a destination postcard—a vivid picture from the near-term future that shows what could be possible. That "
78 " Here’s how one couple in marital therapy answered the Miracle Question posed by their therapist, Brian Cade of Sydney, Australia: WIFE: I’d be happy, feeling at ease at last. I’d be more pleasant to Bob, not jumping down his throat all the time. CADE: What will you do instead? WIFE: Well, there would be more understanding between us. We’d listen to what each other was saying. HUSBAND: Yes. At the moment, we don’t really listen to each other. We just can’t wait to get our own point in. CADE: How could you tell that the other was really listening? WIFE: In the face, I think. We’d perhaps make more eye contact. (Pauses, then laughs.) We’d nod in the right places. Yes. We’d both respond to what the other was saying rather than just attacking or ignoring it. "
79 " Once they’ve helped patients identify specific and vivid signs of progress, they pivot to a second question, which is perhaps even more important. It’s the Exception Question: “When was the last time you saw a little bit of the miracle, even just for a short time? "
80 " Kotter and Cohen observed that, in almost all successful change efforts, the sequence of change is not ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE, but rather SEE-FEEL-CHANGE. You’re presented with evidence that makes you feel something. It might be a disturbing look at the problem, or a hopeful glimpse of the solution, or a sobering reflection of your current habits, but regardless, it’s something that hits you at the emotional level. "