Switch - A Book Review

Sanku - Thanks for recommending this one. A must read book for anybody who wishes to "Change" anything in life especially (as the title  says) when "Change is Hard". Seems like a good complement to "Speed of Trust" focusing more on the dynamics of change and how to make it happen. This is also a slightly different version of "Tipping Point" where it talks about how certain small changes  make a big impact.

The authors (Chip and Dan Heath) have a very light style of narrating their "concepts" making it an easy read with full of interesting and practical perspective. It is a fairly simple "framework" comprising of only 3 components - Elephant, Rider and the Path. The Rider is the Logical / Rational aspect, the Elephant -  the Emotional side and the Path is the environment in which Change needs to happen. The process is "simple" too - Direct the Rider, Motivate the Elephant and Shape the Path. Quite easy eh!! Have taken a few excerpts from the book which I found to be most appealing.

Direct The Rider

"Find and Follow the Bright Spots" - In any challenging  situation, they claim that there will be a few bright spots which stand apart from the crowd. Those bright spots need not be earth shattering. It could be as simple as tossing in tiny shrimp and crabs in the rice (to avoid malnutrition in kids in Vietnam). Once you find the bright spots follow them to identify the trends and clone them over and over and over.  "Don't obsess about failures. Instead investigate and clone the successes."

Quite often we get into a challenge where the solution doesn't seem to be anywhere near the horizon. A simple question to ask - "What was different the last time it worked?" (where we know it worked).

A very strong (and true) statement made - "We're all loop-hole exploiting lawyers when it comes to our own self-control." How many times have we "justified" ourselves on actions that we do. 

Here's another "eye-opener" - "One reason we're able to believe that we are better than average leaders and drivers and spouses and team players is that we are defining those terms in ways that flatter us." 

Motivate the Elephant

By "motivating" the elephant they mean reaching out to the emotional aspect of the stakeholders involved in that Change. One interesting concept is to create a "burning platform". "To create a burning platform is to paint such a gloomy picture of the current state of things that employees can't help but jump into the fiery sea." And hence be "forced" to Change.

One of the main detrimental factors to change is the fear of the magnitude (sometimes unknown) of the change. Their idea is to "Shrink the Change" to make it more palatable to the Elephant. Few years ago one of my client bosses constantly said "Do not try to eat the whole elephant. Eat it in chunks." Now I totally understand what he meant. ;-)  Another technique is to create an "impression" that you are not starting from scratch. "People find it more motivating to be partly finished with a long journey than to be at the starting gate of a shorter one." The key is to identify a quick win and win it. "You need quick wins to get fired up. And getting fired up is super important."

Shape the Path

Read about an interesting psychological concept "Fundamental Attribution Error" which states "The error lies in our inclination to attribute the behaviour to the way they are rather than the situation they are in." They claim "What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. And no matter what your role is you've got (some) control over the situation." So the important question they ask is "How can I set up a situation that brings out the good in these people." Easier said than done eh!!

Talking about the Path, we often worry too much and try to get every piece of the puzzle in order along the path. "When you are 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".

This review by no means does any justice to the book. This is more of a reminder for myself for future reference.

More information on this is available at http://www.heathbrothers.com/switch/

Happy Switching!!

C