Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (edition 2010)

Enjoyed this look at change. Some of my favorite quotes include:
“the basic three-part framework … that can guide you in any situation where you need to change behavior:
• Direct the Rider. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction. …
• Motivate the Elephant. What looks like laziness is often exhaustion. The Rider can't get his way by force for very long. So it's critical that you engage people's emotional side—get their Elephants on the path and cooperative. …
• Shape the Path. What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. We call the situation (including the surrounding environment) the "Path." When you shape the Path, you make change more likely, no matter what's happening with the Rider and Elephant.
But if you’re trying to change things, there are going to be bright spots in your field of view, and if you learn to recognize them and understand them, you will solve one of the fundamental mysteries of change: What, exactly, needs to be done differently?
“Many leaders pride themselves on setting high-level direction: I'll set the vision and stay out of the details. It’s true that a compelling vision is critical. … But it’s not enough. Big-picture hands-off leadership isn’t likely to work in a change situation, because the hardest part of change – the paralyzing part - is precisely in the details.”
"Clarity dissolves resistance."
“A destination postcard - a vivid picture from the near-term future that shows what could be possible.”
“First, follow the bright spots… 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 … and script his critical moves… When you do these things, you’ll prepare the Rider to lead a switch. And you’ll arm him for the ongoing struggles with his reluctant and formidable partner, the Elephant.”
“In most change situations, the parameters aren’t well understood, and the future is fuzzy. Because of the uncertainty that change brings, the Elephant is reluctant to move, and the analytical arguments will not overcome that reluctance. … Kotter and Cohen observe 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 helpful glimpse of the solution, or a sobering reflection of your current habits, but regardless, it’s something that hits you at the emotional level. It’s something that speaks to the Elephant.”
“Being a certified nerd, I always used to start with making the math work. I have learned the math does need to work, but sometimes motivation is more important than math. This is one of those times.. Face it, if you go on a diet and lose weight the first week, you will stay on that diet. If you go on a diet and gain weight or go six weeks with no visible progress, you will quit. … When you start the ‘Debt Snowball’ and in the first few days pay off a couple of little debts, trust me, it lights your fire. I don’t care if you have a master’s degree in psychology; you need quick wins to get fired up. And getting fired up is super important.” Dave Ramsey
“Most financial advisers recommend that their clients pay down high-interest debt first... But Ramsey’s not trying to solve an optimization problem; he’s trying to solve an Elephant problem.”
Former UCLA coach John Wooden, one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time, once said, "When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur...Don't look for the quick, big improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens -- and when it happens, it lasts."
“In the identity model of decision making, we essentially ask ourselves three basic questions when we have a decision to make: Who am I? What kind of situation is this? What would someone like me do in this situation?”
“It's critical to realize that these identity stories aren't just special case situations, confined to scientists or nurses or St. Lucians. Identity is going to play a role in nearly every change situation. Even yours. When you think about the people whose behavior needs to change, ask yourself whether they would agree with this statement: 'I aspire to be the kind of person who would make this change.' If their answer is yes, that's an enormous factor in your favor. If their answer is no, then you'll have to work hard to show them that they should aspire to a different self-image.”
“…people are receptive to developing new identities, that identities "grow" from small beginnings.”
“That’s the paradox of the growth mindset. Although it seems to draw attention to failure, and in fact encourages us to seek out failure, it is unflaggingly optimistic. We will struggle, we will fail, we will be knocked down - but throughout, we'll get better, and we'll succeed in the end.”
“The growth mindset, then is a buffer against defeatism. It reframes failure as a natural part of the change process. And that's critical because people will persevere only if they perceive falling down as learning rather than as failing."
“In the new system, the students couldn't stop until they'd cleared the bar. "We define up front to the kids what's an A, B, and C," said Howard. "If they do substandard work, the teacher will say, 'Not Yet.'… That gives them the mindset: My teacher thinks I can do better. It changes their expectations.”
“Howard transformed her students. She cultivated a new identity in them. You're all college-bound students. Then she flipped Jefferson from a fixed-mindset school to a growth-mindset school. She believed that every student was capable of doing acceptable work, that no student was doomed to failure. There's no "never" at Jefferson anymore, only a "Not Yet."
“Over the past few chapters, we’ve seen that the central challenges of change is keeping the elephant moving forward. Whereas the rider needs direction, the elephant needs motivation. And we’ve seen that motivate 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).”
Fundamental Attribution Error: "The error lies in our inclination to attribute people's behavior to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in.”
“The leaders of the IT group decided to try an experiment. They established "quiet hours" on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings before noon. The goal was to give coders a sterile cockpit, allowing them to tackle more complex bits of coding without being derailed by periodic interruptions. Even the socially insensitive responded well to the change in the Path. One engineer, previously among the worst interrupters, said, “I always used to worry about my own quiet time and how to get more of it, but this experiment made me think about how I’m impacting others.”
“In the end, the group managed to meet its stringent nine-month development goal. And the division VP attributed the success to the sterile cockpit quiet hours: “I do not think we could’ve made the deadline without it,” he said. “This is a new benchmark.”
“Instant habits. This is a rare point of intersection between the aspirations of self-help and the reality of science. And you can't get much more practical. The next time your team resolves to act in a new way, challenge team members to take it further. Have them specify when and where they are going to put the plan in motion. Get them to set an action trigger.”
“As Amy Sutherland studied the exotic-animal trainers, she had an epiphany: She wondered what would happen if she used these techniques on that ‘stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.’ The article ‘What Shamu Taught Me About A Happy Marriage,’ became the most e-mailed article on the Times website in 2006, and it led to a book on the same topic.”
“’With Scott the husband, I began to praise every small act every time: if he drove just a mile an hour slower, tossed one pair of shorts into the hamper, or was on time for anything.’ And Scott, basking in the appreciation, began to change.”…
“Reinforcement is the secret to getting past the first step of your long journey and on to the second, third, and hundredth steps. And that’s a problem, because most of us are terrible reinforcers. We are quicker to grouse than to praise.”
“Change isn't an event; it's a process… There is no moment when a child learns to walk… To lead a process requires persistence.”
“We can say this much with confidence: When change works, it tends to follow a pattern. The people who change have clear direction, ample motivation, and a supportive environment. In other words, when change works, it's because the Rider, the Elephant, and the Path are all aligned in support of the switch.” ( )

Great book. Amazing insights into the psychology of decision-making and why our attempts at change tend to fail. A clear look at why and how change can succeed. ( )

Listened to this book and really enjoyed it. ( )

They pull together a lot of the literature around the psychology of personal change and organizational change into something very clear. (Much like Made to Stick, as you might imagine.) It's been a couple of weeks since I actually read it, so some of the details are weak in my memory now, but the overarching metaphor remains helpful. Would like to pick up a copy for my personal reference. ( )

I found it utterly fascinating, and I highly recommend it if you, like me, start a lot of sentences with, “Why can’t people just…” (Full review at http://www.parenthetical.net/2010/08/17/non-fiction-roundup/#more-1125) ( )