[Book 7] Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Switch provides stunning clarity, detail, and insight on a topic we all struggle with at times: how to make big changes. By dividing the mind into an emotional-led side “elephant” and rational-led side “rider”, Chip and Dan effectively describe how sound analysis and planning (the rider) can easily be overpowered by emotional resistance (the elephant). They use this analogy throughout the book to illustrate helpful strategies and provide examples to overcome common pitfalls. I’ve used this book to break problems into smaller, manageable tasks and keep my business partner’s emotional reactions top of mind when considering changing the status quo.

You should read this book if you…

• often face resistance from others when trying to make changes
• want strategies on how to better effectuate big changes in your personal and professional life
• seek a better mindset to overcome inevitable failures as you work through the change process

Additional Information

Year Published: 2010
Book Ranking (from 1-10): 8 – Very Good – In depth insights on a specific topic
Ease of Read (from 1-5): 3 – Average

Key Highlights

1. The first surprise about change: What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem
2. Haidt says that our emotional side is an Elephant and our rational side is its Rider. 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. If you want to change things, you’ve got to appeal to both. The Rider provides the planning and direction, and the Elephant provides the energy
3. So when you hear people say that change is hard because people are lazy or resistant, that’s just flat wrong. In fact, the opposite is true: Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that’s the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion
4. If the Rider isn’t sure exactly what direction to go, he tends to lead the Elephant in circles. And as we’ll see, that tendency explains the third and final surprise about change: What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity
5. Solutions- focused therapists learn to focus their patients on the first hints of the miracle—“ What’s the first small sign you’d see that would make you think the problem was gone”— because they want to avoid answers that are overly grand and unattainable
6. This is a theme you will see again and again. Big problems are rarely solved with commensurately big solutions. Instead, they are most often solved by a sequence of small solutions, sometimes over weeks, sometimes over decades. And this asymmetry is why the Rider’s predilection for analysis can backfire so easily
7. We want what we might call a destination postcard— a vivid picture from the near- term future that shows what could be possible. Notice what happens, though, when you point to an attractive destination: The Rider starts applying his strengths to figuring out how to get there
8. Turnaround leaders must convince people that the organization is truly on its deathbed— or, at the very least, that radical changes are required if the organization is to survive and thrive.” In other words, if necessary, we need to create a crisis to convince people they’re facing a catastrophe and have no choice but to move
9. If you’re leading a change effort, you better start looking for those first two stamps to put on your team’s cards. Rather than focusing solely on what’s new and different about the change to come, make an effort to remind people what’s already been conquered. When you engineer early successes, what you’re really doing is engineering hope. Hope is precious to a change effort. It’s Elephant fuel
10. In the business world, we implicitly reject the growth mindset. Businesspeople think in terms of two stages: You plan, and then you execute. There’s no “learning stage” or “practice stage” in the middle
11. Notice what team leaders at IDEO are doing with the peaks- and- valley visual: They are creating the expectation of failure. They are telling team members not to trust that initial flush of good feeling at the beginning of the project, because what comes next is hardship and toil and frustration. Yet, strangely enough, when they deliver this warning, it comes across as optimistic. 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
12. Animal trainers rarely use punishment these days. You can punish an elephant only so many times before you wind up as a splinter. Instead, trainers set a behavioral destination and then use “approximations,” meaning that they reward each tiny step toward the destination