Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard

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Nov 4, 2011 ... Bus 322-001. Switch: How to Change Things. When Change is Hard. Chip Heath & Dan Heath. Submitted by: Stephanie Miller ...
Bus 322-001

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard

Chip Heath & Dan Heath

Submitted by: Stephanie Miller

Submitted on: November 4, 2011 Table of Contents Background

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Key Points

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The Elephant & The Rider

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Direct the Rider

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Motivate the Elephant

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Shape the Path

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Parallels of Switch to Course Learnings

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Leadership Implications

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Personal Evaluation

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Works Cited

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Background The Heath brothers, Chip and Dan, have strong business backgrounds. Chip Heath is a professor of Organizational Behaviour at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and has served as a consultant for many wellknown organizations including Nike, Microsoft, and the American Heart Association (Heath Brothers, n.d.). Dan Heath “is a senior fellow at Duke University’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE). Previously, he was a researcher and case writer at Harvard Business School, as well as the cofounder of a college textbook publishing firm called Thinkwell” (Heath, 2010).

Both Heath brothers are columnists for Fast Company magazine, an online and print publication that covers progressive business leaders and their strategies (Fast Company, 2011). Chip and Dan Heath have co-authoured two books together. The first, Made to Stick, was released in 2007 and covers the topic of why certain ideas and messages “stick.” Made to Stick “was named the Best Business Book of the Year [and] spent 24 months on the BusinessWeek bestseller list” (Heath Brothers, n.d.). Switch: How to Change Things When

Change is Hard, the Heath brothers’ second critically acclaimed book, debuted in the number one spot on the Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestseller lists. Key Points

Switch attempts to answer the following question: “Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives?” 3

(Heath Brothers, n.d.). The Heath brothers believe that in order to make a change stick you need to appeal to a person’s rational and emotional side.

The Elephant & The Rider Throughout Switch, the Heaths use University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s analogy that our emotional side is an Elephant and our rational side is its Rider. Our emotional side, or Elephant, often overpowers our Rider. The Elephant acts on instinct, emotion, and prefers a quick payoff rather than longterm. Our Elephants provide us with the energy we need to make a change. The Rider tends to overanalyze and over-think but provides us with clear planning and direction. “When Elephants and Riders move together, change can come easily” (Heath, 2010, p. 8).

Direct the Rider The Heaths lay out three simple steps that will create successful and lasting change. The first step is to direct the Rider. To direct the Rider, you must follow the bright spots or investigate what is currently working and copy it. “To pursue the bright spots is to ask the question ‘What’s working, and how can we do more of it?’” (Heath, 2010, p. 45). “These flashes of success – these bright spots – can illuminate the road map for action and spark the hope that change is possible” (Heath, 2010, p. 48). The second step in directing the Rider is to script the critical moves. The Heaths state that one of the main reasons for change failure is that the Rider is unclear of what direction to take, because its goals are too broad. Both ambiguity and uncertainty can discourage the Rider and “when the road is uncertain, the

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Elephant will insist on taking the default path, the most familiar path” (Heath, 2010, p. 53). To overcome this, we need to establish clear, succinct goals. The Heaths use the example of health researchers Steve Booth-Butterfield and Bill Reger, professors at West Virginia University, attempting to persuade people to eat healthier. “From past research, they knew that people were more likely to change when the new behaviour expected of them was crystal clear” (Heath, 2010, p. 15). There are millions of ways to “eat healthier,” which they felt lead to the resistance of change. They decided to narrow their goal down very specifically and only focus on attempting to switch people’s consumptions of full fat milks to one per cent. They created their campaign based around the benefits of one per cent milk and found that the market share for low-fat milk in the surrounding area’s grocery stores increased by twenty-three per cent. Once people had a clear path, it was easy for them to follow through. The final process of directing the Rider is to point it in the direction of the destination. The Heath brothers determine that “change is easier when you know where you’re going and why it’s worth it” (Heath Brothers, n.d.).

Motivate the Elephant Motivating the Elephant begins with finding the feeling or emotion. “It’s emotion that motivates the Elephant. In fighting for change, we’ve got to find the feeling” (Heath, 2010, p. 118). Appealing to negative emotions will bring about quick and simple changes, whereas positive emotional appeal “broadens the kinds of tasks we contemplate for the future, encouraging us to pursue even bigger goals” (Heath, 2010, p. 123).

Change is most always extremely overwhelming. To make a lasting “switch,” the 5

change goals and journey need to be broken down and allow for continual victory. The Heaths discovered that “people find it more motivating to be partly finished with a longer journey than to be at the starting gate of a shorter one” (Heath, 2010, p. 127). The last stage in motivating the Elephant is to grow your people. By cultivating a sense of identity, you can reach an individual’s emotional appeal and inspire a change. For example, “if you can show people why the environment is worth caring about, it won’t take years for them to think of themselves as ‘environmentalists’” (Heath, 2010, p. 161).

Shape the Path The final step in the Heath’s framework is to shape the path. “If you want people to change, you can provide clear direction (Rider) or boost their motivation and determination (Elephant). Alternatively, you can simply make the journey easier” (Heath, 2010, p. 181). What we often do not realize is that behaviour changes are a result of situation changes. Another simple way to shape the path is by building habits. Once new habits are formed, they no longer feel like change. Lastly, “behaviour is contagious” (Heath Brothers, n.d.) and we constantly mimic the behaviours of others in uncertain situations. Parallels of Switch to Course Learnings Chip and Dan Heath have much the same viewpoints on change as Dr. Jerry Jellison, professor of social psychology at the University of California and authour of Managing the Dynamics of Change (Jerry Jellison – Change Management, 2006). Jellison also attributes the resistances of change to the lack of a plan, path, and clear objectives. Unlike the Heaths, Jellison elaborates on the 6

difficulties of change resulting from little unification between management and employees. “Leaders focus on the future and all the benefits that are going to flow to them and the organization. The rank and file locks onto the present, focusing on the costs rather than the rewards of change” (Jellison, 2006, p. 42). The Switch framework can be applied to this scenario to better improve the cohesion and overcome the change issues. Leadership Implications

Switch answers the dilemma of creating change in an environment and for individuals who are unreceptive of change. Everyone finds change hard but Chip and Dan Heath have created a framework that can easily be applied to most any individual or situation to help overcome change difficulties. The framework is flexible and adaptable to all. The Heaths stress that change follows a pattern but the pattern does not necessarily depend on the type of person making the change. The situations may be different, the scale of the changes may be different, but the pattern was the same each time. You must direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the path. (Heath, 2010, p. 258). According to Chip and Dan Heath, as long as you stick to the formula, change will come about easily. Personal Evaluation

Switch pleasantly surprised me. I enjoyed the modernity of the Heaths’ examples and the non-preaching tone. The Heaths use stories to convey their message while keeping the audience engaged. Their implementation steps were all practical, simple, and can be used in many aspects of one’s life (i.e. business, personal, community). The language and examples they used were clear and

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easy to understand. I will use the Switch framework to guide me when making crucial changes in the future. Also, I look forward to reading the Heath brothers’ first book, Made to Stick.

Works Cited Fast Company. (2011). About Us. Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/about-us. The Happiness Hypothesis. (n.d.). Homepage. Retrieved from http://www.happinesshypothesis.com/beyond.html. Heath Brothers. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.heathbrothers.com/authors/. Heath, C & D. (2010). Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. New York, NY: Random House. Jellison, J. (2006). Influencing People to Change. In C. Gosse, course pack: BUS 322: Leading Organizational Change (p. 145-164). Victoria, BC: Camosun College Bookstore. Jerry Jellison – Change Management. (2006). Bio. Retrieved from http://www.jerryjellison.com/bio.html. Stanford. (2011). Faculty Profiles. Retrieved from http://gsbapps.stanford.edu/facultyprofiles/biomain.asp?id=46335369.

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