Switch (book)
✒️ Note-Making
🔗Connect
🔼Topic:: Change (MOC)
💡Clarify
🔈 Summary of main ideas
- Lasting change must include the elephant, rider and path - Lasting, meaningful change comes from a combination of directing the rational "rider" in our brains (rationality and knowledge), motivating the emotional "elephant" (identity and community) and designing an environment that makes it easier to take the right path (nudges).
🗒️Relate
⛓ Life lessons, action items There's not a lot to take from this book. Its mainly a collection of examples. The only thing I took is "Focus on what works". When you try and make a change, first see if there are areas that already work properly. Instead of focusing on what's broken and looking for a solution, take what's already working and try to expand/imitate that. The advantages are that its something proven, possible, and easy to reengineer, than trying to come up with a possible solutions out of infinite possibilities.
🔍Critique
✅ by following this method, what will happen? The simplistic theory rings true about how changes and habits form.
❌ the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong...
🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are...
🗨️Review
💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style... The theme of this book is a million examples analyzed through the terminology of "rider, elephant, path". While at the beginning its nice and the mental frame is interesting, in time it gets repetitive. While they do go deep and connect between theory and content, the bottom line is understood at line 5, and the rest is redundant.
🖼️Outline
📒 Notes
Intro
We all have two main parts in our brain. The emotional and rational side, or system 1 and two. And in this book its the Rider and the Elephant. We succeed when they are in sync, and fail otherwise. Morality is both rational and emotional harmonious self Change can only be maintained when:
- Direct the rider - you define a clear goal for the change, for example: "workout 40 minutes twice a week". Clarity
- Motivate the elephant - approach the emotional side as well. Feel the possible outcomes or the negativity in the status quo.
- Design the path - create systems and environments that would make maintaining the change easier. Nudge
- that’s the first surprise about change: What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem.
- To change someone’s behavior, you’ve got to change that person’s situation.
- 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.
- self-control is an exhaustible resource.
- When people try to change things, they’re usually tinkering with behaviors that have become automatic, and changing those behaviors requires careful supervision by the Rider. The bigger the change you’re suggesting, the more it will sap people’s self-control.
- Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that’s the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.
- 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.
- If you want people to change, you must provide crystal-clear direction.
- Direct the Rider. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction. (Think 1% milk.) 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. (Think of the cookies and radishes study and the boardroom conference table full of gloves.) 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. (Think of the effect of shrinking movie popcorn buckets.)
Direct the Rider
Focus on the Positive
Instead of focusing on what's broken and looking for a solution, take what's already working and try to expand/imitate that Imitation, The advantages are that its something proven, possible, and easy to reengineer, than trying to come up with a possible solutions out of infinite possibilities. On a large scale - you want to change the way a village runs - how about consulting with the locals? On a personal scale - focus on the positive things in life. For example when a child acts out, don't focus on his tantrum, rather focus on the times he acts well and try to increase that. Mainly - don't try to reinvent the wheel.
- 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.
- bright spots provide not only direction for the Rider but hope and motivation for the Elephant.)
- “What’s working and how can we do more of it?” That’s the bright-spot philosophy in a single question.
- To pursue bright spots is to ask the question “What’s working, and how can we do more of it?” Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet, in the real world, this obvious question is almost never asked. Instead, the question we ask is more problem focused: “What’s broken, and how do we fix it?”
Reduce Ambiguity
Make clear, tangible goals and have default rules (when y happens, do x). Otherwise, ambiguity and multiple choices exhaust the rider, which makes the status quo the easiest choice, and the change will fail. Ambiguity
- as we face more and more options, “we become overloaded. Choice no longer liberates, it debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.”
- decision paralysis can be deadly for change—because the most familiar path is always the status quo.
- Ambiguity is the enemy. Any successful change requires a translation of ambiguous goals into concrete behaviors. In short, to make a switch, you need to script the critical moves.
- When you want someone to behave in a new way, explain the “new way” clearly. Don’t assume the new moves are obvious.
- Until you can ladder your way down from a change idea to a specific behavior, you’re not ready to lead a switch. To create movement, you’ve got to be specific and be concrete.
- It’s easier to make a long journey when you’ve got a herd around you.)
- If you’re worried about the possibility of rationalization at home or at work, you need to squeeze out the ambiguity from your goal.
- 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.
Motivate the Elephant
Change Starts from the Inside.
change comes from our identity, not from new knowledge. Small changes might work using "think-analyze-change", but deep changes come from "See-Feel-Change". People have to feel the desire to change, a connection with the identity the want to adapt. change starts from the inside out. Most cases it requires seeing the situation in a different light, through empathy or someone else's viewpoint Empathy. Positive emotions will encourage creativity - "when if we could...", while negative emotions hurt creativity Crowding Out, even if they are good motivators - "if we don't do x, a disaster will happen". We get focused on the negative result, rather than finding a solution. When adding information doesn't lead to change, that means that the change is not blocked by information, rather an identity - which means its an elephant problem, not a rider.
- when change works, it’s because leaders are speaking to the Elephant as well as to the Rider.
- Trying to fight inertia and indifference with analytical arguments is like tossing a fire extinguisher to someone who’s drowning. The solution doesn’t match the problem.
- If you need quick and specific action, then negative emotions might help. But most of the time when change is needed, it’s not a stone-in-the-shoe situation.
- in contrast with the narrowing effects of the negative emotions, positive emotions are designed to “broaden and build” our repertoire of thoughts and actions.
Make Small Wins.
A longer journey becomes easier if you have small milestones along the way. Show Gratitude for the progress made, and plan the next line of small wins until you reach the final destination. A small win creates a positive chain reaction that generates motivation for the next win (Related:: Start Small
- People find it more motivating to be partly finished with a longer journey than to be at the starting gate of a shorter one.
- When you engineer early successes, what you’re really doing is engineering hope. Hope is precious to a change effort. It’s Elephant fuel. Once people are on the path and making progress, it’s important to make their advances visible.
- No one can guarantee a small win. Lots of things are out of our control. But the goal is to be wise about the things that are under our control. And one thing we can control is how we define the ultimate victory and the small victories that lead up to it. You want to select small wins that have two traits: (1) They’re meaningful. (2) They’re “within immediate reach,”
Build the Team
A change that is counter to an identity will eventually fail. You must develop the identity that corresponds to the change you want to bring. For example, to do more exercises, you must develop an identity of a healthy person. You must maintain a Growth Mindset, that mistakes are a natural part of learning and getting better, and the beginning is always the hardest.
- He inspired them to feel more determined, more ready, more motivated. And when you build people up in this way, they develop the strength to act.
- We’re not just born with an identity; we adopt identities throughout our lives.
- identities are central to the way people make decisions, any change effort that violates someone’s identity is likely doomed to failure.
- A new identity can take root quickly, but living up to it is awfully hard.
- You need to create the expectation of failure—not the failure of the mission itself, but failure en route.
- If you want to reach your full potential, you need a growth mindset.
- to create and sustain change, you’ve got to act more like a coach and less like a scorekeeper. You’ve got to embrace a growth mindset and instill it in your team.
- 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.
- Failing is often the best way to learn, and because of that, early failure is a kind of necessary investment.
Design the Path
Behavioral problems usually originate from the environment, which means its usually not a misunderstanding (rider), or lack of motivation (elephant), but rather the cause of the way the environment affects us. Always test what the environment pushes you do do, and check if it corresponds with your goals.
Create good habits, especially think about your triggers: "when x happens, I will do Y". Its especially helpful to create a "herd", as social creatures we tend to adopt the perceptions of those around us, so find or create the group where what's socially acceptable or desired is the change you want to bring. peer support
- this deep-rooted tendency the “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.
- Tweaking the environment is about making the right behaviors a little bit easier and the wrong behaviors a little bit harder.
- one of the subtle ways in which our environment acts on us is by reinforcing (or deterring) our habits.
- It’s clear that we imitate the behaviors of others, whether consciously or not. We are especially keen to see what they’re doing when the situation is unfamiliar or ambiguous. And change situations are, by definition, unfamiliar! So if you want to change things, you have to pay close attention to social signals, because they can either guarantee a change effort or doom it.
- Reinforcement is the secret to getting past the first step of your long journey and on to the second, third, and hundredth steps.
- Change isn’t an event; it’s a process.