Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard Hardcover – February 16, 2010

I got this book, because I'm trying to be a better person and change is almost impossible. I think it's important to understand how we can improve ourselves, and what it takes to do so. I strongly believe everyone can improve and this book really helps you to understand the way to rethink how we formulate change. This is a great book. 5 stars.

Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:1) "What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem."2) "Now you've had a glimpse of the basic three-part framework we will unpack in this book, one that can guide you in any situation where you need to change behavior: 1) Direct the Rider. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction. 2) 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. 3) 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."3) "The Miracle Question doesn't ask you to describe the miracle itself; it asks you to identify the tangible signs that the miracle happened...Once they've helped patients identify specific and vivid signs of progress, they pivot to a second question, which is perhaps even more important. It's the Exception Question: "When was the last time you saw a little bit of the miracle, even just for a short time?""4) "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. When the Rider analyzes a problem, he seeks a solution that befits the scale of it. If the Rider spots a hole, he wants to fill it, and if he's got a round hole with a 24-inch diameter, he's gonna go looking for a 24-inch peg. But that mental model is wrong."5) "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."6) "In creating change, though, we we're interested in goals that are closer at hand—the kinds of things that can be tackled by parents or middle managers or social activists. We want a goal that can be tackled in months or years, not decades. We want what we might call a destination postcard—a vivid picture from the near-term future that shows what could be possible."7) "The Rider's strengths are substantial, and his flaws can be mitigated. When you appeal to the Rider inside yourself or inside others you are trying to influence, your game plan should be simple...First, follow the bright spots...Next, give direction to the Rider."8) "Kotter and Cohen observed 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 hopeful 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."9) " Most of the big problems we encounter in organizations or society are ambiguous and evolving. They don't look like burning platform situations, where we need people to buckle down and execute a hard but well-understood game plan. To solve bigger, more ambiguous problems, we need to encourage open minds, creativity, and hope."10) " In the identity model of decision making, we essentially ask ourselves three 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? Notice what's missing: any calculation of costs and benefits. The identity model explains the way most people vote, which contradicts our notion of the "self-interested voter.""11) "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, well get better, and we'll succeed in the end."12) "Change isn't an event; it's a process. There is no moment when a monkey learns to skateboard; there's a process. There is no moment when a. a child learns to walk; there's a process. And there won't be a moment when your community starts to invest more in its school system, or starts recycling more, or starts to beautify its public spaces; there will be a process. To lead a process requires persistence. A long journey requires lots of mango."

This book is a summarization of the various theories of change management, be it in a business, government or NGO.Dan and Chip talk about most of the problem being with situation and not with people as most of us would jump to conclusion. So, we end up struggling about getting people to behave in a new way. The corollary they draw to most people welcoming seismic changes like marriage and babies in their lives is quite an eye opener in this regard. So, if the behavior needs to change, there has to be a change in the situation.The Elephant and Rider synonyms for the two minds in one brain was very innovative and interesting. This tells a lot and the authors uses these synonyms extensively through out the book. For instance while I knew that will power wears out after some usage and thus exhaustion becomes perceived as laziness, but with an Elephant and Rider context, it becomes very apparent.It is not that all the concepts in this book are new, at I have been exposed to some of these like shrinking the change or lowering the bar in some other books and also in practical life. But then to be fair, the authors themselves claim to have referred to tons of book on change and have also recommended a few of them for additional reading. Still, I liked this book because it gave a different context to the various approached, but kept the impact on Elephant and Rider throughout each approaches. Thus it makes it easier to identify which approach works best in which case. And the cases are quite diverse, even a case of organizing the community to save a city or a parrot for that matter!!Another innovative feature of this book was the clinics Dan and Chip give. It provides the reader an opportunity to try out the approaches and the impact of the same. I liked it a lot.I had some disagreement on the mindset concept or to be more specific the wordings of the four question used to identify the mindset. Actually, I don’t believe in mindset and always felt it as all about conditioningIf you are one of those who are driving change in your place and losing steam, do read this book. It will tell you that yes, everything can look like a failure in the middle. But with if the Rider has the necessary direction (very important, ambiguity does not help to change) and the Elephant is well motivated, you will still reach the destination. After all , as Dan and Chip say, change is not an event, it a process.