Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

by Chip Heath

Whether the switch you seek is in your family, in your charity, in your organization, or in society at large, you’ll get there by making three things happen. You’ll direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path.

The Miracle Question doesn’t ask you to describe the miracle itself; it asks you to identify the tangible signs that the miracle happened.

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?

“What’s working and how can we do more of it?” That’s the bright-spot philosophy in a single question.

relatively small changes—cooking with sweet-potato greens, greeting Bobby at the door—had a big impact on a big problem.

There is a clear asymmetry between the scale of the problem and the scale of the solution. Big problem, small solution.

problems are rarely solved with commensurately big solutions. Instead, they are most often solved by a sequence of small solutions, someti...

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?”

This problem-seeking mindset is a shortcoming of the Rider in each of us.

This hypothetical comes from author Marcus Buckingham, who says that nearly all parents will tend to fixate on the F. It’s easy to empathize with them: Something seems broken—we should fix it. Let’s get her a tutor. Or maybe she should be punished—she’s grounded until that grade recovers. It is the rare parent who would say, instead, “Honey, you made an ‘A’ in this one class. You must really have a strength in this subject. How can we build on that?”

Imagine a world in which you experienced a rush of gratitude every single time you flipped a light switch and the room lit up. Imagine a world in which after a husband forgot his wife’s birthday, she gave him a big kiss and said, “For thirteen of the last fourteen years you remembered my birthday! That’s wonderful!”

Our Rider has a problem focus when he needs a solution focus.

We need to switch from archaeological problem solving to bright-spot evangelizing.

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.

You can’t script every move—that would be like trying to foresee the seventeenth move in a chess game. It’s the critical moves that count.

When you want someone to behave in a new way, explain the “new way” clearly. Don’t assume the new moves are obvious.

The Food Pyramid, which specifies the types and quantities of food that make up a healthy diet, is the perfect example of how not to change people’s behavior.

you are leading a change effort, you need to remove the ambiguity from your vision of change.

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. You’ve got to emulate 1% milk and flee from the Food Pyramid.

To the Rider, a big problem calls for a big solution. But if you seek out a solution that’s as complex as the problem, you’ll get the Food Pyramid and nothing will change. (The Rider will just spin his wheels trying to make sense of it.) The Rider has to be jarred out of introspection, out of analysis. He needs a script that explains how to act, and that’s why the successes we’ve seen have involved such crisp direction. Buy 1% milk. Don’t spend cash unless it makes cash. Shop a little more in Miner County.

Clarity dissolves resistance.