Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

by Chip Heath

the sort of huge tub that looks like it might once have been an above-ground swimming pool.

Would the people with bigger buckets eat more?

The sneaky researchers weighed the buckets before and after the movie, so they were able to measure precisely how much popcorn each person ate.

The results were stunning: People with the large buckets ate 53 percent more popcorn than people with the medium size. That’s the equivalent of 173 more calories and approximately 21 extra hand-dips into the bucket.

It didn’t matter if our moviegoers were in Pennsylvania, Illinois, or Iowa, and it didn’t matter what kind of movie was showing; all of our popcorn studies led to the same conclusion. People eat more when you give them a bigger container. Period.”

The equation is unyielding: Bigger container = more eating.

The researchers asked, Do you think you ate more because of the larger size? The majority scoffed at the idea, saying, “Things like that don’t trick me,” or, “I’m pretty good at knowing when I’m full.” Whoops.

A public-health expert, studying that data alongside you, would likely get very worried about the Gluttons. We need to motivate these people to adopt healthier snacking behaviors! Let’s find ways to show them the health hazards of eating so much!

But wait a second. If you want people to eat less popcorn, the solution is pretty simple: Give them smaller buckets. You don’t have to worry about their knowledge or their attitudes.

And that’s the first surprise about change: What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem.

That’s a shame, because all change efforts have something in common: For anything to change, someone has to start acting differently.

Babies are born every day to parents who, inexplicably, welcome the change. Think about the sheer magnitude of that change! Would anyone agree to work for a boss who’d wake you up twice a night, screaming, for trivial administrative duties? (And what if, every time you wore a new piece of clothing, the boss spit up on it?)

Yet people don’t resist this massive change—they volunteer for it. In our lives, we embrace lots of big changes—not only babies, but marriages and new homes and new technologies and new job duties. Meanwhile, other behaviors are maddeningly intractable. Smokers keep smoking and kids grow fatter and your husband can’t ever seem to get his dirty shirts into a hamper.

So there are hard changes and easy changes. What distinguishes...

To change someone’s behavior, you’ve got to change that person’s situation.

For individuals’ behavior to change, you’ve got to influence not only their environment but their hearts and minds. The problem is this: Often the heart and mind disagree. Fervently.

Consider the Clocky, an alarm clock invented by an MIT student, Gauri Nanda. It’s no ordinary alarm clock—it has wheels. You set it at night, and in the morning when the alarm goes off, it rolls off your nightstand and scurries around the room, forcing you to chase it down.

Picture the scene: You’re crawling around the bedroom in your underwear, stalking and cursing a runaway clock.

The success of this invention reveals a lot about human psychology.

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

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.

Self-control is an exhaustible resource. This is a crucial realization, because when we talk about “self-control,” we don’t mean the narrow sense of the word, as in the willpower

This makes sense. It's like any other energy use... even if you have a large reserve (more disciplined) even it is exhaustable at some point. This can create a crisis moment where the elephant goes out of control.

needed to fight vice (smokes, cookies, alcohol). We’re talking about a broader kind of self-supervision.

Contrast that with all the situations in which your behavior doesn’t feel “supervised”—for

Even good people have a breaking point... or need for release. If this doesn't find a valve that is healthy... it can volcano in unhealthy ways.

of studies have demonstrated the exhausting nature of self-supervision.

that we burn up self-control in a wide variety of situations:

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.

is hard because people wear themselves out. And that’s the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.

Remember that if you reach your colleagues’ Riders but not their Elephants, they will have direction without motivation.

That’s the power of speaking to both the Rider and the Elephant.

create a sense of urgency to get the elephant moving.

If the Rider isn’t sure exactly what direction to go, he tends to lead the Elephant in circles.

Suddenly the intervention became razor-sharp. What behavior do we want to change?

systems create behavior

This brings us to the final part of the pattern that characterizes successful changes: If you want people to change, you must provide crystal-clear direction.

What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity.

Direct the Rider. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction.

So it’s critical that you engage people’s emotional side—get

What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem.

You can cajole, influence, inspire, and motivate—but sometimes an employee would rather lose his job than move out of his comfortable routines.

To change behavior, you’ve got to direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path. If you can do all three at once, dramatic change can happen even if you don’t have lots of power or resources behind you.

In 2004, Donald Berwick,

So he proposed six specific interventions, such as elevating the heads of patients on ventilators, that were known to save lives. By staying laser-focused on these six interventions, Berwick made sure not to exhaust the Riders of his audience with endless behavioral changes.

feel the need for change. Many of the people in the audience already knew the facts, but knowing was not enough.

Third, he shaped the Path.

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 overall topic—what can you do to make your child healthier?—is simply too big and loaded to take on at once. The mothers needed direction, not motivation. After all, every mother’s Elephant is going to be motivated to make her child healthier. But how?

The solution was a native one, emerging from the real-world experience of the villagers, and for that reason it was inherently realistic and inherently sustainable.

wow!

But Sternin refused to make a formal announcement. “Knowledge does not change behavior,” he said. “We have all encountered crazy shrinks and obese doctors and divorced marriage counselors.”

Change is both knowledge & emotion. No one changes without a sense of urgency for both.

something I can do!