Summary of Switch
This is a summary of the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath.
Some moviegoers were given a small bucket of popcorn, and some, big. Even the small one was too big to finish. And the popcorn was wretched, popped five days ago. People who were given the bigger bucket ate more. It can’t be taste, since it was stale popcorn. It can’t be a desire to finish the bucket, since both buckets were too big to finish.
If you present statistics about unhealthy popcorn consumption at theatres to a public health expert, he’ll say that we should convince people to think differently. But that’s hard. Instead of tackling them head-on, look for ways to convert hard problems to easy ones like smaller buckets. To change someone’s behavior, change their situation.
We all have a rational self, and an emotional self. The latter is like an elephant, and the former is like the rider perched precariously atop the elephant. When they disagree, the elephant gets its way. The rider can use willpower to control the elephant for a while, but eventually he’ll lose. The elephant wants instant gratification, while the rider can think long term. The elephant can easily get demoralised or derailed, so needs constant encouragement.
But the elephant also has advantages over the rider. The rider can over-analyse, pay attention to the bad, and look for bad even in good situations. He can determine what should be done, but it finally requires the energy of the elephant to do it. The rider wants to apply big solutions to big problems, but small fixes are often the ones that work.
To motivate people, you need to appeal to both their elephants and riders. Appeal only to the rider, and people will have direction without motivation. Appeal only to their elephants, and they’ll have passion without direction.
To produce change, you need to a) direct the rider b) motivate the elephant c) shape the path.
Self-control is exhaustible. If you exhaust it trying to keep away from cookies, you’ll have none left to tackle a hard puzzle. Self-control is also exhausted by managing the impression we’re making on others, by coping with fears, by following instructions and many others.
People who seem lazy to change are often exhausted.
Direct the Rider
When you give people a suggestion (“eat healthy”), you often find a lack of improvement. It looks like they’re resisting. But it’s actually a lack of clarity (what to eat). So you need to provide crystal-clear direction, such as by saying “Drink slim milk”, not “Eat healthy”. You should script the critical move, the thing that will make the most difference.
When given a problem, like undernourished children in Vietnam, find the bright spots, such as the healthy children, and identify what they’re doing differently, like eating four small meals instead of two big ones — their weakened stomachs could not digest a lot of food at once. Then spread the word about these bright spots; they direct the rider and motivate the elephant. Managers should ask themselves what proportion of time they’re spending scaling successes vs solving problems.
One of the rider’s weaknesses is getting bogged down in analysis. Giving a direction redirects that energy into thinking about how to get to that destination rather than thinking about where to go or whether to go anywhere.
Some corporate best practices are actually bad practices. For example, SMART goals lack emotion and so don’t motivate the elephant. A major study found that emotional and identity-based goals like “improve customer service” motivate people better.
We’re good at rationalisation. For example if we tell ourselves we can eat junk food only once a day, we’ll make it a huge portion. If a company says that only strategic projects can be worked on, managers will justify their projects as strategic. To overcome this, have black and white goals like “no junk fund” rather than shades of grey like “only once a day”.
When you’re at the beginning of a project or a transformation, don’t worry about the middle — it will look different once you get there. Instead focus on the beginning and the end.
Motivate the elephant
A company wasted money on 400 different gloves, and in some cases paying different suppliers $5 and $17 for the same glove. To highlight this problem, an intern put all 400 gloves on a table, leaving executives speechless and motivated to fix the problem, rather than just nodding at a spreadsheet and not acting on it. To get people to change, you need to get through to feeling.
People think change happens by analyse → think → change. It actually happens by see → feel → change. Trying to fight inertia and indifference by analysis is like tossing a fire extinguisher to a drowning man — the solution doesn’t match the problem.
Motivating the reader when you should be motivating the elephant doesn’t work. Unfortunately, it’s often unclear where the bottleneck is.
The elephant dreads cleaning the house because it knows it’s an onerous task. Instead of aiming to make the house clean, aim to make it cleaner. Cleaning just one shelf will do.
Sometimes the solution that’s optimal logically is not emotionally. For example, if you have a lot of loans, financial advisors tell you to pay off the loan with the highest interest rate first, which is optimal. But one financial advisor suggests paying off the smallest loan first, because motivation is more important than math.
Small improvements make people feel it’s within their skill and does not require a Herculean effort. Then the elephant is no longer scared, no longer reluctant. It starts feeling the change. Then it has momentum to keep going.
People often want to incent others to do something, but incentives don’t work when they conflict with one’s identity. For example, a scientist’s self-image is to be unbiased. If a pharma company offers him a high paying gig, he may hesitate because being a shill for them threatens his image.
People with a growth mindset expect temporary failures along the way when starting something. Once you expect it and look at it as a stepping stone, it’s no longer scary.