Change is hard. In the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath explore a theory that compares looks at change as if it were an elephant and it's rider. The rider is the rational side of a decision. The rider is planning the path. The elephant is the emotional side of a decision and often time emotion outweighs logic when it comes to certain decisions. The elephant in this metaphor clearly represents the side often in control. The authors then use several different anecdotes to illustrate their point of what happens when the elephant and the rider work together to make change happen, If you have read many of these kinds of business books, many of the stories will be familiar. A new story that really caught my attention was that of an elementary school in Tennessee that hired a new principal without giving her all of the details, specifically test scores. Which turned out to be among the worst in the state. After observing some processes, or lack of, the principal implemented several processes that brought the focus of not only the students but the faculty back to education.
There several different scenarios like that, as well as examples of the way to "Clear the Path" for change. They discussed the psychology involved with tackling big things, like mountains of debt and a dirty house. The examples given were the Dave Ramsey debt snowball and the Fly-Lady's quick cleaning challenges. Both great examples. It was easy to translate some of these things into my daily activities at work and the tracking system we use to get the "small wins." The author refers to several other books that I have read, making it seem like Switch was more of an anthology, then a stand-alone book. The elephant/rider metaphor was used to tie everything together.
Bottom Line - Often times when reading business books you get the feeling that it is a book you have read before. In the case of Switch, you may have read some of the anecdotes before, but the metaphor that ties it all together is unique and does an excellent job of illustrating just how hard change can be at times. A fun book to read as part of a group as there is a lot of ways to apply it to your industry and can generate some great conversation among your colleagues.
Details:
- Switch by Dan Heath and Chip Heath
- Pages: 305
- Publisher: Crown Publishing
- Publication Date: 2/16/2010
- Buy it Here
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