Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

Notice how smart Winsten was: He used the power of the Path to change the public’s behavior, but he used the power of the Rider and the Elephant to change the network executives’ behavior. With his five-second requests, he was directing the Rider by describing a simple action that could help on a complex problem, and he was motivating the Elephant

If you want to change the culture of your organization, you’ve got to get the reformers together. They need a free space. They need time to coordinate outside the gaze of the resisters.

For instance, if 80 percent of your team submits time sheets on time, make sure the other 20 percent knows the group norm. Those individuals almost certainly will correct themselves. But if only 10 percent of your team submits time sheets on time, publicizing those results will hurt, not help.

Reinforcement is the secret to getting past the first step of your long journey and on to the second, third, and hundredth steps.

People find it more motivating to be partly finished with a longer journey than to be at the starting gate of a shorter one.

You are doing things because you see your peers do them. It’s not only your body-pierced teen who follows the crowd. It’s you, too. Behavior is contagious.

What looks like a person problem is often a situation problem. The same phenomenon holds

This is a theme you will see again and again. 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.

The first thing to do is recognize and celebrate that first step. Something you’ve done has worked.