Switch Part 1: Direct, Motivate, and Shape the path: the three-step framework for making change

Hey there, changemakers!

It's Monday, and your favorite book club is here to kick off your week with a day filled with excitement and self-improvement!

Are you tired of trying to make a difference in your personal life, work, or community only to be met with resistance? The Heath brothers have got your back with their book, Switch. Buy on Amazon

Estimated read time: 4 minutes

Whether you want to help your brother break his gambling habit, convince your coworkers to tighten their wallets, or get your neighbors to ditch their cars and bike to work, this book has got you covered.

It doesn't matter if you're an executive, an individual, or an activist - all change efforts have one thing in common: someone has to start acting differently. And that's where Switch comes in.

The mission is simple: Can you get people to start behaving in a new way? Easier said than done, right? But the Heath brothers have a three-part framework to help you.

You might have heard about the age-old battle between our emotional and rational side. Plato had a fancy name for it, Freud had his own thoughts, and now, we have our own duo to talk about. Introducing the Elephant (your emotional side) and the Rider (your logical side)- the perfect pair that's always at odds with each other. While the tiny Rider holds the reins and leads the way, the giant elephant is the one that calls the shots. And, let's be real here, the Rider is tiny compared to the mammoth Elephant. So, what happens when they disagree? Well, you can probably guess who wins. The Rider is no match for the Elephant's sheer strength. In order to enact a change you must help the rider and the elephant work together.

The Framework

• direct the rider: What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction.

• motivate the elephant: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion. The Rider can’t get his way by force for very long. So it’s critical that you engage people’s emotional side—get their Elephants on the path and cooperative. (Think of the cookies and radishes study and the boardroom conference table full of gloves.)

• shape the path: What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. We call the situation (including the surrounding environment) the “Path.” When you shape the Path, you make change more likely, no matter what’s happening with the Rider and Elephant. (Think of the effect of shrinking movie popcorn buckets.)

Because let's be honest, sometimes the rider and elephant have different ideas about which way to go.

Three surprising things about change

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

In 2000, a group of unsuspecting moviegoers in Chicago went to see Mel Gibson's action flick, Payback. Little did they know, they were about to become participants in a study of irrational eating behavior. They were given a bucket of popcorn, but not just any popcorn. This popcorn was stale, so stale that it squeaked when you ate it. Some even compared it to Styrofoam packing peanuts. Yum.

But that's not the weirdest part. Some moviegoers got a medium-sized bucket, and some got a large bucket the size of a small swimming pool. The researchers were interested in seeing if the people with bigger buckets would eat more popcorn than those with smaller buckets. The results were shocking. People with the large buckets ate 53% more popcorn than those with the medium-sized buckets. That's 173 more calories and 21 extra hand-dips into the bucket.

But it gets even better. When the researchers told the moviegoers about the study, the majority of them denied that the size of the bucket had influenced their eating habits. "Things like that don't trick me," they said. Whoops.

So what can we learn from this? It turns out that what looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. If you want people to eat less popcorn, give them smaller buckets. Easy peasy.

What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.

Meet your brain's two systems: the rational and emotional sides. They're like a Rider trying to control an Elephant, but the Elephant is way bigger and often gets its way.

This explains why you struggle to get up early, diet, quit smoking, and make other changes. Your Elephant wants immediate gratification, while your Rider thinks long-term. When they work together, change is easy. But when they disagree, the Rider quickly exhausts his self-control.

That's why Clocky, an alarm clock with wheels that rolls around the room, works. It tricks your Elephant into getting out of bed, so your Rider can finally win. It turns out that laziness isn't the problem; exhaustion is. So be kind to your Rider and Elephant and give them both what they need to make change happen.

What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity

One man, Jon Stegner, wanted to save his company a billion dollars, but he knew he had to convince his bosses to make a big change. To do this, he got a summer intern to investigate the company's purchasing habits and found out they were buying 424 different types of gloves, sometimes paying up to three times more for the same glove at different factories.

Stegner piled all the gloves on a conference table for his bosses to see and they were shocked into action. Instead of making a dry, analytical presentation, Stegner used a visual and emotional approach to get his colleagues fired up to make a change. It worked, and the company saved a lot of money. The lesson: sometimes, all it takes is a pile of gloves to get people to change.

So, if you're ready to make a change and need a little guidance, grab a copy of Switch and get ready to start seeing results. Who knows, maybe your brother will finally stop hitting up the casino or your coworkers will start booking coach fares. The possibilities are endless!

We will dive into the framework tomorrow.

Best,

Camillo