Subject and Thesis Statement
Without motivation change is very hard and difficult to ensure. This book is about collection of techniques to assist people create change in their lives as painlessly as possible. The central idea or thesis seems to be that managing change is not a matter of emotion or reason but the environment, not inner functioning which are quiet hard to influence but the outer world which is easier.
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Summary of Contents
Executive Summary
This part gives executive summary of book. This is an amazing book about “how to change things when change is hard”. Without a little motivation change is very difficult and hard to do. This book teaches us that we must balance our emotional and rational side. It teaches us that how we should react to certain situations which are very simple and easy. They aren’t saying that change is easy; in fact it is one of the toughest things in our life dependent on what we want to change.
When we take a decision we often had torn between our logical, rational reasons and our emotional, instinctual spirits. Tell the Rider what to do, provide a worthy argument and the Rider will do it. On the other hand, the Elephant represents our emotions, our instinctive response. The Rider might like to escape from those chocolate chip cookies but Rider will have with little authority if the Elephant really wants it. To complete their comparison writer include the Path they are travelling along. If the Rider has ability to direct the Elephant towards a well prepared path then there is a good chance for change. The path might denote, for example, access to user friendly technology. Switch is arranged in these three parts: Direct the Rider, Motivate the Elephant and Shape the Path.
There are ten things essential to know from Switch
Our emotions can overcome our sensible thought, when we rely merely on rational behavior, we can overanalyze and over think things.
There can be better ways to make a change than possibly what most people think. Almost certainly they are basic and simple but we have to set out a goal to achieve this change. One cannot say, “Hi I want to lose weight soon” and then mechanically it starts to happen. Actually No! One must need to set realistic goals.
What seems like a people problem is frequently a situation problem. The book considers change at every level: individual level, organizational level, and societal. All change efforts typically have somewhat in common. For anything to change someone has to start acting differently. Then the question is that, “Can you get people to start acting in a new fashion? “Dan and Chip mentioned that in that “In our lives, we hold lots of big changes, not only babies, but the marriages, new homes, new technologies and new job duties etc.” So this shows that it is quite possible for people to change.
What appears like laziness is very so often exhaustion. The Elephant and Rider are usually on two different sides and if we try to persuade the Elephant it often exhaust our mind. For example, when we try so hard to stay away from fattening foods because we are on a diet, our mind will get exhausted and will not want to find the pull any longer compelling you to lastly give in. The Elephant will ordinarily win over the Rider.
The Rider part of our minds is full of strength. The Rider is a theorist and a planner and can plot a sequence for a better future. But as we have seen that the Rider has an awful flaw that is the tendency to rotate his wheels. The Rider loves to anticipate, examine, and, making matters worse, rider’s analysis is nearly always focused at problems rather than at lively spots
Make sure our goals are accessible and definite. If goals are not accessible or defined then we may tend to go in circles when trying to accomplish our goal. Taken small steps are best way to achieve any big time change in your life. Too big steps can cause you to give up more easily.
In extremely effective change efforts, people discover ways to help others see the problems or solutions in those ways which influence emotions, not just thought. Means, when change works, it is because leaders are speaking to the Elephant as well as to the Rider. Change only works if the Elephant and Rider are operational together.
The doors of large goals are wrinkled with small targets. We must never forget to complement our self when completing little steps towards our goal. This will help in motivating us.
Any new question that ultimately leads to success involves failure. We cannot learn to salsa dance without little failing. We cannot learn to be a discoverer, nurse or a scientist without failing. Also we cannot learn to alter the way; products are developed in our firm or change people minds about urban poverty, or restore affectionate communication with our spouse, without failing. And the fact is Elephant really hates to fail. So we need to keep Elephant motivated so that it will never give up. This can be done by creating the anticipation of failure not the failure of the mission itself, but failure in path or route.”
Critical Comments
In our normal life everything seems to be daily routine tasks but it’s not that because in daily routine we know the dull tasks and are well conscious about the things and surroundings. This book carries real solutions of issues in which we have to gaze into the future and have to make an extended and lasting change. That long lasting change not only originates with changing the minds thinking power and also the behavior of people but it also need abundant strength and steadiness in idea.
Chip and Dan Heath wrote this book in order to help people realize how to create change in nearly any situation. They break their technique into three parts and use the similarity of riding through the jungle on an elephant to demonstrate each section. First of all, we must need to direct the rider. Now this includes giving clear and precise information to those we want to make the change. This implements when you are talking to their logical and thinking brain. Second, we have to motivate the elephant. This contains getting in touch with people’s emotions and feelings as well to make them want to change. Here we are speaking to their hearts. Third, we have to shape the path. This involves framing the change you want them to make in the most effective way possible. Her creating the best environment and atmosphere is involved to make the transformation. If we assist the rider in the right direction, we can get the elephant moving and make sure the path is clear, we will have no problem in getting through the jungle. Similarly, by giving people direction and making them feel like they want to change, and creating a situation which promotes change, we can to succeed in modifying people’s behaviors.
The technique presented in “Switch” does a good job of step by step explanation about how to create change. The writers have a smooth and enjoyable style which is easy to read and engaging, though informative. They used examples throughout the book to demonstrate specific ideas within each of the three parts of the technique. They also did a good job of quoting and discussing the readings which provided the sustenance for the concepts they discussed without boring reader with pages of results. Overall, there is a great balance among writing a popular press type piece for the regular reader and a progressive text for the academic. Regardless of reader level of understanding with the topic of change, reader will find value in this book.
There are a few things that can be improved in this book on creating change. There was a few times where I felt like the idea they were trying to demonstrate didn’t tie up well with their example. I set up myself having to reread and try to connect the dots, which was over and over again difficult. I also felt like they would get ahead of themselves sometimes, and talk about a topic that they don’t explain until later in the book. The biggest problem I have though is that, while they give lots of material to explain their method, they do not provide much assistance on implementing it which is not good for a how to implement. Furthermore I found myself wanting more information on how to apply their ideas in different backgrounds. Also they have some issues with the order in which they present their topics which was unclear at times. In spite of the faults, “Switch” is a great starter to the concept of creating change and it is definitely value reading.
“Switch” suffers from the three main problems that I have found in almost all popular business books. First, it presents claims without adequate justification. This handbook focuses on techniques to ease change in organizations and individuals and while it irregularly cites interesting work in cognitive and social psychology which may be relevant to the techniques recommended, for the most part the justification for the techniques is subjective like an example: technique X worked at company Y in specific occurrence Z, and so it’s clearly a valid method that’s always appropriate. There is no attempt at any sort of severe scientific testing of such a claim. For example, in chapter two, the Heath brothers claim that you can’t focus on why a suggested change is inadequate to take hold, but must instead find the bright spots, i.e., recognize the pockets where it is functioning, find why it works there later on try to match the small successes elsewhere.
The second problem with “Switch” is that it uses the excessively precious language that is so common to this type of books. At a high level the book’s fundamental claim is that effective change requires three things: you need to involve the rational, data driven viewpoint of the people who have to make the change, you also need to make sure that they also have an sensitive stake in the change, and you need to make the change procedure as relaxed as possible for them by manipulating the environment. To describe this threesome of requirements, the Heath brothers make use of a “metaphorical rider” i.e., the rational viewpoint on an elephant “the emotional component it is much durable, and so gets the elephant label” moving down a path “the change context”. They then re-use again this metaphor in paragraph after paragraph until unless their message is almost masked out by the infantilizing language. Finally, the book is good but one has the sense that the book is about twice as long as it needed to be to express its concept.
