Switch

How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

By: Dan Heath, Chip Heath

Narrated by: Charles Kahlenberg

Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives?

The primary obstacle is a conflict that's built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed best seller Made to Stick.

Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems - the rational mind and the emotional mind - that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort - but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.

In Switch, the Heaths show how everyday people - employees and managers, parents and nurses - have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results:

• The lowly medical interns who managed to defeat an entrenched, decades-old medical practice that was endangering patients
• The home-organizing guru who developed a simple technique for overcoming the dread of housekeeping
• The manager who transformed a lackadaisical customer-support team into service zealots by removing a standard tool of customer service

In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change

Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, a pattern you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline.

©2010 Chip Heath (P)2010 Random House

Must read

As an entrepreneur and recent parent, I believe this book is a must read. It’s easy to understand and supported by great examples. It takes very complex change strategies and simplifies them to actionable steps each of us can take.

understand Change with this book

Great research on many aspects of change management. Done through studies and stories of success around the world.

Outstanding!

This book masterfully provides a clear, practical methodology and impressive implementation examples from public policy to personal growth. I will purchase a physical copy for reference. It's hands down the best change-related book I've read. I would give it 10 stars if I could.

Brilliant delivery of interesting and useful insight

I compare all audio books to this and “Made to Stick”. They rarely come close.

Read this book!

Great opening story. Really captivated me right from the start. Practical ways to lead change initiatives.

Transformative

This should be a mandatory read for anyone in any role involved in change management.

Excellent book! Don’t miss it!

I needed to do a deep dive on leading change and looked up books that deals specifically with leading change. Switch was not the number one book but it intrigued me and so I chose it first. I’ve listen to the whole thing in one weekend while working in the yard and have a great ideas for implementing change in my company as well as helping our clients.

Change is hard!

Make it easier by using some of the tested methods in this book that have been shown to work.

Valuable

As a federal employee leading a major change within an agency, the framework described in Switch will be a valuable tool to help establishing a solid foundation for change and deal with impediments encountered during the process of change.

Delivers on its title; compelling listening.

The case studies that illustrate the book's major principles will help you understand and remember its core principles. They also make for compelling listening. Another strength of the book is that the examples cut across so many fields from personal improvement, to business, to health care.

I found particularly helpful the idea that scheduling greatly helps new habit formation. E.g., if you want to start running, at the beginning of the week, sit down with your calendar and block off realistic times for the week when you will go running (in the books words, "script the critical moves"). Protect that calendar entry like you would any other important meeting. It's funny how much that little bit of planning helps -- and the book explains why and why you're much more likely to fail to install a new habit without it.

Some people complained about the narrator. I thought he was just fine. I generally prefer to listen at 1.5x or 2x and found the narration comfortable at those speeds.

For Jonathan Haidt fans (Happiness Hypothesis and The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion), Switch makes good use of the "elephant/rider" bucket of concepts.