How often do you find that all the people in the room are nodding their heads and agreeing that radical change is essential, but then they go away and do absolutely nothing about it? It is really difficult to get other people to change when you do not have the power to compel them; it is often really difficult to get yourself to change when you know you should. Chip and Dan Heath explain why change is difficult and how you can tackle it in their book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.
Problems with change manifest themselves in many different ways. Sometimes other people fail to see the need for change that you see. Sometimes the amount of change required seems so enormous that people are unable to motivate themselves to get started. Sometimes change falls victim to procrastination. Sometimes old habits seem too deeply ingrained.
The good news is that the authors have clear, practical advice which tackles all of these situations. It involves a rider, an elephant and a path. If you can just direct the rational rider, motivate the emotional elephant and shape the path, you can make difficult changes happen.
The book is filled with interesting stories which are enjoyable to read while at the same time making the authors’ advice easy to understand and remember. I normally find good books either entertaining or useful; this is one of the rare ones that is both useful and entertaining.
A video review of this book is available at my new site, BusinessLessons.org.