The problem of Change is always the same…be it with Self, Organization
or the Society … It boils down to : Can you get people to start behaving in a
different way? And it all lies in our mind. To get a better insight of mind at
work, Authors Dan and Chip Heath through their book "Switch" provide this interesting analogy:
Imagine a 6-tonne Elephant with a Rider perched on top of it
…and then there is a Path (Change !) that
the Rider & Elephant need to take to. Emotional side of the brain is the
Elephant & our rational side is the Rider. While the Rider seems to be on
the top of the Elephant …he is too small relative the Elephant. Anytime the
6-tonne Elephant and the Rider disagree about which direction to go, Rider is
going to lose.
Take your own experience of daily exercise..the rational Rider
in you tells that you need to do it daily for a long-term health benefit. The emotional
Elephant in you that looks for a instant gratification would want to sleep for
an extra hour just for today even as you wake up early in the morning. Changes
often fail because the Rider cannot simply keep the Elephant on the Path long
enough to reach the destination. So, the Rider is the long-term guy while the
Elephant is short-term.
Is then the Elephant then the only weak link in a change
process? No, not really! Rider is a
professional when it comes to spinning his wheel..Rider tends to over-think and
over-analyze things. In the quest for providing planning and direction to the
Elephant, sometimes, all the Rider can provide is a circular path!
Through this analogy, the authors clearly explain why a
Change effort dooms! …also through it, they provide the mechanism of what makes a
successful change : an Energized elephant and crystal clear Rider treading together the defined Path.
That is how the book is laid-out: a 3-part framework for the
Change behavior :
·
Direct the Rider: Providing
the clarity
·
Motivating the Elephant: Make the elephant in the mind to get on the Path and
cooperative
·
Shaping the Path: (Nothing to say here!)
Dan and Chip Heath, through a well-defined set of scientific
studies and successful change examples explain the above 3-part framework. "Switch" is an easy read (no neuro-linguistic jargons !) with lot of examples from our daily life. You may be doing whatever, convincing your kid take a bath after the cricket match or you would
want to save yourself from shopping urges that is killing your financial freedom…this book is worth the read.