## Highlights - What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. ([Location 76](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=76)) - Ultimately, all change efforts boil down to the same mission: Can you get people to start behaving in a new way? ([Location 83](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=83)) - The Happiness Hypothesis. Haidt says that our emotional side is an Elephant and our rational side is its Rider. Perched atop the Elephant, the Rider holds the reins and seems to be the leader. But the Rider’s control is precarious because the Rider is so small relative to the Elephant. Anytime the six-ton Elephant and the Rider disagree about which direction to go, the Rider is going to lose. He’s completely overmatched. ([Location 125](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=125)) - If you want people to change, you must provide crystal-clear direction. ([Location 271](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=271)) - one that can guide you in any situation where you need to change behavior: Direct the Rider. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction. (Think 1% milk.) 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.) ([Location 282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=282)) - “Can I ask you a sort of strange question? Suppose that you go to bed tonight and sleep well. Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved. When you wake up in the morning, what’s the first small sign you’d see that would make you think, ‘Well, something must have happened—the problem is gone!’?” ([Location 525](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=525)) - If a miracle solved your drinking problem, what would you be doing differently the next morning? “I ([Location 536](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=536)) - It’s the Exception Question: “When was the last time you saw a little bit of the miracle, even just for a short time?” ([Location 544](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=544)) - But if you’re trying to change things, there are going to be bright spots in your field of view, and if you learn to recognize them and understand them, you will solve one of the fundamental mysteries of change: What, exactly, needs to be done differently? ([Location 562](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=562)) - To pursue bright spots is to ask the question “What’s working, and how can we do more of it?” Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet, in the real world, this obvious question is almost never asked. Instead, the question we ask is more problem focused: “What’s broken, and how do we fix it?” ([Location 642](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=642)) - decision paralysis.2 More options, even good ones, can freeze us and make us retreat to the default plan, which in this case was a painful and invasive hip-replacement surgery. This behavior clearly is not rational, but it is human. ([Location 737](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=737)) - As Barry Schwartz5 puts it in his book The Paradox of Choice, as we face more and more options, “we become overloaded. Choice no longer liberates, it debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.” ([Location 767](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=767)) - Behring had scripted the moves that helped his people make hard decisions. What tires out the Rider—and puts change efforts at risk—is ambiguity, and Behring eliminated it. For every investment decision, his rules suggested the correct choice. ([Location 839](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=839)) - But the lessons here are serious and practical. If you are leading a change effort, you need to remove the ambiguity from your vision of change. ([Location 919](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=919)) - Notice that the goal she set for her students didn’t only direct the Rider; it also motivated the Elephant. It was inspirational. It tapped into feeling. ([Location 1118](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1118)) - When you describe a compelling destination, you’re helping to correct one of the Rider’s great weaknesses—the tendency to get lost in analysis. Our first instinct, in most change situations, is to offer up data to people’s Riders: Here’s why we need to change. Here are the tables and graphs and charts that prove it. The Rider loves this. He’ll start poring over the data, analyzing it and poking holes in it, and he’ll be inclined to debate with you about the conclusions you’ve drawn. To the Rider, the “analyzing” phase is often more satisfying than the “doing” phase, and that’s dangerous for your switch. Notice what happens, though, when you point to an attractive destination: The Rider starts applying his strengths to figuring out how to get there. ([Location 1184](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1184)) - You have a choice about how to use the Rider’s energy: By default, he’ll obsess about which way to move, or whether it’s necessary to move at all. But you can redirect that energy to helping you navigate toward the destination. For that to happen, you need a gut-smacking goal, one that appeals to both Rider and Elephant. Think of Esserman’s “under one roof” vision or of Crystal Jones’s challenge to her kids to become third graders. ([Location 1192](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1192)) - SMART goals presume the emotion; they don’t generate it. ([Location 1203](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1203)) - Destination postcards do double duty: They show the Rider where you’re headed, and they show the Elephant why the journey is worthwhile. ([Location 1210](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1210)) - you’re worried about the possibility of rationalization at home or at work, you need to squeeze out the ambiguity from your goal. You need a black-and-white (B&W) goal. A B&W goal is an all-or-nothing goal, and it’s useful in times when you worry about backsliding. Maybe your B&W goal for your alcohol consumption could be “No wine ever.” No wiggle room there. ([Location 1277](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1277)) - If you worry about the potential for inaction on your team, or if you worry that silent resistance may slow or sabotage your change initiative, B&W goals may be the solution. ([Location 1376](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1376)) - What is essential, though, is to marry your long-term goal with short-term critical moves. Esserman’s vision was compelling, but it would have been empty talk without lots of behavior-level execution. ([Location 1380](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1380)) - So far we’ve learned a great deal about the Rider and his many strengths and weaknesses. On the plus side of the ledger, the Rider is a visionary. He’s willing to make short-term sacrifices for long-term payoffs (which is why he fights so often with the Elephant, who generally prefers immediate gratification). He’s a clever tactician, too—give him a map and he’ll follow it perfectly. But we’ve also seen plenty of evidence of the Rider’s flaws—his limited reserves of strength, his paralysis in the face of ambiguity and choice, and his relentless focus on problems rather than solutions. Here’s the good news: The Rider’s strengths are substantial, and his flaws can be mitigated. When you appeal to the Rider inside yourself or inside others you are trying to influence, your game plan should be simple. First, follow the bright spots. Think of the Vietnamese children who stayed well nourished against the odds, or the Genentech sales reps who racked up sales against the odds. As you analyze your situation, you’re sure to find some things that are working better than others. Don’t obsess about the failures. Instead, investigate and clone the successes. Next, give direction to the Rider—both a start and a finish. Send him a destination postcard (“You’ll be a third grader soon!”), and script his critical moves (“Buy 1% milk”). When you do these things, you’ll prepare the Rider to lead a switch. And you’ll arm him for the ongoing struggles with his reluctant and formidable partner, the Elephant. ([Location 1449](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1449)) - the core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people, and behavior change happens in highly successful situations mostly by speaking to people’s feelings. This is true even in organizations that are very focused on analysis and quantitative measurement, even among people who think of themselves as smart in an MBA sense. In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to help others see the problems or solutions in ways that influence emotions, not just thought. ([Location 1526](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1526)) - Kotter and Cohen say that most people think change happens in this order: ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE. You analyze, then you think, and then you change. In a normal environment, that might work pretty well. If you need to reduce duplication costs in your print shop by 6 percent, or if you need to shave off 5 minutes from your daily commute, then that process will serve you well. Kotter and Cohen note that analytical tools work best when “parameters are known, assumptions are minimal, and the future is not fuzzy.” ([Location 1535](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1535)) - Kotter and Cohen observed that, in almost all successful change efforts, the sequence of change is not ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE, but rather SEE-FEEL-CHANGE. You’re presented with evidence that makes you feel something. It might be a disturbing look at the problem, or a hopeful glimpse of the solution, or a sobering reflection of your current habits, but regardless, it’s something that hits you at the emotional level. It’s something that speaks to the Elephant. ([Location 1542](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1542)) - But self-evaluation involves interpretation, and that’s where the Elephant intrudes. The Elephant tends to take the rosiest possible interpretation of the facts. ([Location 1670](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1670)) - necessary, we need to create a crisis to convince people they’re facing a catastrophe and have no choice but to move. ([Location 1744](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1744)) - Bottom line: If you need quick and specific action, then negative emotions might help. But most of the time when change is needed, it’s not a stone-in-the-shoe situation. The quest to reduce greenhouse gases is not a stone-in-the-shoe situation, and neither is Target’s mission to become the “upscale retailer,” or someone’s desire to improve his or her marriage. These situations require creativity and flexibility and ingenuity. And, unfortunately, a burning platform won’t get you that. ([Location 1777](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1777)) - Most of the big problems we encounter in organizations or society are ambiguous and evolving. They don’t look like burning-platform situations, where we need people to buckle down and execute a hard but well-understood game plan. To solve bigger, more ambiguous problems, we need to encourage open minds, creativity, and hope. ([Location 1806](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1806)) - One way to motivate action, then, is to make people feel as though they’re already closer to the finish line than they might have thought. ([Location 1857](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1857)) - One way to shrink change, then, is to limit the investment you’re asking for—only 5 minutes of housecleaning, only one small debt. Another way to shrink change is to think of small wins—milestones that are within reach. ([Location 1995](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1995)) - When you engineer early successes, what you’re really doing is engineering hope. Hope is precious to a change effort. It’s Elephant fuel. Once people are on the path and making progress, it’s important to make their advances visible. ([Location 2069](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2069)) - These therapists know that the miracle can seem distant to their patients and that they need to keep their patients motivated and hopeful en route to the destination. To do so, they’ve devised a way of quantifying progress toward the miracle. They create a miracle scale9 ranging from 0 to 10, where 10 is the miracle. In fact, in the very first session they often ask their patients where they’d score themselves. Patients often report back that they’re at 2 or 3, which prompts an enthusiastic response from the therapists. Wow! You’re already 20 percent of the way there! ([Location 2077](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2077)) - Small targets lead to small victories, and small victories can often trigger a positive spiral of behavior. ([Location 2157](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2157)) - The Elephant has no trouble conquering these micro-milestones, and as it does, something else happens. With each step, the Elephant feels less scared and less reluctant, because things are working. With each step, the Elephant starts feeling the change. A journey that started with dread is evolving, slowly, toward a feeling of confidence and pride. And at the same time the change is shrinking, the Elephant is growing. ([Location 2173](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2173)) - The consequences model is familiar to students of economics. It assumes that when we have a decision to make, we weigh the costs and benefits of our options and make the choice that maximizes our satisfaction. It’s a rational, analytical approach. ([Location 2235](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2235)) - the identity model3 of decision making, we essentially ask ourselves three questions when we have a decision to make: Who am I? What kind of situation is this? What would someone like me do in this situation? Notice what’s missing: any calculation of costs and benefits. ([Location 2238](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2238)) - As you develop and grow in that identity, it becomes an increasingly important part of your self-image and triggers the kind of decision making that March describes. ([Location 2248](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2248)) - Because identities are central to the way people make decisions, any change effort that violates someone’s identity is likely doomed to failure. ([Location 2254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2254)) - People who have a fixed mindset believe that their abilities are basically static. Maybe you believe you’re a pretty good public speaker, an average manager, and a wonderful organizer. ([Location 2389](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2389)) - In contrast, people who have a growth mindset believe that abilities are like muscles—they can be built up with practice. That is, with concerted effort, you can make yourself better at writing or managing or listening to your spouse. ([Location 2398](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2398)) - the business world, we implicitly reject the growth mindset. Businesspeople think in terms of two stages: You plan, and then you execute. There’s no “learning stage” or “practice stage” in the middle. From the business perspective, practice looks like poor execution. Results are the thing: We don’t care how ya do it, just get it done! ([Location 2459](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2459)) - That’s the paradox of the growth mindset. Although it seems to draw attention to failure, and in fact encourages us to seek out failure, it is unflaggingly optimistic. We will struggle, we will fail, we will be knocked down—but throughout, we’ll get better, and we’ll succeed in the end. ([Location 2484](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2484)) - Over the past few chapters, we’ve seen that the central challenge of change is keeping the Elephant moving forward. Whereas the Rider needs direction, the Elephant needs motivation. And we’ve seen that motivation comes from feeling—knowledge isn’t enough to motivate change. But motivation also comes from confidence. The Elephant has to believe that it’s capable of conquering the change. And there are two routes to building people’s confidence so that they feel “big” relative to their challenge. You can shrink the change or grow your people (or, preferably, both). ([Location 2576](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2576)) - What looks like a person problem is often a situation problem. ([Location 2598](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2598)) - In this chapter, we’ve seen that what looks like a “character problem” is often correctible when you change the environment. The transformations are stunning. Take a bunch of customer-service slackers and rip out their call-queuing system, and they start helping customers. Take a boss whose employees say she “won’t listen” and rejigger her furniture, and suddenly the employees’ frustrations fade. Take the biggest jerks in the Stanford dorms and give them a page of instructions, and they’ll donate more food to the needy than the saints. Simple tweaks of the Path can lead to dramatic changes in behavior. ([Location 2942](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2942)) - People are incredibly sensitive to the environment and the culture—to the norms and expectations of the communities they are in. We all want to wear the right clothes, to say the right things, to frequent the right places. Because we instinctively try to fit in with our peer group, behavior is contagious, sometimes in surprising ways. ([Location 2992](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2992)) - “We wanted people to standardize on the mission-critical elements14—the areas where we have the strongest evidence. And these things that are mission-critical, we’ve got to do them every time.” ([Location 3254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3254)) - THINK OF THE last time you were in a situation where you weren’t totally sure how to behave. Maybe it was your first time in a new church, or your first time in another country, or maybe it was a dinner party where you didn’t know many of the guests. What did you do to try to fit in? You watched other people, of course. In ambiguous situations, we all look to others for cues about how to behave. ([Location 3275](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3275)) - First, you need to tweak the environment to provide a free space for discussion. ([Location 3611](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3611)) - Second, you should build good habits. Recall the idea of action triggers—visualizing when and where you are going to do something important. The interns at Alpha were essentially setting action triggers. ([Location 3614](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3614)) - Finally, you should rally the herd. At Alpha, the leaders helped the reformers find one another, and the reformers began to create a language— ([Location 3618](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3618)) - How do you keep those steps coming? The first thing to do is recognize and celebrate that first step. Something you’ve done has worked. You’ve directed the Rider, you’ve motivated the Elephant, you’ve shaped the Path—and now your team is moving, or you’re moving. When you spot movement, you’ve got to reinforce it. On this front, we can take inspiration from a rather unlikely source: trainers of exotic animals. ([Location 3635](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3635)) - mere exposure effect, which means that the more you’re exposed to something, the more you like ([Location 3699](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3699)) - cognitive dissonance works in your favor. People don’t like to act in one way and think in another. So once a small step has been taken, and people have begun to act in a new way, it will be increasingly difficult for them to dislike the way they’re acting. Similarly, as people begin to act differently, they’ll start to think of themselves differently, and as their identity evolves, it will reinforce the new way of doing things. ([Location 3703](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3703)) - Problem: People don’t see the need to change. Advice: 1. You are not going to overcome this by talking to the Rider. Instead, find the feeling. Can you do a dramatic demonstration like the Glove Shrine, or like Robyn Waters’s demos at Target? 2. Create empathy. Show people the problems with not changing (think Attila the Accountant). 3. Tweak the environment so that whether people see the need to change is irrelevant. Remember, Rackspace employees didn’t necessarily see the need to improve customer service, but after the call-queuing system disappeared, they had to pick up the phone. Problem: I’m having the “not invented here” problem: People resist my idea because they say “We’ve never done it like that before.” Advice: 1. Highlight identity: Is there some aspect of your idea that’s consistent with the history of your organization? (E.g., We’ve always been the pioneers in this industry.) Or is your idea consistent with a professional identity that people share? 2. Find a bright spot that is invented here and clone it. Problem: We should be doing something, but we’re getting bogged down in analysis. Advice: 1. Don’t overanalyze and play to the weaknesses of the Rider. Instead, find a feeling that will get the Elephant moving. 2. Create a destination postcard. That way, the Rider starts analyzing how to get there rather than whether anything should be done. 3. Simplify the problem by scripting the critical moves: What’s your equivalent of the 1% milk campaign? Problem: The environment has shifted, and we need to overcome our old patterns of behavior. Advice: 1. Can you create a new habit so the Rider doesn’t constantly have to wrestle the Elephant? 2. Set an action trigger. Preload your decision by imagining the time and place where you’re going to act differently. 3. Use Natalie Elder’s strategy of creating a routine for the morning that eliminates the old, bad behavior. 4. The old pattern is powerful, so make sure to script the critical moves, because ambiguity is the enemy. ALL railroad came up with four simple rules to work its way out of financial distress. Problem: People simply aren’t motivated to change. Advice: 1. Is an identity conflict standing in the way? If so, you’ll need to “sell” the new identity (think Brasilata’s inventors). Encourage people to take a small step toward the new identity, as in the “Drive Safely” study. 2. Create a destination postcard that makes the change more attractive (like the teacher who told her first graders “You’ll be third graders by the end of the year”). 3. Lower the bar to get people moving, as with the 5-Minute Room Rescue. 4. Use social pressure to encourage change (as when Gerard Cachon posted the review times for the operations journal). 5. Can you smooth the Path so much that even an unmotivated person will slide along? Remember, even jerks in the dorm donated to the food drive when given a specific invitation and a map. Problem: I’ll change tomorrow. Advice: 1. Shrink the change so you can… ([Location 3764](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3764))  ## Highlights - What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. ([Location 76](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=76)) - Ultimately, all change efforts boil down to the same mission: Can you get people to start behaving in a new way? ([Location 83](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=83)) - The Happiness Hypothesis. Haidt says that our emotional side is an Elephant and our rational side is its Rider. Perched atop the Elephant, the Rider holds the reins and seems to be the leader. But the Rider’s control is precarious because the Rider is so small relative to the Elephant. Anytime the six-ton Elephant and the Rider disagree about which direction to go, the Rider is going to lose. He’s completely overmatched. ([Location 125](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=125)) - If you want people to change, you must provide crystal-clear direction. ([Location 271](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=271)) - one that can guide you in any situation where you need to change behavior: Direct the Rider. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction. (Think 1% milk.) 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.) ([Location 282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=282)) - “Can I ask you a sort of strange question? Suppose that you go to bed tonight and sleep well. Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved. When you wake up in the morning, what’s the first small sign you’d see that would make you think, ‘Well, something must have happened—the problem is gone!’?” ([Location 525](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=525)) - If a miracle solved your drinking problem, what would you be doing differently the next morning? “I ([Location 536](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=536)) - It’s the Exception Question: “When was the last time you saw a little bit of the miracle, even just for a short time?” ([Location 544](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=544)) - But if you’re trying to change things, there are going to be bright spots in your field of view, and if you learn to recognize them and understand them, you will solve one of the fundamental mysteries of change: What, exactly, needs to be done differently? ([Location 562](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=562)) - To pursue bright spots is to ask the question “What’s working, and how can we do more of it?” Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet, in the real world, this obvious question is almost never asked. Instead, the question we ask is more problem focused: “What’s broken, and how do we fix it?” ([Location 642](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=642)) - decision paralysis.2 More options, even good ones, can freeze us and make us retreat to the default plan, which in this case was a painful and invasive hip-replacement surgery. This behavior clearly is not rational, but it is human. ([Location 737](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=737)) - As Barry Schwartz5 puts it in his book The Paradox of Choice, as we face more and more options, “we become overloaded. Choice no longer liberates, it debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.” ([Location 767](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=767)) - Behring had scripted the moves that helped his people make hard decisions. What tires out the Rider—and puts change efforts at risk—is ambiguity, and Behring eliminated it. For every investment decision, his rules suggested the correct choice. ([Location 839](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=839)) - But the lessons here are serious and practical. If you are leading a change effort, you need to remove the ambiguity from your vision of change. ([Location 919](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=919)) - Notice that the goal she set for her students didn’t only direct the Rider; it also motivated the Elephant. It was inspirational. It tapped into feeling. ([Location 1118](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1118)) - When you describe a compelling destination, you’re helping to correct one of the Rider’s great weaknesses—the tendency to get lost in analysis. Our first instinct, in most change situations, is to offer up data to people’s Riders: Here’s why we need to change. Here are the tables and graphs and charts that prove it. The Rider loves this. He’ll start poring over the data, analyzing it and poking holes in it, and he’ll be inclined to debate with you about the conclusions you’ve drawn. To the Rider, the “analyzing” phase is often more satisfying than the “doing” phase, and that’s dangerous for your switch. Notice what happens, though, when you point to an attractive destination: The Rider starts applying his strengths to figuring out how to get there. ([Location 1184](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1184)) - You have a choice about how to use the Rider’s energy: By default, he’ll obsess about which way to move, or whether it’s necessary to move at all. But you can redirect that energy to helping you navigate toward the destination. For that to happen, you need a gut-smacking goal, one that appeals to both Rider and Elephant. Think of Esserman’s “under one roof” vision or of Crystal Jones’s challenge to her kids to become third graders. ([Location 1192](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1192)) - SMART goals presume the emotion; they don’t generate it. ([Location 1203](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1203)) - Destination postcards do double duty: They show the Rider where you’re headed, and they show the Elephant why the journey is worthwhile. ([Location 1210](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1210)) - you’re worried about the possibility of rationalization at home or at work, you need to squeeze out the ambiguity from your goal. You need a black-and-white (B&W) goal. A B&W goal is an all-or-nothing goal, and it’s useful in times when you worry about backsliding. Maybe your B&W goal for your alcohol consumption could be “No wine ever.” No wiggle room there. ([Location 1277](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1277)) - If you worry about the potential for inaction on your team, or if you worry that silent resistance may slow or sabotage your change initiative, B&W goals may be the solution. ([Location 1376](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1376)) - What is essential, though, is to marry your long-term goal with short-term critical moves. Esserman’s vision was compelling, but it would have been empty talk without lots of behavior-level execution. ([Location 1380](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1380)) - So far we’ve learned a great deal about the Rider and his many strengths and weaknesses. On the plus side of the ledger, the Rider is a visionary. He’s willing to make short-term sacrifices for long-term payoffs (which is why he fights so often with the Elephant, who generally prefers immediate gratification). He’s a clever tactician, too—give him a map and he’ll follow it perfectly. But we’ve also seen plenty of evidence of the Rider’s flaws—his limited reserves of strength, his paralysis in the face of ambiguity and choice, and his relentless focus on problems rather than solutions. Here’s the good news: The Rider’s strengths are substantial, and his flaws can be mitigated. When you appeal to the Rider inside yourself or inside others you are trying to influence, your game plan should be simple. First, follow the bright spots. Think of the Vietnamese children who stayed well nourished against the odds, or the Genentech sales reps who racked up sales against the odds. As you analyze your situation, you’re sure to find some things that are working better than others. Don’t obsess about the failures. Instead, investigate and clone the successes. Next, give direction to the Rider—both a start and a finish. Send him a destination postcard (“You’ll be a third grader soon!”), and script his critical moves (“Buy 1% milk”). When you do these things, you’ll prepare the Rider to lead a switch. And you’ll arm him for the ongoing struggles with his reluctant and formidable partner, the Elephant. ([Location 1449](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1449)) - the core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people, and behavior change happens in highly successful situations mostly by speaking to people’s feelings. This is true even in organizations that are very focused on analysis and quantitative measurement, even among people who think of themselves as smart in an MBA sense. In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to help others see the problems or solutions in ways that influence emotions, not just thought. ([Location 1526](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1526)) - Kotter and Cohen say that most people think change happens in this order: ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE. You analyze, then you think, and then you change. In a normal environment, that might work pretty well. If you need to reduce duplication costs in your print shop by 6 percent, or if you need to shave off 5 minutes from your daily commute, then that process will serve you well. Kotter and Cohen note that analytical tools work best when “parameters are known, assumptions are minimal, and the future is not fuzzy.” ([Location 1535](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1535)) - Kotter and Cohen observed that, in almost all successful change efforts, the sequence of change is not ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE, but rather SEE-FEEL-CHANGE. You’re presented with evidence that makes you feel something. It might be a disturbing look at the problem, or a hopeful glimpse of the solution, or a sobering reflection of your current habits, but regardless, it’s something that hits you at the emotional level. It’s something that speaks to the Elephant. ([Location 1542](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1542)) - But self-evaluation involves interpretation, and that’s where the Elephant intrudes. The Elephant tends to take the rosiest possible interpretation of the facts. ([Location 1670](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1670)) - necessary, we need to create a crisis to convince people they’re facing a catastrophe and have no choice but to move. ([Location 1744](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1744)) - Bottom line: If you need quick and specific action, then negative emotions might help. But most of the time when change is needed, it’s not a stone-in-the-shoe situation. The quest to reduce greenhouse gases is not a stone-in-the-shoe situation, and neither is Target’s mission to become the “upscale retailer,” or someone’s desire to improve his or her marriage. These situations require creativity and flexibility and ingenuity. And, unfortunately, a burning platform won’t get you that. ([Location 1777](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1777)) - Most of the big problems we encounter in organizations or society are ambiguous and evolving. They don’t look like burning-platform situations, where we need people to buckle down and execute a hard but well-understood game plan. To solve bigger, more ambiguous problems, we need to encourage open minds, creativity, and hope. ([Location 1806](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1806)) - One way to motivate action, then, is to make people feel as though they’re already closer to the finish line than they might have thought. ([Location 1857](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1857)) - One way to shrink change, then, is to limit the investment you’re asking for—only 5 minutes of housecleaning, only one small debt. Another way to shrink change is to think of small wins—milestones that are within reach. ([Location 1995](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1995)) - When you engineer early successes, what you’re really doing is engineering hope. Hope is precious to a change effort. It’s Elephant fuel. Once people are on the path and making progress, it’s important to make their advances visible. ([Location 2069](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2069)) - These therapists know that the miracle can seem distant to their patients and that they need to keep their patients motivated and hopeful en route to the destination. To do so, they’ve devised a way of quantifying progress toward the miracle. They create a miracle scale9 ranging from 0 to 10, where 10 is the miracle. In fact, in the very first session they often ask their patients where they’d score themselves. Patients often report back that they’re at 2 or 3, which prompts an enthusiastic response from the therapists. Wow! You’re already 20 percent of the way there! ([Location 2077](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2077)) - Small targets lead to small victories, and small victories can often trigger a positive spiral of behavior. ([Location 2157](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2157)) - The Elephant has no trouble conquering these micro-milestones, and as it does, something else happens. With each step, the Elephant feels less scared and less reluctant, because things are working. With each step, the Elephant starts feeling the change. A journey that started with dread is evolving, slowly, toward a feeling of confidence and pride. And at the same time the change is shrinking, the Elephant is growing. ([Location 2173](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2173)) - The consequences model is familiar to students of economics. It assumes that when we have a decision to make, we weigh the costs and benefits of our options and make the choice that maximizes our satisfaction. It’s a rational, analytical approach. ([Location 2235](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2235)) - the identity model3 of decision making, we essentially ask ourselves three questions when we have a decision to make: Who am I? What kind of situation is this? What would someone like me do in this situation? Notice what’s missing: any calculation of costs and benefits. ([Location 2238](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2238)) - As you develop and grow in that identity, it becomes an increasingly important part of your self-image and triggers the kind of decision making that March describes. ([Location 2248](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2248)) - Because identities are central to the way people make decisions, any change effort that violates someone’s identity is likely doomed to failure. ([Location 2254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2254)) - People who have a fixed mindset believe that their abilities are basically static. Maybe you believe you’re a pretty good public speaker, an average manager, and a wonderful organizer. ([Location 2389](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2389)) - In contrast, people who have a growth mindset believe that abilities are like muscles—they can be built up with practice. That is, with concerted effort, you can make yourself better at writing or managing or listening to your spouse. ([Location 2398](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2398)) - the business world, we implicitly reject the growth mindset. Businesspeople think in terms of two stages: You plan, and then you execute. There’s no “learning stage” or “practice stage” in the middle. From the business perspective, practice looks like poor execution. Results are the thing: We don’t care how ya do it, just get it done! ([Location 2459](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2459)) - That’s the paradox of the growth mindset. Although it seems to draw attention to failure, and in fact encourages us to seek out failure, it is unflaggingly optimistic. We will struggle, we will fail, we will be knocked down—but throughout, we’ll get better, and we’ll succeed in the end. ([Location 2484](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2484)) - Over the past few chapters, we’ve seen that the central challenge of change is keeping the Elephant moving forward. Whereas the Rider needs direction, the Elephant needs motivation. And we’ve seen that motivation comes from feeling—knowledge isn’t enough to motivate change. But motivation also comes from confidence. The Elephant has to believe that it’s capable of conquering the change. And there are two routes to building people’s confidence so that they feel “big” relative to their challenge. You can shrink the change or grow your people (or, preferably, both). ([Location 2576](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2576)) - What looks like a person problem is often a situation problem. ([Location 2598](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2598)) - In this chapter, we’ve seen that what looks like a “character problem” is often correctible when you change the environment. The transformations are stunning. Take a bunch of customer-service slackers and rip out their call-queuing system, and they start helping customers. Take a boss whose employees say she “won’t listen” and rejigger her furniture, and suddenly the employees’ frustrations fade. Take the biggest jerks in the Stanford dorms and give them a page of instructions, and they’ll donate more food to the needy than the saints. Simple tweaks of the Path can lead to dramatic changes in behavior. ([Location 2942](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2942)) - People are incredibly sensitive to the environment and the culture—to the norms and expectations of the communities they are in. We all want to wear the right clothes, to say the right things, to frequent the right places. Because we instinctively try to fit in with our peer group, behavior is contagious, sometimes in surprising ways. ([Location 2992](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2992)) - “We wanted people to standardize on the mission-critical elements14—the areas where we have the strongest evidence. And these things that are mission-critical, we’ve got to do them every time.” ([Location 3254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3254)) - THINK OF THE last time you were in a situation where you weren’t totally sure how to behave. Maybe it was your first time in a new church, or your first time in another country, or maybe it was a dinner party where you didn’t know many of the guests. What did you do to try to fit in? You watched other people, of course. In ambiguous situations, we all look to others for cues about how to behave. ([Location 3275](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3275)) - First, you need to tweak the environment to provide a free space for discussion. ([Location 3611](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3611)) - Second, you should build good habits. Recall the idea of action triggers—visualizing when and where you are going to do something important. The interns at Alpha were essentially setting action triggers. ([Location 3614](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3614)) - Finally, you should rally the herd. At Alpha, the leaders helped the reformers find one another, and the reformers began to create a language— ([Location 3618](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3618)) - How do you keep those steps coming? The first thing to do is recognize and celebrate that first step. Something you’ve done has worked. You’ve directed the Rider, you’ve motivated the Elephant, you’ve shaped the Path—and now your team is moving, or you’re moving. When you spot movement, you’ve got to reinforce it. On this front, we can take inspiration from a rather unlikely source: trainers of exotic animals. ([Location 3635](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3635)) - mere exposure effect, which means that the more you’re exposed to something, the more you like ([Location 3699](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3699)) - cognitive dissonance works in your favor. People don’t like to act in one way and think in another. So once a small step has been taken, and people have begun to act in a new way, it will be increasingly difficult for them to dislike the way they’re acting. Similarly, as people begin to act differently, they’ll start to think of themselves differently, and as their identity evolves, it will reinforce the new way of doing things. ([Location 3703](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3703)) - Problem: People don’t see the need to change. Advice: 1. You are not going to overcome this by talking to the Rider. Instead, find the feeling. Can you do a dramatic demonstration like the Glove Shrine, or like Robyn Waters’s demos at Target? 2. Create empathy. Show people the problems with not changing (think Attila the Accountant). 3. Tweak the environment so that whether people see the need to change is irrelevant. Remember, Rackspace employees didn’t necessarily see the need to improve customer service, but after the call-queuing system disappeared, they had to pick up the phone. Problem: I’m having the “not invented here” problem: People resist my idea because they say “We’ve never done it like that before.” Advice: 1. Highlight identity: Is there some aspect of your idea that’s consistent with the history of your organization? (E.g., We’ve always been the pioneers in this industry.) Or is your idea consistent with a professional identity that people share? 2. Find a bright spot that is invented here and clone it. Problem: We should be doing something, but we’re getting bogged down in analysis. Advice: 1. Don’t overanalyze and play to the weaknesses of the Rider. Instead, find a feeling that will get the Elephant moving. 2. Create a destination postcard. That way, the Rider starts analyzing how to get there rather than whether anything should be done. 3. Simplify the problem by scripting the critical moves: What’s your equivalent of the 1% milk campaign? Problem: The environment has shifted, and we need to overcome our old patterns of behavior. Advice: 1. Can you create a new habit so the Rider doesn’t constantly have to wrestle the Elephant? 2. Set an action trigger. Preload your decision by imagining the time and place where you’re going to act differently. 3. Use Natalie Elder’s strategy of creating a routine for the morning that eliminates the old, bad behavior. 4. The old pattern is powerful, so make sure to script the critical moves, because ambiguity is the enemy. ALL railroad came up with four simple rules to work its way out of financial distress. Problem: People simply aren’t motivated to change. Advice: 1. Is an identity conflict standing in the way? If so, you’ll need to “sell” the new identity (think Brasilata’s inventors). Encourage people to take a small step toward the new identity, as in the “Drive Safely” study. 2. Create a destination postcard that makes the change more attractive (like the teacher who told her first graders “You’ll be third graders by the end of the year”). 3. Lower the bar to get people moving, as with the 5-Minute Room Rescue. 4. Use social pressure to encourage change (as when Gerard Cachon posted the review times for the operations journal). 5. Can you smooth the Path so much that even an unmotivated person will slide along? Remember, even jerks in the dorm donated to the food drive when given a specific invitation and a map. Problem: I’ll change tomorrow. Advice: 1. Shrink the change so you can… ([Location 3764](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3764))  ## Highlights - What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. ([Location 76](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=76)) - Ultimately, all change efforts boil down to the same mission: Can you get people to start behaving in a new way? ([Location 83](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=83)) - The Happiness Hypothesis. Haidt says that our emotional side is an Elephant and our rational side is its Rider. Perched atop the Elephant, the Rider holds the reins and seems to be the leader. But the Rider’s control is precarious because the Rider is so small relative to the Elephant. Anytime the six-ton Elephant and the Rider disagree about which direction to go, the Rider is going to lose. He’s completely overmatched. ([Location 125](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=125)) - If you want people to change, you must provide crystal-clear direction. ([Location 271](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=271)) - one that can guide you in any situation where you need to change behavior: Direct the Rider. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction. (Think 1% milk.) 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.) ([Location 282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=282)) - “Can I ask you a sort of strange question? Suppose that you go to bed tonight and sleep well. Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved. When you wake up in the morning, what’s the first small sign you’d see that would make you think, ‘Well, something must have happened—the problem is gone!’?” ([Location 525](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=525)) - If a miracle solved your drinking problem, what would you be doing differently the next morning? “I ([Location 536](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=536)) - It’s the Exception Question: “When was the last time you saw a little bit of the miracle, even just for a short time?” ([Location 544](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=544)) - But if you’re trying to change things, there are going to be bright spots in your field of view, and if you learn to recognize them and understand them, you will solve one of the fundamental mysteries of change: What, exactly, needs to be done differently? ([Location 562](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=562)) - To pursue bright spots is to ask the question “What’s working, and how can we do more of it?” Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet, in the real world, this obvious question is almost never asked. Instead, the question we ask is more problem focused: “What’s broken, and how do we fix it?” ([Location 642](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=642)) - decision paralysis.2 More options, even good ones, can freeze us and make us retreat to the default plan, which in this case was a painful and invasive hip-replacement surgery. This behavior clearly is not rational, but it is human. ([Location 737](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=737)) - As Barry Schwartz5 puts it in his book The Paradox of Choice, as we face more and more options, “we become overloaded. Choice no longer liberates, it debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.” ([Location 767](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=767)) - Behring had scripted the moves that helped his people make hard decisions. What tires out the Rider—and puts change efforts at risk—is ambiguity, and Behring eliminated it. For every investment decision, his rules suggested the correct choice. ([Location 839](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=839)) - But the lessons here are serious and practical. If you are leading a change effort, you need to remove the ambiguity from your vision of change. ([Location 919](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=919)) - Notice that the goal she set for her students didn’t only direct the Rider; it also motivated the Elephant. It was inspirational. It tapped into feeling. ([Location 1118](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1118)) - When you describe a compelling destination, you’re helping to correct one of the Rider’s great weaknesses—the tendency to get lost in analysis. Our first instinct, in most change situations, is to offer up data to people’s Riders: Here’s why we need to change. Here are the tables and graphs and charts that prove it. The Rider loves this. He’ll start poring over the data, analyzing it and poking holes in it, and he’ll be inclined to debate with you about the conclusions you’ve drawn. To the Rider, the “analyzing” phase is often more satisfying than the “doing” phase, and that’s dangerous for your switch. Notice what happens, though, when you point to an attractive destination: The Rider starts applying his strengths to figuring out how to get there. ([Location 1184](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1184)) - You have a choice about how to use the Rider’s energy: By default, he’ll obsess about which way to move, or whether it’s necessary to move at all. But you can redirect that energy to helping you navigate toward the destination. For that to happen, you need a gut-smacking goal, one that appeals to both Rider and Elephant. Think of Esserman’s “under one roof” vision or of Crystal Jones’s challenge to her kids to become third graders. ([Location 1192](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1192)) - SMART goals presume the emotion; they don’t generate it. ([Location 1203](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1203)) - Destination postcards do double duty: They show the Rider where you’re headed, and they show the Elephant why the journey is worthwhile. ([Location 1210](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1210)) - you’re worried about the possibility of rationalization at home or at work, you need to squeeze out the ambiguity from your goal. You need a black-and-white (B&W) goal. A B&W goal is an all-or-nothing goal, and it’s useful in times when you worry about backsliding. Maybe your B&W goal for your alcohol consumption could be “No wine ever.” No wiggle room there. ([Location 1277](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1277)) - If you worry about the potential for inaction on your team, or if you worry that silent resistance may slow or sabotage your change initiative, B&W goals may be the solution. ([Location 1376](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1376)) - What is essential, though, is to marry your long-term goal with short-term critical moves. Esserman’s vision was compelling, but it would have been empty talk without lots of behavior-level execution. ([Location 1380](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1380)) - So far we’ve learned a great deal about the Rider and his many strengths and weaknesses. On the plus side of the ledger, the Rider is a visionary. He’s willing to make short-term sacrifices for long-term payoffs (which is why he fights so often with the Elephant, who generally prefers immediate gratification). He’s a clever tactician, too—give him a map and he’ll follow it perfectly. But we’ve also seen plenty of evidence of the Rider’s flaws—his limited reserves of strength, his paralysis in the face of ambiguity and choice, and his relentless focus on problems rather than solutions. Here’s the good news: The Rider’s strengths are substantial, and his flaws can be mitigated. When you appeal to the Rider inside yourself or inside others you are trying to influence, your game plan should be simple. First, follow the bright spots. Think of the Vietnamese children who stayed well nourished against the odds, or the Genentech sales reps who racked up sales against the odds. As you analyze your situation, you’re sure to find some things that are working better than others. Don’t obsess about the failures. Instead, investigate and clone the successes. Next, give direction to the Rider—both a start and a finish. Send him a destination postcard (“You’ll be a third grader soon!”), and script his critical moves (“Buy 1% milk”). When you do these things, you’ll prepare the Rider to lead a switch. And you’ll arm him for the ongoing struggles with his reluctant and formidable partner, the Elephant. ([Location 1449](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1449)) - the core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people, and behavior change happens in highly successful situations mostly by speaking to people’s feelings. This is true even in organizations that are very focused on analysis and quantitative measurement, even among people who think of themselves as smart in an MBA sense. In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to help others see the problems or solutions in ways that influence emotions, not just thought. ([Location 1526](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1526)) - Kotter and Cohen say that most people think change happens in this order: ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE. You analyze, then you think, and then you change. In a normal environment, that might work pretty well. If you need to reduce duplication costs in your print shop by 6 percent, or if you need to shave off 5 minutes from your daily commute, then that process will serve you well. Kotter and Cohen note that analytical tools work best when “parameters are known, assumptions are minimal, and the future is not fuzzy.” ([Location 1535](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1535)) - Kotter and Cohen observed that, in almost all successful change efforts, the sequence of change is not ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE, but rather SEE-FEEL-CHANGE. You’re presented with evidence that makes you feel something. It might be a disturbing look at the problem, or a hopeful glimpse of the solution, or a sobering reflection of your current habits, but regardless, it’s something that hits you at the emotional level. It’s something that speaks to the Elephant. ([Location 1542](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1542)) - But self-evaluation involves interpretation, and that’s where the Elephant intrudes. The Elephant tends to take the rosiest possible interpretation of the facts. ([Location 1670](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1670)) - necessary, we need to create a crisis to convince people they’re facing a catastrophe and have no choice but to move. ([Location 1744](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1744)) - Bottom line: If you need quick and specific action, then negative emotions might help. But most of the time when change is needed, it’s not a stone-in-the-shoe situation. The quest to reduce greenhouse gases is not a stone-in-the-shoe situation, and neither is Target’s mission to become the “upscale retailer,” or someone’s desire to improve his or her marriage. These situations require creativity and flexibility and ingenuity. And, unfortunately, a burning platform won’t get you that. ([Location 1777](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1777)) - Most of the big problems we encounter in organizations or society are ambiguous and evolving. They don’t look like burning-platform situations, where we need people to buckle down and execute a hard but well-understood game plan. To solve bigger, more ambiguous problems, we need to encourage open minds, creativity, and hope. ([Location 1806](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1806)) - One way to motivate action, then, is to make people feel as though they’re already closer to the finish line than they might have thought. ([Location 1857](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1857)) - One way to shrink change, then, is to limit the investment you’re asking for—only 5 minutes of housecleaning, only one small debt. Another way to shrink change is to think of small wins—milestones that are within reach. ([Location 1995](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=1995)) - When you engineer early successes, what you’re really doing is engineering hope. Hope is precious to a change effort. It’s Elephant fuel. Once people are on the path and making progress, it’s important to make their advances visible. ([Location 2069](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2069)) - These therapists know that the miracle can seem distant to their patients and that they need to keep their patients motivated and hopeful en route to the destination. To do so, they’ve devised a way of quantifying progress toward the miracle. They create a miracle scale9 ranging from 0 to 10, where 10 is the miracle. In fact, in the very first session they often ask their patients where they’d score themselves. Patients often report back that they’re at 2 or 3, which prompts an enthusiastic response from the therapists. Wow! You’re already 20 percent of the way there! ([Location 2077](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2077)) - Small targets lead to small victories, and small victories can often trigger a positive spiral of behavior. ([Location 2157](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2157)) - The Elephant has no trouble conquering these micro-milestones, and as it does, something else happens. With each step, the Elephant feels less scared and less reluctant, because things are working. With each step, the Elephant starts feeling the change. A journey that started with dread is evolving, slowly, toward a feeling of confidence and pride. And at the same time the change is shrinking, the Elephant is growing. ([Location 2173](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2173)) - The consequences model is familiar to students of economics. It assumes that when we have a decision to make, we weigh the costs and benefits of our options and make the choice that maximizes our satisfaction. It’s a rational, analytical approach. ([Location 2235](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2235)) - the identity model3 of decision making, we essentially ask ourselves three questions when we have a decision to make: Who am I? What kind of situation is this? What would someone like me do in this situation? Notice what’s missing: any calculation of costs and benefits. ([Location 2238](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2238)) - As you develop and grow in that identity, it becomes an increasingly important part of your self-image and triggers the kind of decision making that March describes. ([Location 2248](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2248)) - Because identities are central to the way people make decisions, any change effort that violates someone’s identity is likely doomed to failure. ([Location 2254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2254)) - People who have a fixed mindset believe that their abilities are basically static. Maybe you believe you’re a pretty good public speaker, an average manager, and a wonderful organizer. ([Location 2389](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2389)) - In contrast, people who have a growth mindset believe that abilities are like muscles—they can be built up with practice. That is, with concerted effort, you can make yourself better at writing or managing or listening to your spouse. ([Location 2398](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2398)) - the business world, we implicitly reject the growth mindset. Businesspeople think in terms of two stages: You plan, and then you execute. There’s no “learning stage” or “practice stage” in the middle. From the business perspective, practice looks like poor execution. Results are the thing: We don’t care how ya do it, just get it done! ([Location 2459](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2459)) - That’s the paradox of the growth mindset. Although it seems to draw attention to failure, and in fact encourages us to seek out failure, it is unflaggingly optimistic. We will struggle, we will fail, we will be knocked down—but throughout, we’ll get better, and we’ll succeed in the end. ([Location 2484](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2484)) - Over the past few chapters, we’ve seen that the central challenge of change is keeping the Elephant moving forward. Whereas the Rider needs direction, the Elephant needs motivation. And we’ve seen that motivation comes from feeling—knowledge isn’t enough to motivate change. But motivation also comes from confidence. The Elephant has to believe that it’s capable of conquering the change. And there are two routes to building people’s confidence so that they feel “big” relative to their challenge. You can shrink the change or grow your people (or, preferably, both). ([Location 2576](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2576)) - What looks like a person problem is often a situation problem. ([Location 2598](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2598)) - In this chapter, we’ve seen that what looks like a “character problem” is often correctible when you change the environment. The transformations are stunning. Take a bunch of customer-service slackers and rip out their call-queuing system, and they start helping customers. Take a boss whose employees say she “won’t listen” and rejigger her furniture, and suddenly the employees’ frustrations fade. Take the biggest jerks in the Stanford dorms and give them a page of instructions, and they’ll donate more food to the needy than the saints. Simple tweaks of the Path can lead to dramatic changes in behavior. ([Location 2942](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2942)) - People are incredibly sensitive to the environment and the culture—to the norms and expectations of the communities they are in. We all want to wear the right clothes, to say the right things, to frequent the right places. Because we instinctively try to fit in with our peer group, behavior is contagious, sometimes in surprising ways. ([Location 2992](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=2992)) - “We wanted people to standardize on the mission-critical elements14—the areas where we have the strongest evidence. And these things that are mission-critical, we’ve got to do them every time.” ([Location 3254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3254)) - THINK OF THE last time you were in a situation where you weren’t totally sure how to behave. Maybe it was your first time in a new church, or your first time in another country, or maybe it was a dinner party where you didn’t know many of the guests. What did you do to try to fit in? You watched other people, of course. In ambiguous situations, we all look to others for cues about how to behave. ([Location 3275](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3275)) - First, you need to tweak the environment to provide a free space for discussion. ([Location 3611](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3611)) - Second, you should build good habits. Recall the idea of action triggers—visualizing when and where you are going to do something important. The interns at Alpha were essentially setting action triggers. ([Location 3614](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3614)) - Finally, you should rally the herd. At Alpha, the leaders helped the reformers find one another, and the reformers began to create a language— ([Location 3618](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3618)) - How do you keep those steps coming? The first thing to do is recognize and celebrate that first step. Something you’ve done has worked. You’ve directed the Rider, you’ve motivated the Elephant, you’ve shaped the Path—and now your team is moving, or you’re moving. When you spot movement, you’ve got to reinforce it. On this front, we can take inspiration from a rather unlikely source: trainers of exotic animals. ([Location 3635](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3635)) - mere exposure effect, which means that the more you’re exposed to something, the more you like ([Location 3699](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3699)) - cognitive dissonance works in your favor. People don’t like to act in one way and think in another. So once a small step has been taken, and people have begun to act in a new way, it will be increasingly difficult for them to dislike the way they’re acting. Similarly, as people begin to act differently, they’ll start to think of themselves differently, and as their identity evolves, it will reinforce the new way of doing things. ([Location 3703](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3703)) - Problem: People don’t see the need to change. Advice: 1. You are not going to overcome this by talking to the Rider. Instead, find the feeling. Can you do a dramatic demonstration like the Glove Shrine, or like Robyn Waters’s demos at Target? 2. Create empathy. Show people the problems with not changing (think Attila the Accountant). 3. Tweak the environment so that whether people see the need to change is irrelevant. Remember, Rackspace employees didn’t necessarily see the need to improve customer service, but after the call-queuing system disappeared, they had to pick up the phone. Problem: I’m having the “not invented here” problem: People resist my idea because they say “We’ve never done it like that before.” Advice: 1. Highlight identity: Is there some aspect of your idea that’s consistent with the history of your organization? (E.g., We’ve always been the pioneers in this industry.) Or is your idea consistent with a professional identity that people share? 2. Find a bright spot that is invented here and clone it. Problem: We should be doing something, but we’re getting bogged down in analysis. Advice: 1. Don’t overanalyze and play to the weaknesses of the Rider. Instead, find a feeling that will get the Elephant moving. 2. Create a destination postcard. That way, the Rider starts analyzing how to get there rather than whether anything should be done. 3. Simplify the problem by scripting the critical moves: What’s your equivalent of the 1% milk campaign? Problem: The environment has shifted, and we need to overcome our old patterns of behavior. Advice: 1. Can you create a new habit so the Rider doesn’t constantly have to wrestle the Elephant? 2. Set an action trigger. Preload your decision by imagining the time and place where you’re going to act differently. 3. Use Natalie Elder’s strategy of creating a routine for the morning that eliminates the old, bad behavior. 4. The old pattern is powerful, so make sure to script the critical moves, because ambiguity is the enemy. ALL railroad came up with four simple rules to work its way out of financial distress. Problem: People simply aren’t motivated to change. Advice: 1. Is an identity conflict standing in the way? If so, you’ll need to “sell” the new identity (think Brasilata’s inventors). Encourage people to take a small step toward the new identity, as in the “Drive Safely” study. 2. Create a destination postcard that makes the change more attractive (like the teacher who told her first graders “You’ll be third graders by the end of the year”). 3. Lower the bar to get people moving, as with the 5-Minute Room Rescue. 4. Use social pressure to encourage change (as when Gerard Cachon posted the review times for the operations journal). 5. Can you smooth the Path so much that even an unmotivated person will slide along? Remember, even jerks in the dorm donated to the food drive when given a specific invitation and a map. Problem: I’ll change tomorrow. Advice: 1. Shrink the change so you can… ([Location 3764](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005TKD512&location=3764))