Switch

This is a great book for those interested in promoting change. I like how the book combines stories, examples, and engaging information to present practical strategies that have been used to accomplish change when it seemed difficult to achieve. 

Reading this book made me realize small actions can have significant long-term effects when taken consistently and repeatedly. It opened my eyes to the fact that sometimes complex problems require simple solutions. 

Switch shows how small changes make a huge difference, and how anyone can tap into the latest findings in neuroscience—as a way to “hack” our brains—to help make changes.

The Heath brothers reveal all sorts of tips and tricks to motivate yourself and others to adopt behaviors that drive success, simply by knowing how the human brain works and what you can do to harness it.

Anyone who wants to improve their personal life, improve their performance at work, or solve a seemingly intractable problem that changes the world for the better needs to read this—you’ll save yourself decades of… show more.

After I read this book I almost felt like I was cheating.

Because now I knew. I understood how to talk, and inform and educate in a way that made any change I’m proposing much more likely to stay.

I have blogged several times about this book and I cannot recommend it enough. Ted and Dan Heath have written easy to read, science-grounded, fun, and story-packed book that anyone doing any change would be happy to have in their hands.

Authors Chip and Dan Heath explore the conflict built into our brains that makes it difficult to make lasting changes in our companies, communities, and personal lives.

They argue that the rational mind competes with the emotional mind, which loves the comfort of the existing routine. 

By providing relatable stories and counterintuitive research, the Heaths show how everyday people have united both minds and achieved transformative change.

Switch offers a pattern that can be applied to make changes that matter, whether it's changing the world or changing your waistline.

Switch is built around great real-life stories and counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change or in other words – succeed at changing the things in our lives we deem worth of change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, one you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your weight.

Other than being a fun book to read, Switch points out the importance of feelings and emotions when driving change in ourselves or… show more.

This was one of the first books I read about behavior change, and to this day, it’s one of the best. The authors, Dan and Chip Heath, present a simple model consisting of a rider on top of an elephant traveling a path. The rider represents your rational side, the elephant is your emotional side, and the path is your environment. And by strategically influencing all three, you can create the behavior change you want much more effectively.

Imagine someone riding atop an elephant. What comes to mind: Fun? Disaster? A circus? For the Heath brothers, the “rider and elephant” is a metaphor for how two parts of our brains work. The rider is the rational side – it gathers data, analyzes situations, exercises judgment. The elephant is the emotional side – it sizes up opportunities and threats, shapes our reactions to change, stores memories and makes predictions. 

The authors show us how to use this knowledge to lead change in our organizations and in our own lives. When a change effort fails – say, we don’t follow… show more.