Review - Switch - By Dan and Chip Heath

Recently, I finished reading Switch by Dan and Chip Heath, and I can truthfully say I loved every page of this book.The book focuses on the required elements to efficiently creating a change - in your individual or professional life or in your business or organization.**Elephant, Rider, and Path**Switch investigates triumphant change efforts by assigning metaphors to distinct areas of people's personalities as well as environment that surrounds them.The three-pronged analogy is borrowed from a book the authors read prior to writing Switch named The Happiness Hypothesis by a psychologist named Jonathan Haidt (I haven't read this book yet myself, however it's been added to my endlessly developing catalog of required reading!).I could truthfully go on forever about the details of this metaphor, because It is my opinion it's nothing short of brilliant, but I'll attempt to keep it brief.Basically what the metaphor describes is that our character is separated. On one hand you've go
t an Elephant, while on the other hand you have a Rider sitting on the Elephant's back - doing his best to control the Elephant's movements.Occasionally (or even frequently at specific times in our lives), the Elephant and the Rider don't have the same opinion. During these scenarios, the Elephant tends to win, because the Rider can only tug on the reigns for so long until the he gets too fatigued to fight anymore..According to the metaphor in the book, the "Elephant" portion of our psyche tends to seek out the path of least resistance. This is the part of us that depends on habits an feelings when decisions have to be made. Our Elephants are most at ease with well-known patterns and conditions, so they aren't always helpful to making a change. They don't analyze or look at the "big picture", so they often need some help breaking into a new pattern.The Elephant represents emotional responses and instincts. The issue is that those emotions and instincts tend to be counter to
the changes we must create in our lives - so we have to persuade the Elephant (ourselves) to move in a less than comfortable direction.This is where the Rider comes in. His responsibility is to steer the Elephant along, even when the Path (which is the third part of our metaphor) isn't so easy to travel.The Rider is our rational mind - the part of us that can see around obstacles and take a look at the larger picture.While the Elephant tends to act without thinking, the Rider has the opposite pattern - he tends to over think and over analyze everything.The third component to Haidt's metaphor is the Path - which is simply the environment surrounding a change. The Path can be used t represent peers, rules, laws - anything that has an impact on the change itself or the people involved in it.Seeing The Metaphor In ActionThere are three steps to the change process based on the metaphor outlined in Switch:* Motivate the Elephant* Direct the Rider* Shape the PathThe book is broken
into three sections based on these steps. The process basically states that you need to get your emotional Elephant moving, while showing your long-term-thinking Rider what direction to take and do whatever you can to make the Path you are traveling on easier to follow.All three of these sections is further broken down into three smaller pieces, and the book is full of examples of all off the different components.As you read, the authors introduce you to wide variety of changes (and the people behind them) that they studied while writing this book. These changes range from individuals to companies, from departments to entire corporations and governments.Why This Book Works So WellLet's be honest - the thoughts this book are based on aren't the kind of thing that sounds spine-tingling to everyone. In spite of that fact, the authors did a very good job of making it an extremely entertaining book to read.The simple fact the book is broken into well ordered sections - and those
sections broken into isolated stories that make a point and reinforce each other - keeps the content of the book fresh and interesting from beginning to end.The authors also managed to add in plenty of notes of humor that make it easy to forget you're reading a "self help" book, because you are consistently engaged and entertained.Dan and Chip Heath do a amazing job of drawing parallels between different types of change efforts, allowing you to see some of your own habits and tendencies as they exist on a national or corporate level.I guess what I'm trying to say is that this book is loaded with moments that leave you thinking "Yup. I totally do that..."All in all, this a great read for anyone who has a habit they don't like, or something they think they need to improve in their life or their business (which I think covers pretty much all of us;) )

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