Browsing Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath

pic courtesy of Amazon.com

The Heath Brothers, authors of Made to Stick, on why some ideas, companies, etc. stay in our minds and others don't, in Switch posit the idea of a rider on an elephant trying to stay on a path.

The Rider is analytical logic. The Elephant is feeling, based on empirical evidence. The Path is all goals.

The Heaths suggest directing the Rider via crystal clear instructions. These include finding what's already right, scripting critical moves, and pointing to the destination. Motivating the Elephant to stay on the Path happens by igniting/finding the feeling, shrinking the change, and growing your people. Shaping the Path means tweaking the environment, building good habits a bit at a time, and rallying the herd.

Teacher, Bart Millar, had two attendance problems. As a former teacher, I can relate. Boy, can I relate. Anyway, he needed to make some changes to get these kids to class on time. He could have attempted a rational approach appealing to their rational riders to control their emotional elephants, which wanted to show up whenever they felt like it, by letting them know their grades would suffer, and with them, concomitant opportunities. He could've asked for their empathy for his position, "Hey, you know how hard it is to teach effectively when I can't use all my class time for teaching?" Effective? Not so likely.

What Miller did was genius. He brought in some old couches, put them in the front of the room, and allowed early birds to sit there if they wanted to. Tardiness problems solved.

That's tweaking the environment.

Amazon has changed the environment for book buying, and now book reading with the Kindle.

Instead of confronting the hard change problem: How do we persuade people to buy more? They did what Chip and Dan Heath call shrinking the change, and building new habits, by asking an easy change problem: How do we make it easier for people to buy?

Voila! How many of us now buy differently than we did 10 years ago? Likely everybody reading this blog. Amazon led the way.

The Heath brothers say their favorite story in Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard is that of Jerry Sternin.

Little wonder, as Sternin is famous for making change with the attitude: “You cannot think your way into a new way of acting, you have to act your way into a new way of thinking.”

Sternin went to Vietnam to save children's lives. He found many intractable, systemic problems. Poverty, lack of education, lack of clean water. Jerry Sternin had no chance to change those. What he did have a chance to impact were individuals. He got mothers in one small village to study lack of nutrition there. He then asked if they knew any childeren who, despite the endemic malnutrition, seemed to be doing fine? Any who were perfectly healthy despite their environment? Yes, said the mothers, there were some children like that.

Next, he had the mothers of the malnourished children ask the mothers of the healthy children what they were doing right. they found little differences made big changes. Malnourisehe stomachs are smaller so some mothers fed 4 smaller bowls of rice a day, rahter than one or two larger ones. Tiny shrimp and crabs, thought to be adult food, were added, along with sweet potato greens, giving kids more protein and vitamins. Then Sternin got those mothers to teach the other mothers.

With the help of those with the most to gain, Sternin managed to make a dent in na big problem, without changing any of the underlying systemics.

This is what the Heaths call Finding the Bright Spots: Ask What is working? And make that the focus.

You can hear a fifteen-minute podcast interview with Chip and Dan here at Amazon.

Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath is worth picking up on, and passing along to co-workers and bosses.

It was 28 years ago today . . .

I earned my most honest dollar ever. Playing a Neil Young song.

Go figure.

And read about it here.

And don't forget to read the follow-up post here.

Was free-writing about it this evening. Here's a little of that:

. . . finding it there and then, as that guy--likely 3 to 5 years less than my "24 and so much more"--purposefully striding across the square, looking me in the eye, and HANDING me the DOLLAR, not just tossing it off in the case or even humbly placing it in, as at an altar, but handing it to me, eyes up and locked, all a purpose, handing me that dollar in exact appreciation.

The most honest dollar I've ever earned.

One of the great moments of my life.

Seth@CriticalMass

I'm no dispassionate reviewer.

I'm a fan.

Bought my first Godin book in '96, The Guerrilla Marketer's Handbook, co-written with the original Guerrilla Marketer, Jay Conrad Levinson.

These are only three sentences that show why you should buy Seth Godin's Linchpin:

1) "It's OK if i get fired because I'll have demonstrated my value to the marketplace. IF THE RULES ARE THE ONLY THING BETWEEN ME AND BECOMING INDISPENSABLE, I DON'T NEED THE RULES." (Emphasis mine.)

2) "Emotional labor changes the recipient, and we care about that. That's why emotional labor is so much more valuable than physical labor."

3) "Thinking About Your Choice: And it is a choice...to buy into the fear and the system, or to chart your own path and create value as you do. It's your job to figure how to chart the path, because charting the path is the point."

OK, OK. So these are three excerpts, not sentences.

My point is -- Seth Godin gets it, gets it, gets it.

In Linchpin, he gives it to you.

It's a gift.

Pick it up.

Ready for Anything: Chapter 3--Knowing Your Commitments Creates Better Choices of New Ones

"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in elimination of nonessentials."

Lin Yutang

By now CoPORD should be on its way into your daily life.

But what if it isn't? What if you’re still balking at the structure of daily CoPORD? You're more of a once-a-weeker, you say, even a once-a-monther.

"Say it ain't so, Joan!"

On the other end of the rainbow, maybe you're so tightly controlled, everything so hyper-structured, that new ideas can't find their way in, or you sub-sub-bury them so from the start, you can't find later where they went. Or your ability to box things up quickly impairs your view of broader horizons.

As Allen says, "Concentration is the key to power in physics and in life, and to operations is the lubricant for the efficient flow of that energy."

Allen's only emphasizing the obvious in this chapter. The trick is maintaining the equilibrium between concentration and cooperation, between energy and matter.

Remember: Sometimes the obvious answer is the answer.

Ready For Anything: Chapter 2--You Can Only Feel Good About What You're Not Doing When You Know What You're Not Doing

This is second in a series of 52 posts using David Allen's Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work & Life as a prompt for reflection, writing, and ultimately, action!

Since last week's post, I've begun to implement David Allen's Getting Things Done principles.

I find Allen's principles can be remembered easily by using the mnemonic CoPORD: Collect, Process, Organize, Review, Do!

First comes the brain dump: Collect all your "need to dos" in a notebook, a file, word doc, etc. Just put them all down. Any and all goals, jobs, from taking the car in for an oil change, to changing the litter box, to re-purposing blog posts, to writing a new vocabulary list for my Let's Play SAT! blog, to creating an innovative new reading program, to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.

But I haven't put down everything I need to get done in the next, oh, 30 years or so, God willing. Still need to put down EVERYTHING. Allen hypothesizes that many of us don't do this because we're afraid we'll find too little in our inner lives.

Not my problem: I simply haven't sat down long enough to get it all down, or to add new data to my old list. Think I'll give myself 5 full pages and see if that works.

Not to mention a couple more hours this weekend.

And yeah, I don't need to win the Nobel for Literature, but Allen doesn't distinguish between needs and wants. Just put 'em all down. Both ultimately come under the heading "to do," and come with concomitant "next actions."

Processing refers to finding those next steps for every item on one's "To Do" list.

When deciding which to do next, you first must figure out what the actual doing looks like, a step most of us miss. Even as we begin to adopt these productivity principles, we'll miss.

But figuring out just what the next step looks like for every one of our to-dos is liberating. It makes Organizing so much easier.

Organizing what to do next is the natural next step in any process of organizing oneself for greater productivity. Seems too obvious, but most of us organize before figuring out exactly what next actions we're organizing.

Allen's insistence that we see our next actions for each goal first is what makes his principles so potentially galvanizing and liberating. Life changing. For by assessing what action attaches to each of our goals, we free our minds up to come up with our next great idea.

Don't forget to write it down then and there.

This is an idea Allen emphasizes again and again, and the focus of the first 13 principles of Ready for Anything.

Because many of us easily fall back into the modality of "Do something, anything! Just stay busy. Organize my daily "busy"-ness, sure, but perspective and reflection? Later. Tomorrow, 'at Tara'."

Which is fine as long as it gets done.

But what needs to get done, and shows the importance of the first three steps most clearly, is Reviewing your goals, next actions, and proposed order for doing them.

At least weekly.

Penelope Trunk, whose Brazen Careerist network I'm a proud member of, does it daily. I'm beginning to. But not only do the next actions get reviewed, the goals and next steps themselves are re-collected, re-assessed, reorganized and kept current, ensuring that one's most essential goals are the ones worked on first and most often.

Longer term projects are put into separate folders. They're incorporated into the big picture, because some things can't be accomplished in two minutes, Allen's plus or minus time-frame for taking immediate action on a to-do.

I give myself 2-5 minutes, because I know myself well enough to know there aren't too many things I can do in two minutes, but keeping administrivia under 5 minutes per action is a goal worth pursuing, while at the same time keeping the concomitant pressure to perform each in under 2 minutes at bay.

Cut yourself some slack. Know yourself. but make Getting Things Done in a systematic way a goal of yours.

'Cause step 5 is Do!

So do Do! your CoPORDing!

When you're really doing it everyday, trust me, you'll be very happy with your new perspective on it all.

Taking David Allen's Advice: aka Happy Birthday, Pragmatic Alternative!

52 weeks ago I began this blog.

Tonight, to celebrate the first anniversary of this blog, I’m starting a series entitled, “Taking David Allen’s Advice.”

In case you don't know, David Allen is the world's leading personal productivity expert. His book, Ready for Anything, has 52 chapters, just enough to provide a prompt for the next 52 weeks.

And I turned 52 in ’09.

And now you know . . . the rest of the story.

Page 2!

Although these 52 chapters started out as random observations, they’ve been re- arranged by Allen himself, and ORGANIZED into four parts:

1) Clear Your Head for Creativity

2) Focus Productively

3) Create Structures That Work, and

4) Relax and Get in Motion.

Chapter 1, “Cleaning Up Creates New Directions,” begins with the admonition to get your house in order.

Does he know me or something? I’ve been called everything from a hoarder to a clutterbug. Neither of these quite captures the truth, and I do own many valuable forms of media: from books to magazines, to old copies of the Washington Post. From CDs to cassettes to LPs. I’ve probably got a few old 78s lying around somewhere. OK, maybe not, but you know I’ve got 45s.

Keeping a house--or car, or desk, or any open space, really—free of extranea or “stuff” just isn’t my thing. I see open space, I see a place to put something.

Now I like the look of open space. I really do. And I like having open space--I really do. But keeping a space clear and open has long been a challenge. Realistically, it always will be. There’s always something more interesting to do than tidying up. And really the problem is much deeper than that for me: I can draw a connection from one thing to any other thing. The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but that doesn’t mean a more circuitous path doesn’t connect the two points.

We call it the scenic route.

And while I understand the organizing principle of “like with like,” thanks to my investment in Organizing for Dummies, it is never going to be a primary skill.

Yet, Allen insists that clearing the way, literally, opens the path to creativity. With the physical clearing of space comes clarity of vision, says Allen, so when you see various paths, he argues, you can quickly decide which one is best. “The more you sweat in peace,” he quotes an ancient Asian proverb, “the less you bleed in war.”

Allen suggests “cleaning up, closing up, and renegotiating all [our] agreements with [our]selves and others . . . weekly.”

Or, as I put it, “It’s not enough to think outside the box. You still need to know where the box is.”

To this end, Allen suggests using some sort of idea catching device, whether Blackberry or 3 x 5 cards (my preference).

Whatever. When ideas hit, be prepared to catch them and cage them in your idea storage device, so you can harness their power when you have more time.

Allen’s chart for information/time management is at the top of this post. Well worth printing out and keeping in front of you until it becomes second nature. Even following his guidelines 4 days out of 7 will be a big improvement for lots of people.

Or maybe that’s just me.

What about you? Are you organized to the point of anal retentiveness? Or is your style laissez-faire to the point of, “Don’t clean my space! You’ll ruin my organization!”

Whaddya think? Speak up! Weigh in! Come on, don’t be shy.

And, if I do say so myself, Happy Birthday to The Pragmatic Alternative: All of One / And we’re still not done!

PS Special birthday shout out to Penelope Trunk!

Monthly Goals for October '09

Today begins a new chapter in The Pragmatic Alternative: A very public monthly goal setting, in conjunction with Brazen Careerist's Monthly Goal Meet-Up Group.

1. Learn how to write faster! Seems I spend more time contemplating what I'm going to write, rather than writing it. Whether it's due to slow keyboards, uncomfortable desks and chairs, or merely my dyslexic typing, seems always to take minutes of contemplation, often with the best thoughts lost down the thoughtplex path.

Need to get the work done, and worry about the results later.

Better to tap, tap, tap, and dance on the keyboard, than to think about what to say.

Hopefully, I don't press publish too soon.

2. Overhaul Pragmatic Alternative. As some of my facebook friends may have noticed, I'm going to be taking Andy Wibbels's Build a Better Blog course. No, wait, that's Darren Rowse's course.

Dag! Not that Andy didn't teach Darren a thing or two, but not the point.

Andy's class is called: Using Blogs and Social Media for Instant Global Impact.

3. Build a HepCat Industries blog analagous to Wibbels's Andymatic. Develop the HepCat Industries brand through snappy funny phrasing, quippy insights, and the dry irony people have come to expect from HepCat Industries. Or will come to expect from HepCat Industries.

Remember, at HepCat Industries: If it's not funny--Don't believe it!

4. Build my Let's Play SAT! brand and blog, by regularly updating with real tips for SAT success. Not that that's the only success you'll want or need. Rather, that a little bit of practice, and a little bit of knowledge about the test and its administration go a long way toward assuaging SAT anxiety.

Treat the test like the game it is, then play to win!

5. Before I set the goal of clearing my plate of too many competing interests, I need to note the goal of regular work on my novel, Autobiography of a Young Adult. I'm lucky enough to have been paired up with a coach who I believe will get what I'm talking about, and knowing he's out there ready to encourage, critique, consider, then encourage some more is invaluable.

6. Keep these goals in the forefront each month. There may be new paths and offshoots, as plants are wont to sprout while growing, but these constants need to be reconnected with, connections made across, daily.