Better than it looksJuly 3, 2010 Ben Delaney(Bay Area, CA) 3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Though it looks, and reads, like your typical psycho-babble business-improvement book, the Heath Brothers have put together a bunch of ideas that can actually help you make changes -- in your life and your business.
A quick, breezy style provides some surprisingly valuable insights here. Pointing out that the Elephant (emotions) and the Rider (rational thought) are often in opposition, isn't new. But finding ways to mitigate that tension, often by simply changing the Path, provides real insight into common, often apparently intractable, problems.
I was skeptical when I received this book as part of a conference package, but picked it up on a plane; now i recommend it to friends and colleagues. If you are struggling with change in your life or organization, check out Switch.
Guiding Change EffectivelyJuly 1, 2010 James C. Jones(Largo, FL) 3 out of 3 found this review helpful
In Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, Chip Heath and Dan Heath give a road map for transforming an organization, a relationship, or a life. The techniques that they describe are equally valuable whether one is the leader of a deeply entrenched business or non-profit or a person who recognizes the need to change personal habits. To make this map clear, the Heaths employ a mix of psychology, sociology, and management science to lay out this plan.
They use the analogy (which is not original to them) of an elephant and rider to explain why we do what we do. The rider represents our intellectual/logical side and the elephant our emotional side. The rider can control the elephant for short times and under ideal circumstances, but often the elephant simply does what it wants, leaving the rider with little control over the destination. Thus, real change requires that we appeal to both the intellect and the emotion.
To guide the rider, we do well to script our responses ahead of time. We do not want to leave the rider guessing or contemplating. That only paralyzes the rider and allows the elephant to take over. To guide the elephant, we need to appeal to visuals and show that the proposed changes are not as large as the first appear. We may also be able to coax the elephant by making incremental change.
This analogy leaves out one final set of parameters which control change. We need to make the path to change as clear and unobstructed as possible. We make the right path obvious and we eliminate any roadblocks before the elephant encounters them.
The analysis here is so clear. Some of the principles may seem self-evident once they are described, but we often ignore them completely. The Heath brothers show how they can be used to direct serious change in organizations and individuals.
Another good book from Heath BrothersJune 24, 2010 Javier Zarate V(Lima, Peru) Excellent book, as Made to Stik, they provide good advice and tools to use and implement change in many fields.
Book ReviewJune 24, 2010 Department Of Health 0 out of 33 found this review helpful
The order was placed and no notice was given for one copy that was not available. Too much time elapsed and I had to initiate an inquiry for the status of that copy. Problem resolved when I ordered from another vendor.
A Wonderful BookJune 23, 2010 J. Martinsson(Israel) 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Do you ever feel like you want to change something but don't know how? If you are anything like me, this is a challenge you face daily. Luckily for us, the Heath brother has taken upon themselves to create a comprehensive framework for how to go about changing someone or something. What's even better is that they succeeded to write another great book, that lives up to the high expectations from their debut blockbuster Made to Stick.
Switch reaches Gladwellian mastery when it comes to readability and entertainment value. But the true value comes with the concrete framework for driving change. Laying out such a framework follows in the tradition of Made to Stick, and has become something of a Heath trademark. With this framework, driving change replaces the guesswork with a more methodological approach to change where the outcome can be predicted.
I enjoyed this book immensely and I expect to get as much value out of Switch as I got out of Made to Stick. I can't wait for their next book, whatever it may be.
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME.
