Switch

I recently finished the book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, after my CEO recommended it to me. A great book. The concepts presented aren’t terribly complex, but they are extremely useful. When it comes to changing behavior, the “switch framework” that the book presents is really about two things:

• Understanding the psychology of why people change behaviors when they do.
• And second, the framework, which categorizes the methods of enacting change into how each method will affect the target of the change psychologically.

Put these things together and you’re left with a very tangible understanding of how to go about to changing behaviors.

The neat thing about the book is that most of the methods to enact change were very simple, or almost common sense. Things that, without the framework, one could most likely figure out to do. But without that categorization and understanding of why you’re doing it and what else you need to do to support the change further, your one-off change methods are likely to fail.

To summarize the switch framework from a high level, change happens (or is most successfully set up to happen) when you do 3 things:

• Directing the Rider — doing things which affect the rational mind of a person needing to undergo change
• Motivating the Elephant — doing things that affect the emotional mind of a person needing to undergo change
• Shaping the Path — doing things to make the change behavior easier to do.

The book continues to dive deeper into this notion and gives excellent examples and specific methods to enact change.

In hindsight, I actually found that I employed this framework in order to “read” the book. After having the book recommended to me by the CEO of my company (you’d think this should be motivation enough!!), I went and got the kindle version, and with great intentions, I told my rider and elephant I was going to read this book. Unfortunately, I did not do the right things to direct my rider and motivate my elephant that made finding time to read the book a priority; other things just kept getting in the way.

So finally, I reflected a little on why I had not been able to read the book, and what I could then do to make it a task I could accomplish. To shape the path, I decided to get the Audible (audio book) version of the book and listen to it on my commute to and from work. From there, I told my rider that I wouldn’t have to sacrifice work time to read the book, he loved this idea! My elephant struggled a little with the idea of giving up my normal radio time for a while, but in return knew that I would finally be on my way to ticking this nagging item off my to-do list.

This change was an easy example. Through only one simple method I was able to enable myself to read…err listen to this book. And sometimes that’s as simple as it needs to be, but understanding why getting the audio book worked is really what makes the switch framework an invaluable methodology.