Point #1. You need to buy/read this book
The subtitle of Chip and Dan Heath’s book, Switch, is “How to change things when change is hard.” I first heard this book at the willow creek leadership summit I was at last year. And after hearing a keynote address regarding this book, I knew I had to have it. It wasn’t until borders went out of business did I get the book since it’s $26 price tag was not that all appealing.
SO what do I think about this book? Well, first of all – this book would have been worth the $26 if I hadn’t got it 75% off at the Borders going out of business sale. Why?
Don’t ask me why. I thought this was something that has developed over time as I grew as a leader and grew as a reader. But after finding a grade school soliloquy I wrote entitled “Why is Change Hard?” I realized very quickly that I have always been a person open to change. And why is that? Because the belief that things can change – that things can be better than they are right now in the near future – is what motivates me to live.
Because I live life from this paradigm I often see myself at the helm of movements for change, and my experience has been that…well…it’s hard to change things when change is hard. This book has been not only VERY insightful, but very practical. Micheal Hyatt does a good job giving you the bullet points of the book here, so I’m not going to waste my time to repeat them. Instead, I’ll give you some of my favorite quotes.
- 3 Surprising things about change
- What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem
- What looks like laziness is often exhaustion
- What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity
- SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Timely) presume the emotion. In looking for a goal that reaches the Elephant – that hits people in the gut – you can’t bank on SMART goals.
- When you think about the people whose behavior needs to change, ask whether they would agree with this statement: “I aspire to be the kind of person who would make this change.”
- Everything looks like a failure in the middle [of change]
- Fundamental Attribution Error…our inclination to attribute people’s behaviors to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in.
Seriously…there is so much good stuff in this book. I highly recommend this book no matter who you are or what you do for a living. If you desire to make any difference in the world, that means change. And if you want to navigate change effectively, I believe the principals in this book are irrerplaceable.