Editor’s Note: This is the first of a new section in the Enterprise providing reviews of key business and industry books. If you have books that you think we should review, send your suggestions to chaille@ireporting.com.
What do elephants, riders and paths have to do with making difficult changes in your pallet and lumber businesses? The answer is everything according to Chip and Dan Heath, the author of the best selling business book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.
Ever since Barack Obama made “Change” his buzzword to win the 2008 presidential election many people have had “Change Overload.” Everyone seemed to talk about change, but true change is one of the hardest things to achieve in any organization. We tend to think the real problem is people when it may be the system or visa versa.
Switch looks at the strategies necessary to make difficult changes based on real-world case studies and proven principles. While this synopsis is no substitute for the entire book, it gives a snapshot at what you may want to consider to change the things you always wanted to see improve but didn’t know how to achieve.
Elephant & Rider Paradigm
If you had to cut Switch down to its basics, the authors explain change management using an elephant, rider and path analogy. The “elephant” is the emotional part of the equation that is motivated by short-term gain. The “rider” is the logical, thoughtful aspect that responds well to reasons and facts and is oriented toward long-term thinking. The “path” is the context in which both the elephant and rider function. By making sometimes even small changes to the path, you can alter the difficulty of the change making the desired response easier to activate. Both the “elephant” and “rider” need to be convinced to boost your chance of making change stick. If only one side is convinced, your success rate drops significantly.
Here’s the simple concept that Switch promotes:
1.) Direct the rider: The rider is logical and needs to be persuaded with a rational argument to change. Although it can steer the elephant, it only has limited control over it.
2.) Motivate the elephant: The elephant is the emotional side that needs to be motivated to change. It is significantly larger than the rider, and can be hard to get going.
3.) Shape the path: You have to make it obvious and easy for the rider to guide the elephant down the path you want them to travel.
Although these concepts may not make sense at first, let’s take a look at a hypothetical situation for a pallet or lumber facility. Let’s say that you want to promote the use a new database tool at your company to sync all sales, contact and production information into one place. That sounds like a logical goal that everyone should be willing to get behind. It makes sense to the “Rider” because it eliminates redundancy and reduces the likelihood of errors.
Ten percent of your employees keep track of pallet sales and production information on paper. Then there is another 35% who are accustomed to simple Excel spreadsheets. The techies in your company prefer Web-based applications and smart phones, which makes up another 15%. The remainder use a hybrid approach of the various strategies.
What seems like a simple change has quickly required a major change for lots of people. The people who prefer paper-based records may not like learning a new program or letting go of the safety blanket that a piece of paper provides. The Excel spreadsheet apologists point to how simple their strategy is because it provides a convenient, electronic record. The techies are emotionally dependent on their smart phones and mobile PCs. One of the co-owners is part of the paper crowd. The other owner is a technology pioneer. This scenario may be painfully more real than you would like to admit.
In order to make the change work, you have to appeal to the Rider by presenting a clear strategy. Then you have to understand and remove emotional barriers that would keep the Elephant from moving off the old way of doing things. And you have to shape the path to incrementally make little changes that eventually gets you to the overall goal.
Chip and Dan Heath wrote, “When change works, it tends to follow a pattern. The people who change have clear direction, ample motivation, and a supportive environment. In other words, when change works, it’s because the Rider, the Elephant, and the Path are all aligned in support of the switch.”
Beyond this basic change structure is a book full of real-world examples that give insight, provide ideas and demonstrate that hard change is indeed possible.
Here’s one of the best examples from the book. Laura Esserman was an ambitious doctor who wanted to start a breast cancer clinic in the San Francisco Bay Area. Instead of women going from place to place across town and visiting various doctors to get the care they need. Esserman had a vision to bring breast cancer care under one roof. Women were going to walk into the center in the morning, get their mammogram, and if the scan showed a growth, then they would walk out in the afternoon — that same day — with a treatment plan. The strain and anguish caused by excessive visits and waiting would make for a much better experience. This seemed like a noble goal. But it would require a significant amount of change as departments that had enjoyed significant autonomy would have to cooperate. It meant that the various departments had to find new ways to work together to make this rapid turn-around possible.
Esserman only had limited influence at her workplace. Other departments, such as the radiology and pathology departments, were very traditional, had their own way of doing things, and were also where the money flowed. Laura did what she could. She started small and allowed the success to sell the solution. She started with the clinic open one day a week and worked up to an entire floor dedicated to her dream in a new cancer center being constructed by the hospital.
But vision may not be enough if the Elephant won’t move. Switch explained, “In almost all successful change efforts, the sequence of change is not ANALYZE — THINK — CHANGE, but rather SEE-FEEL-CHANGE. You’re presented with evidence that makes you feel something. It might be a disturbing look at the problem, or a hopeful glimpse of the solution, or a sobering reflection of your current habits, but regardless, it’s something that hits you at the emotional level. It’s something that speaks to the Elephant.”
Hopefully, this review has encouraged you not to give up on the change that you know needs to take place in your company. Pick up Switch today and see how some of the ideas in it could unlock the change you know needs to take place to position your company for the future.
Table 1
Besides the rider/elephant/path paradigm, below are a number of practical suggestions from Switch.
Bright Spots
Find out what is already working and champion those areas and actions instead of focusing on what is going wrong. By replicating successes you will naturally eliminate problems.
Script the Critical Moves
Establish checklists or rules that help people move along to the change without having to make decisions. The easier is the path to change, the more likely people will walk it and not be paralyzed by indecision. Otherwise, people tend to revert back to their default behaviors.
Point to the Destination
Paint a “destination postcard” of what life will be like once the change is completed. Casting this vision will help people picture in their minds the goal they are trying to achieve.
Find the Feeling
People don’t change because they think about it. People change because they feel the need for it. Feelings and emotions are more powerful for creating change than just a logical understanding of the problem. Don’t follow a pattern of “analyze-think-change” try “see-feel-change”.
Shrink the Change
Help people feel closer to their goal than they already are. Accomplish this by breaking tasks into small components. This allows people to feel a sense of accomplishment long before the final victory is won.
Tweak the Environment
Sometimes we think we have a people problem when the real hurdle is the situation or the environment. People tend to act a certain way because of their environment, not because of some inherent personality trait. By changing the situation, even just a little, you can nudge people toward the primary goal.
Build Habits
Once the desired changes are achieved, try to turn them into a habit, which will drive continued success. You can facilitate habits by setting up triggers that remind people to do certain things or give them scripts/checklists to guide them.
Rally the Herd
Social pressure from peers is a powerful psychological force to enact change. Surround your people with others that are supportive of the change and the majority of the people in your organization will follow.
Top Quotes from Switch
“We establish a clear set of goals that are within immediate reach….When you set small visible goals, and people achieve them, they start to get it in their heads that they can succeed.” – Bill Parcells, former NFL head coach and Super Bowl winner
“We know what you’re thinking — people resist change. But it’s not quite that easy. Babies are born every day to parents who, inexplicably, welcome the change. Think about the sheer magnitude of that change! Would anyone agree to work for a boss who’d wake you up twice a night, screaming, for trivial administrative duties? (And what if, every time you wore a new piece of clothing, the boss spit up on it?) Yet people don’t resist this massive change — they volunteer for it,” wrote Chip and Dan Heath.
“Businesspeople think in two stages: You plan, and you execute. There is no ‘learning stage’ or ‘practice stage’ in the middle. From the business perspective practice looks like poor execution … but to create and sustain change, you’ve got to act more like a coach, less of a scorekeeper,” wrote Chip and Dan Heath.
“When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur…Don’t look for the quick, big improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens — and when it happens, it lasts.” – Former UCLA coach John Wooden, one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time.
“A business cliche commands us to “raise the bar.” But that’s exactly the wrong instinct if you want to motivate a reluctant Elephant. You need to lower the bar. Picture taking a high-jump bar and lowering it so far that it can be stepped over. If you want a reluctant Elephant to get moving, you need to shrink the change,” wrote Chip and Dan Heath.
“People find it more motivating to be partly finished with a longer journey than to be at the starting gate of a shorter one,” wrote Chip and Dan Heath.
