23 Mar 2013

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

Preview:

Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives?

The primary obstacle is a conflict that’s built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed bestseller Made to Stick. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems—the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort—but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.

In Switch, the Heaths show how everyday people—employees and managers, parents and nurses—have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results:

● The lowly medical interns who managed to defeat an entrenched, decades-old medical practice that was endangering patients.

● The home-organizing guru who developed a simple technique for overcoming the dread of housekeeping.

● The manager who transformed a lackadaisical customer-support team into service zealots by removing a standard tool of customer service

In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, a pattern you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline.

 

Narrated by:

Charles Kahlenberg

 

Link:

http://www.randomhouse.com/audio/catalog/display.php?isbn=9780739376973

 

About the Authors:

Chip Heath is a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, teaching courses on business strategy and organizations.  He is the co-author (along with his brother, Dan) of three books.  They will launch their newest book, Decisive: How to Make Better Decisions in Life and Work in March 2013.  Their 2010 book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, debuted at #1 on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists.  Their first book, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, was a New York Times and Business Week bestseller, and was an Amazon Top 10 Business Book for 2007 for both editors and readers.  Their books have been translated into 28 languages including Thai, Arabic, and Lithuanian.  Chip has consulted with clients ranging from Google and Gap to The Nature Conservancy and the American Heart Association.  His parents are just happy that their sons are playing well together.

 

Dan Heath is a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE center, which supports social entrepreneurs. He is the co-author of Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work, as well as two previous New York Times bestsellers, Switch and Made to Stick. Amazon.com’s editors named Switch one of the Best Nonfiction Books of the Year, and it spent 47 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. Made to Stick was named the Best Business Book of the Year and spent 24 months on the BusinessWeek bestseller list. Both books have been translated into over 25 languages.

Previously, Dan worked as a researcher and case writer for Harvard Business School. In 1997, Dan co-founded an innovative publishing company called Thinkwell, which continues to produce a radically reinvented line of college textbooks.

Dan has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from the Plan II Honors Program from the University of Texas at Austin. Two proud (sort of) moments for Dan are his stint driving a promotional car called the “Brainmobile” across the country and his victory in the 2005 New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest, beating out 13,000 other entrants. He lives in Raleigh, NC