Student Instructions This unit describes skills and knowledge required to determine strategic change requirements and opportunities; and to develop, implement and evaluate change management strategies. It applies to managers with responsibilities that extend across the organisation or across significant parts of a large organisation. They may have a dedicated role in human resources management, human resources development, or work in a strategic policy or planning area. To achieve competency the following assessment tasks must be successfully completed in the time allocated with the essential resources. Your trainer/assessor will give you the due date to submit the assessments and provide you with feedback after assessing your work. Refer to the table below for the summary of assessment tasks for this unit: Assessment Task Number 1 Assessment Type Notes Case Study 2 Scenario/Role Play 3 Project To be completed by the due date provided by the trainer/assessor To be completed by the due date provided by the trainer/assessor To be completed by the due date provided by the trainer/assessor 1. Students will be given the Learner assessment at the beginning of the unit 2. Students may need to spend some hours outside the class hours without supervision to complete the assessments 3. All assessment tasks must be satisfactory to achieve competency in the unit 4. All the units of competency must be deemed competent to complete the qualification and obtain a certificate 5. The assessment requirement for this unit are presented clearly in the Unit of Competency located at https://training.gov.au/Training/Details/BSBINN601 6. In the Learner assessment, you must be able to: o Answer all questions o Complete all assessment tasks within the required timeframe o Complete all assessments tasks to a satisfactory standard 7. The following resources are required for this assessment:  access to appropriate documentation and resources normally used in the workplace  access to office equipment and resources  access to computer with internet and word processing software BSBINN601– Student Assessment Version 1.1 – May 2015 Southern Cross Education Institute 4 Reasonable adjustment For information on reasonable adjustment please refer to the student handbook located at: http://scei.edu.au/?page_id=45 Record of assessment outcome After all of the assessment evidence has been gathered from the assessment tasks for this unit/cluster of units of competency the Record of Assessment stating your result will be completed. Information for the Learner If you do not understand any part of the unit or the assessments you are required to undertake, please talk with your trainer/assessor. It is important that you understand all of the aspects of the learning and assessment process that you will be undertaking. This will make it easier for you to learn and be successful in your studies. BSBINN601– Student Assessment Version 1.1 – May 2015 Southern Cross Education Institute 5 Assessment Task 1 – Case Study Instructions for completion     DUE DATE You are required to read the case study provided and answer all questions that follow Assessment requirements must be typed Use of correct grammar and spelling is required to demonstrate foundational skills Use of APA referencing must be used where original sources other than your own have been used – to avoid plagiarism  Write your name, learner ID, the assessment task and the name of the unit of competency on each piece of paper you attach to this assessment document  Submit to your trainer/assessor by the due date  The trainer/assessor will inform you of the due date The due date for this task is _____________________________ Read the following case study and answer the questions that follow Margaret House, CEO of Bounce Fitness, has asked you to act as the Change Management Agent for an initiative to be undertaken nationally at Bounce Fitness Centres. You have been asked to prepare a change management project planto implement a whole-of-business change and she has committed a budget of $20,000. The Executive has recognised that the lack of standardisation of operations and the different levels of training has reduced the quality of the customer experience and potentially safety, and makes it difficult to plan for the future as each Centre currently makes many of their own decisions. Bounce Fitness is about to become registered with Fitness Australia (www.fitness.org.au) as a Fitness Australia Club Operator Member. This will require meeting the Code of Practice for the state in which each Centre is located. Bounce Fitness also wants to ensure that all trainers meet, or immediately undertake training to meet, the standards associated with Fitness Australia business registration. The registration requirements can be obtained from the Fitness Australia website at www.fitness.org.au and click the Register tab. The Codes of Practice for each state are linked on this page if you scroll down. Select the one relevant to your State. The financial consideration for this in terms of fees payable includes:  The business membership is payable as $770 for the first centre and $495 for each linked centre after that with a $99 joining fee applied to each Centre for first time membership.  Individual exercise professionals must also be registered. This is $170 + GST for two years. In the two years they are required to complete 20 CECs (continuing education credits) before renewing their registration. There is no stipulation as to trainer numbers outside those in the Code of Practice (recommending a registered exercise professional be on the gym floor during opening hours; or, where outdoor group exercise/PT is being offered where the recommended ratio is 1:18). Registered businesses complying with the Code of Practice will only employ registered exercise professionals. The minimum educational qualification currently necessary for all trainers is the Certificate III in Fitness instructing and all trainers must hold this to continue to work as a trainer of classes and individual clients. At this point in time, this has not been consistently applied. In Cairns all are qualified, in Brisbane two (2) need the basic BSBINN601– Student Assessment Version 1.1 – May 2015 Southern Cross Education Institute 6 training as well as two (2) Sydney and one (1) in Melbourne. It is intended under the change management initiative that all trainers, once they have completed the basic training will continue to pursue further training, the Certificate IV and Diploma annually as personal development. Bounce Fitness will pay for the training fees and other incidentals such as text book requirements and provide one (1) paid hour per week for study leave. Bounce Fitness will also reimburse travel and accommodation for compulsory study attendance sessions. You can get more information on this at Fitness Australia website under the Education and Training tab. It is expected that the change management process will be fairly smooth if adequate measures are taken and the process is well managed. The major resistance will come from the five (5) trainers who do not have this qualification and have learned through experience. That is why they do not have it now. They will also not want to participate in the further training initiative. If the whole standardisation process is not managed carefully, there is a potential for great dissatisfaction and all Centres will not comply with the standardised procedures. This is a major concern for the Executive, hence your employment. Based on the case study above answer the following questions: 1. Identify the needs for strategic change through analysis of strategic plans contrasted with the practices as defined in the scenario. You may prefer to use SWOT analysis but this is optional. 2. Discuss any patterns or trends in the external environment which impact on the achievement of the organisations change management objectives. 3. Identify major operational change requirements due to performance gaps, business opportunities or threats, or management decisions for this change management initiative. 4. Discuss how you will review and prioritise change requirements/opportunities with relevant managers. Conduct web research and identify the name of an external specialist or expert who can help you identify major change requirements and opportunities in this case. 5. Complete a cost benefit analysis for high priority change requirements/opportunities. 6. Complete a risk analysis, identify barriers to change and agree and document mitigation strategies. 7. From whom will you seek approval and confirm the change management process? 8. What resources will you need and how will you report to and gain information from relevant managers? 9. Develop a communication plan and discuss how you will consult with relevant groups and individuals. Do not forget that you must report to the Executive as well as communicate widely with Centre staff. 10. Develop your communication/education plan to promote the benefits of the change to the organisation, and to minimise loss, and arrange activities to deliver the communication plan to all relevant groups and individuals. 11. How will you consult with relevant groups and individuals for input to the change process after the implementation commences? 12. What barriers to change do you see as possible? Develop a risk management and mitigation plan for each. 13. In your change management plan, include action plans and activities and the project timetable. You may use a Critical Path Analysis or Gantt chart for this, but may choose to use another method. BSBINN601– Student Assessment Version 1.1 – May 2015 Southern Cross Education Institute 7 14. What are your strategies and how will you activate these for embedding the change? 15. How and when will you conduct evaluation and review, and modify your change management project plan to achieve change program objectives? What to submit for assessment 1. Change management project plan 2. Answers to questions 1 - 15 BSBINN601– Student Assessment Version 1.1 – May 2015 Southern Cross Education Institute 8 Assessment Task 2 – Scenario/Role Play Instructions for completion Due Date   Read the role play/scenario outlined below and follow the instructions All parts of this assessment must be completed and submitted to the trainer/assessor for marking by the due date  Assessment requirements must be typed (not hand written)  Use of correct grammar and spelling is required to demonstrate foundational skills  Use of APA referencing must be used where original sources other than your own have been used – to avoid plagiarism  Write your name, learner ID, the assessment task and the name of the unit of competency on each piece of paper you submit for assessment The trainer/assessor will provide a date and time for this assessment The due date is _____________________________ Part 1 You are required to implement the organisational change process by presenting the change management plan you completed in Assessment Task 1 to the staff addressing: 1. Present the needs for a strategic change through analysis of strategic plans contrasted with the practices as defined in the scenario (Assessment Task 1). You will present a SWOT analysis so the staff can see why there is a need for the change. 2. Discuss any patterns or trends in the external environment which impact on the achievement of the organisation’s change management objectives. 3. Identify major operational change requirements due to performance gaps, business opportunities or threats, or management decisions for this change management initiative. 4. Discuss how you review and prioritise change requirements/opportunities with relevant managers. The purpose of this presentation is to showcase your ability to: 1. use verbal communication skills to consult with relevant stakeholders and promote the change management plan 2. obtain acceptance of change processes 3. inspire trust and promote the implementation of the change management plan Part 2 You are required to break into groups of three or four. Working together, you are required to develop a communication plan to promote the benefits of the change to the organisation. The plan must include the following: 1. Arrange and manage activities to deliver the communication plans to the staff 2. How you would consult with relevant groups and individuals for input 3. Identify and respond to barriers to the change according to risk management plans 4. Action interventions and activities set out in project plan according to project timetable 5. Activate strategies for embedding the change 6. Identify how often you would conduct evaluation and review, and how you can modify the plan where appropriate to achieve change program objectives BSBINN601– Student Assessment Version 1.1 – May 2015 Southern Cross Education Institute 9 Part 3 You are required to prepare a 15 minute role play where you act out a scenario where you identify and respond to barriers of change within your group in front of the trainer/assessor. Your role play can be a scenario between HR Manager and staff, team leader and staff, amongst staff members, etc. The role play must include: 1. A range of barriers to change that may be displayed by employees of Bounce Fitness Centres 2. Demonstration of techniques for responding to resistance/barriers to change 3. High level interpersonal and leadership skills to obtain acceptance of change processes and to inspire trust 4. Problem-solving skills to identify and respond to barriers to the change and analyse risks What to submit for assessment 1. A copy of the change management project plan presentationincluding how you addressed each of the four requirements (Part one) 2. A communication plan (Part two) 3. A copy of the role play and a summary of how/where you addressed the four role play requirements (Part three) BSBINN601– Student Assessment Version 1.1 – May 2015 Southern Cross Education Institute 10 Assessment Task 3 – Project Instructions for completion Due Date      Read this change management assessment task and complete all the requirements Submit to the trainer/assessor by the due date Assessment tasks must be typed Use of correct grammar and spelling is required to demonstrate foundational skills Use of APA referencing must be used where original sources other than your own have been used – to avoid plagiarism  Write your name, student ID, the assessment task and the name of the unit of competency on each piece of paper you submit for assessment  The trainer/assessor inform you of the due date The due date for this task is _____________________________ You are a change management consultant that has been engaged to oversee the change management process at a newly merged financial institution. You have been sent over from headquarters to manage the organisational change at a branch office. Part One You are required to develop an organisational change management plan that: 1. discusses the strategic changes that need to be made following a merger 2. Monitor trends in the external environment to identify trends that may impact the success of the merger. You should research data from government websites, statistics affecting the industry etc., for up to date current trends affecting the financial industry today 3. look at potential/hypothetical operational change requirements following the merger 4. list the change requirements in order of importance This plan should be written with the financial institution’s Board of Directors in mind as you will have to present this plan to them. Once approved, you will have to develop and implement this change management strategy. Part Two 1. Develop a communication/education plan to promote the benefits of the change to the organisation. The plan should aim to minimise loss and focus in implementing the strategy to bring the two companies together. 2. You should also prepare a draft schedule of activities as a platform from which you can deliver the communication/education plan to all relevant groups and individuals in the financial institutions. BSBINN601– Student Assessment Version 1.1 – May 2015 Southern Cross Education Institute 11 Part Three Answer the following questions related to your change management project plan and communication/education plan you developed in Parts One and Two. 1. How will you consult with relevant groups and individuals for input to the change process before and after the implementation commences? 2. What barriers to the change do you see as possible? Develop a risk management and mitigation plan for each. 3. How would you action interventions and activities set out in project plan according to project timeline? 4. How will you activate the strategy and start the process for change? 5. How and when will you conduct evaluation and review? When would you modify the change management project plan to achieve change program objectives? What to submit for assessment 1. 2. 3. 4. A copy of the change management project plan (Part one) A communication or education plan (Part two) A draft schedule of activities (Part two) Answers to questions one to five (Part three) BSBINN601– Student Assessment Version 1.1 – May 2015 Southern Cross Education Institute 12 CHIP HEATH THE BESTSELLING AUTHORS $26.00 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 con­ trol. 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 (see page 242) • The home-organizing guru who developed a simple technique for overcoming the dread of housekeeping (see page 130) • The manager who transformed a lackadaisi­ cal customer-support team into service zealots by removing a standard tool of customer service (see page 199) In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterin­ tuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can (continul!d on back flap) (continu.dfromfrontj/Ap) effect transformative change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, a pat­ tern you can use to make the changes that mat­ ter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline. CHIP HEATH is a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He lives in Los Gatos, California. DAN HEATH is a senior fellow at Duke University's Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneur­ ship (CASE). Previously, he was a researcher and case writer at Harvard Business School, as well as the cofounder of a college textbook publishing firm called Thinkwell. Dan lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Heath broth­ ers write a monthly column for Fast Company magazine. www.heathbrothers.com Also available as an eBook and on audio from Random House Jackel design: w. G. COOKMAN Jacket phOiograph: JEFFREY COOLIDGE/GETTY IMAGES Author phorogrlliph: AMY SURDACKI Broadway Books New York· 2/10 'NWW.broadwaybusinessbooks.com Printed in the U.S.A. SWITCH H OW TO CH ANGE T H INGS WHEN CH ANGE IS H ARQ CHIP HEATH and DAN HEATH Broadway Books New York Copyright © 2010 by Chip Heath and Dan Heath All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.crownpublishing.com BROADWAY BOOKS and the Broadway Books colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heath, Chip. Switch: how to change things when change is hard / Chip Heath and Dan Heath.-lst ed. l. Change (Psychology) I. Heath, Dan, 1973-11. Title. BF637.C4H43 201O 303.4-dc22 2009027814 ISBN 978-0-385-52875-7 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition C o ntents 1 . Three Surprises About Change D I R E C T T H E R I DE R 2. Find the Bright Spots 27 3. Script the Critical Moves 49 4. Point to the Destination 73 M OT I VA T E T H E ELEP H A NT 5. Find the Feeling 1 01 6. Shrink the Change 1 24 7. Grow Your People 1 49 S H APE T H E PA T H 8. Tweak the Environment 9. Build Habits 1 0. Rally the Herd 1 79 203 225 11. Keep the Switch Going 250 1 How to Make a Switch 259 Overcoming Obstacles 261 Next Steps 265 Recommendations for Additional Reading Notes 269 Acknowledgments Index 295 293 267 1 Three Surprises About Change 1. One Saturday in 2000, some unsuspecting moviegoers showed up at a suburban theater in Chicago to catch a 1 :05 p.m. mati­ nee of Mel Gibson's action flick Payback. They were handed a soft drink and a free bucket of popcorn and were asked to stick around after the movie to answer a few questions about the con­ cession stand. These movie fans were unwitting participants in a study of irrational eating behavior. There was something unusual about the popcorn they re­ ceived. It was wretched. In fact, it had been carefully engineered to be wretched. It had been popped five days earlier and was so stale that it squeaked when you ate it. One moviegoer later com­ pared it to Styrofoam packing peanuts, and two others, forgetting that they'd received the popcorn for free, demanded their money back. Some of them got their free popcorn in a medium-size bucket, 2 T hr e e S u r p r i s e s A b o u t C h a n g e and others got a large bucket-the sort of huge tub that looks like it might once have been an above-ground swimming pool. Every person got a bucket so there'd be no need to share. The re­ searchers responsible for the study were interested in a simple question: Would the people with bigger buckets eat more? Both buckets were so big that none of the moviegoers could finish their individual portions. So the actual research question was a bit more specific: Would somebody with a larger inex­ haustible supply of popcorn eat more than someone with a smaller inexhaustible supply? The sneaky researchers weighed the buckets before and after the movie, so they were able to measure precisely how much pop­ corn each person ate. The results were stunning: People with the large buckets ate 53 percent more popcorn than people with the medium size. That's the equivalent of 1 73 more calories and ap­ proximately 21 extra hand-dips into the bucket. Brian Wansink, the author of the study, runs the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, and he described the results in his book Mindless Eating: "We've run other popcorn studies, and the results were always the same, however we tweaked the details. It didn't matter if our moviegoers were in Pennsylvania, Illinois, or Iowa, and it didn't matter what kind of movie was showing; all of our popcorn studies led to the same conclusion. People eat more when you give them a bigger container. Period." No other theory explains the behavior. These people weren't eating for pleasure. (The popcorn was so stale it squeaked!) They weren't driven by a desire to finish their portion. (Both buckets were too big to finish.) It didn't matter whether they were hungry or full. The equation is unyielding: Bigger container = more eating. Best of all, people refused to believe the results. After the movie, the researchers told the moviegoers about the two bucket sizes and the findings of their past research. The researchers asked, IJlrll::1I:: �url',,:atc::a HUUU' "'IIGII!lC' Do you think you ate more because of the larger size? The ma­ jority scoffed at the idea, saying, "Things like that don't trick me," or, "I'm pretty good at knowing when I'm full." W hoops. 2. Imagine that someone showed you the data from the popcorn­ eating study but didn't mention the bucket sizes. On your data summary, you could quickly scan the results and see how much popcorn different people ate-some people ate a little, some ate a lot, and some seemed to be testing the physical limits of the human stomach. Armed with a data set like that, you would find it easy to jump to conclusions. Some people are Reasonable Snack­ ers, and others are Big Gluttons. A public-health expert, studying that data alongside you, would likely get very worried about the Gluttons. "We need to mo­ tivate these people to adopt healthier snacking behaviors! Let's find ways to show them the health hazards ofeating so much! But wait a second. If you want people to eat less popcorn, the solution is pretty simple: Give them smaller buckets. You don't have to worry about their knowledge or their attitudes. You can see how easy it would be to turn an easy change prob­ lem (shrinking people's buckets) into a hard change problem (convincing people to think differently) . And that's the first sur­ prise about change: What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. 3. This is a book to help you change things. We consider change at every level-individual, organizational, and societal. Maybe you 4 T h r e e S u r p r i s e s A b o u t C h a n ge want to help your brother beat his gambling addiction. Maybe you need your team at work to act more frugally because of mar­ ket conditions. Maybe you wish more of your neighbors would bike to work. Usually these topics are treated separately-there is "change management" advice for executives and "self-help" advice for in­ dividuals and "change the world" advice for activists. That's a shame, because all change efforts have something in common: For anything to change, someone has to start acting differently. Your brother has got to stay out of the casino; your employees have got to start booking coach fares. Ultimately, all change ef­ forts boil down to the same mission: Can you get people to start behaving in a new way? We know what you're thinking-people resist change. But it's not quite that easy. Babies are born every day to parents who, in­ explicably, welcome the change. Think about the sheer magni­ tude 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 cloth­ ing, the boss spit up on it?) Yet people don't resist this massive change-they volunteer for it. In our lives, we embrace lots of big changes-not only ba­ bies, but marriages and new homes and new technologies and new job duties. Meanwhile, other behaviors are maddeningly in­ tractable. Smokers keep smoking and kids grow fatter and your husband can't ever seem to get his dirty shirts into a hamper. So there are hard changes and easy changes. What distin­ guishes one from the other? In this book, we argue that success­ ful changes share a common pattern. They require the leader of the change to do three things at once. We've already mentioned one of those three things: To change someone's behavior, you've got to change that person's situation. ,"ree :Jurprl5e5 ADOUt "nange The situation isn't the whole game, of course. You can send an alcoholic to rehab, where the new environment will help him go dry. But what happens when he leaves and loses that influence? You might see a boost in productivity from your sales reps when the sales manager shadows them, but what happens afterward when the situation returns to normal? For individuals' behavior to change, you've got to influence not only their environment but their heartS and minds. The problem is this: Often the heart and mind disagree. Fer­ vently. 4. Consider the Clocky, an alarm clock invented by an MIT stu­ dent, Gauri Nanda. It's no ordinary alarm clock-it has wheels. You set it at night, and in the morning when the alarm goes off, it rolls off your nightstand and scurries around the room, forcing you to chase it down. Picture the scene: You're crawling around the bedroom in your underwear, stalking and cursing a runaway clock. Clocky ensures that you won't snooze-button your way to di­ saster. And apparently that's a common fear, since about 35,000 units were purchased, at $50 each, in Clocky's first two years on the market (despite minimal marketing). The success of this invention reveals a lot about human psy­ chology. What it shows, fundamentally, is that we are schizo­ phrenic. Part of us-our rational side-wants to get up at 5:45 a.m., allowing ourselves plenty of time for a quick jog before we leave for the office. The other part of us-the emotional side­ wakes up in the darkness of the early morning, snoozing inside a warm cocoon of sheets and blankets, and wants nothing in the world so much as a few more minutes of sleep. If, like us, your 6 Three Surprises About Change emotional side tends to win these internal debates, then you might be a potential Clocky customer. The beauty of the device is that it allows your rational side to outsmart your emotional side. It's simply impossible to stay cuddled up under the covers when a rogue alarm clock is rolling around your room. Let's be blunt here: Clocky is not a product for a sane species. If Spock wants to get up at 5:45 a.m., he'll just get up. No drama required. Our built-in schizophrenia is a deeply weird thing, but we don't think much about it because we're so used to it. When we kick off a new diet, we toss the Cheetos and Oreos out of the pantry, because our rational side knows that when our emotional side gets a craving, there's no hope of self-control. The only op­ tion is to remove the temptation altogether. (For the record, some MIT student will make a fortune designing Cheetos that scurry away from people when they're on a diet.) The unavoidable conclusion is this: Your brain isn't of one mind. The conventional wisdom in psychology, in fact, is that the brain has two independent systems at work at all times. First, there's what we called the emotional side. It's the part of you that is instinctive, that feels pain and pleasure. Second, there's the ra­ tional side, also known as the reflective or conscious system. It's the part of you that deliberates and analyzes and looks into the future. In the past few decades, psychologists have learned a lot about these two systems, but of course mankind has always been aware of the tension. Plato said that in our heads we have a rational charioteer who has to rein in an unruly horse that "barely yields to horsewhip and goad combined." Freud wrote about the selfish id and the conscientious superego (and also about the ego, which T h r e e S u r p r i s e s A b o u t C ha n g e 8 plan, to think beyond the moment (all those things that your pet can't do). But what may surprise you is that the Elephant also has enor­ mous strengths and that the Rider has crippling weaknesses. The Elephant isn't always the bad guy. Emotion is the Elephant's turf-love and compassion and sympathy and loyalty. That fierce instinct you have to protect your kids against harm-that's the Elephant. That spine-stiffening you feel when you need to stand up for yourself-that's the Elephant. And even more important if you're contemplating a change, the . Elephant is the one who gets things done. To make progress toward a goal, whether it's noble or crass, requires the energy and drive of the Elephant. And this strength is the mirror image of the Rider's great weakness: spinning his wheels. The Rider tends to overana­ lyze and overthink things. Chances are, you know people with Rider problems: your friend who can agonize for twenty minutes about what to eat for dinner; your colleague who can brainstorm about new ideas for hours but can't ever seem to make a decision. If you want to change things, you've got to appeal to both. The Rider provides the planning and direction, and the Elephant provides the energy. So if you reach �he Riders of your team but not the Elephants, team members will have understanding with­ out motivation. If you reach their Elephants but not their Riders, they'll have passion without direction. In both cases, the flaws can be paralyzing . A reluctant Elephant and a wheel-spinning Rider can both ensure that nothing changes. But when Elephants and Riders move together, change can come easily. 5. When Rider and Elephant disagree about which way to move, you've got a problem. The Rider can get his way temporarily-he Thr e e S u r p r i s e s A b o u t C h a n g e 9 can tug on the reins hard enough to get the Elephant to submit. (Anytime you use willpower you're doing exactly that.) But the Rider can't win a tug-of-war with a huge animal for long. He sim­ ply gets exhausted. To see this point more clearly, consider the behavior of some college students who participated in a study about "food perception" (or so they were told). They reported to the lab a bit hungry; they'd been asked not to eat for at least three hours beforehand. They were led to a room that smelled amazing­ the researchers had just baked chocolate-chip cookies. On a table in the center of the room were two bowls. One held a sampling of chocolates, along with the warm, fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies they'd smelled. The other bowl held a bunch of radishes. The researchers had prepped a cover story: We've selected chocolates and radishes because they have highly distinctive tastes. Tomorrow, we'll contact you and ask about your memory of the taste sensations you experienced while eating them. Half the participants were asked to eat two or three cookies and some chocolate candies, but no radishes. The other half were asked to eat at least two or three radishes, but no cookies. While they ate, the researchers left the room, intending, rather sadisti­ cally, to induce temptation: They wanted those poor radish-eaters to sit there, alone, nibbling on rabbit food, glancing enviously at the fresh-baked cookies. (It probably goes without saying that the cookie-eaters experienced no great struggle in resisting the rad­ ishes.) Despite the temptation, all participants ate what they were asked to eat, and none of the radish-eaters snuck a cookie. That's willpower at work. At that point, the "taste study" was officially over, and another group of researchers entered with a second, supposedly unrelated study: We're trying to find who's better at solving problems, Th r e e S u r p r i s e s A b o u t Cha n ge 10 college students or high school students. This framing was in­ tended to get the college students to puff out their chests and take the forthcoming task seriously. The college students were presented with a series of puzzles that required them to trace a complicated geometric shape without re­ tracing any lines and without lifting their pencils from the paper. They were given multiple sheets of paper so they could try over and over. In reality, the puzzles were designed to be unsolvable. The researchers wanted to see how long the college students would persist in a difficult, frustrating task before they finally gave up. The "untempted" students, who had not had to resist eating the chocolate-chip cookies, spent nineteen minutes on the task, making thirty-four well-intentioned attempts to solve the prob­ lem. The radish-eaters were less persistent. They gave up after only eight minutes-less that:I half the time spent by the cookie­ eaters-and they managed only nineteen solution attempts. Why did they quit so easily? The answer may surprise you: They ran out of self·control. In studies like this one, psychologists have discovered .that self­ control is an exhaustible resource. It's like doing bench presses at the gym. The first one is easy, when your muscles are fresh. But with each additional repetition, your muscles get more exhausted, until you can't lift the bar again. The radish-eaters had drained their self-control by resisting the cookies. So when their Ele­ its too hard, it's nofun, we're no good at this-their Riders didn't have phants, inevitably, started complaining about the puzzle task - enough strength to yank on the reins for more than eight min­ utes. Meanwhile, the cookie-eaters had a fresh, untaxed Rider, who fought off the Elephant for nineteen minutes. Self-control is an exhaustible resource. This is a crucial realiza­ tion, because when we talk about "self-control," we don't mean Thr e e S urp r i s e s A b o u t C h a n g e 11 the narrow sense of the word, as in the willpower needed to fight vice (smokes, cookies, alcohol) . We're talking about a broader kind of self-supervision. Think of the way your mind works when you're giving negative feedback to an employee, or assembling a new bookshelf, or learning a new dance. You are careful and de­ liberate with your words or movements. It feels like there's a su­ pervisor on duty. That's self-control, too. Contrast that with all the situations in which your behavior doesn't feel "supervised"-for instance, the sensation while you're driving that you can't remember the last few miles of road, or the easy, unthinking way you take a shower or make your morning coffee. Much of our daily behavior, in fact, is more automatic than supervised, and that's a good thing because the supervised behavior is the hard stuff. It's draining. Dozens of studies have demonstrated the exhausting nature of self-supervision. For instance, people who were asked to make tricky choices and trade-offs-such as setting up a wedding reg­ istry or ordering a new computer-were worse at focusing and solving problems than others who hadn't made the tough choices. In one study, some people were asked to restrain their emotions while watching a sad movie about sick animals. Afterward, they exhibited less physical endurance than others who'd let the tears flow freely. The research shows that we burn up self-control in a wide variety of situations: managing the impression we're making on others; coping with fears; controlling our spending; trying to focus on simple instructions such as "Don't think of a white bear"; and many, many others. Here's why this matters for change: When people try to change things, they're usually tinkering with behaviors that have become automatic, and changing those behaviors requires care­ ful supervision by the Rider. The bigger the change you're sug­ gesting, the more it will sap people's self-control. Thr e e S u r p r i s e s A b o u t C h a n g e 12 And when people exhaust their self-control, what they're ex­ hausting are the mental muscles needed to think creatively, to focus, to inhibit their impulses, and to persist in the face of frus­ tration or failure. In other words, they're exhausting precisely the mental muscles needed to make a big change. So when you hear people say that change is hard because peo­ ple are lazy or resistant, that's j ust Rat wrong. In fact, the oppo­ site is true: Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that's the second surprise about change: What looks like lazi­ ness is often exhaustion. 6. Jon Stegner believed the company he worked for, a large manu­ facturer, was wasting vast sums of money. "I thought we had an opportunity to drive down purchasing costs not by 2 percent but by something on the order of $1 billion over the next five years, " said Stegner, who i s quoted i n John Kotter and Dan Cohen's es­ sential book The Heart ofChange. To reap these savings, a big process shift would be required, and for that shift to occur, Stegner knew that he'd have to con­ vince his bosses. He also knew that they'd never embrace such a big shift unless they believed in the opportunity, and for the most part, they didn't. Seeking a compelling example of the company's poor pur­ chasing habits, Stegner assigned a summer student intern to in­ vestigate a single item-work gloves, which workers in most of the company's factories wore. The student embarked on a mission to identify all the types of gloves used in all the company's facto­ ries and then trace back what the company was paying for them. The intrepid intern soon reported that the factories were Thr e e S u r p r ises A b o u t Cha n g e 13 purchasing 424 different kinds of gloves! Furthermore, they were using different glove suppliers, and they were all negotiating their own prices. The same pair of gloves that cost $5 at one factory might cost $17 at another. At Stegner's request, the student collected a specimen of every one of the 424 different types of gloves and tagged each with the price paid. Then all the gloves were gathered up, brought to the boardroom, and piled up on the conference table. Stegner invited all the division presidents to come visit the Glove Shrine. He re­ called the scene: What they saw was a large expensive table, normally clean or with a few papers, now stacked high with gloves. Each of our executives stared at this display for a minute. Then each said something like, "We really buy all these different kinds of gloves?" Well, as a matter of fact, yes we do. "Really?" Yes, really. Then they walked around the table .. . . They could see the prices. They looked at two gloves that seemed exactly alike, yet one was marked $3.22 and the other $10.5 5. It's a rare event when these people don't have anything to say. But that day, they just stood with their mouths gaping. The gloves exhibit soon became a traveling road show, visit­ ing dozens of plants. The reaction was visceral: This is crazy. We're crazy. And we've got to make sure this stops happening. Soon Steg­ ner had exactly the mandate for change that he'd sought. The company changed its purchasing process and saved a great deal of money. This was exactly the happy ending everyone wanted (ex­ cept, of course, for the glove salesmen who'd managed to sell the $5 gloves for $17). Th re e 5 u rp ri5e5 About eh a n 9 e 14 7. Let's be honest: Most of us would not have tried what Stegner did. It would have been so easy, so natural, to make a presenta­ tion that spoke only to the Rider. Think of the possibilities: the spreadsheets, the savings data, the cost-cutting protocols, the rec­ ommendations for supplier consolidation, the exquisite logic for central purchasing. You could have created a 12-tabbed Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that would have made a tax accountant weep with joy. But instead of doing any of that, Stegner dumped a bunch of gloves on a table and invited his bosses to see them. If there is such a thing as white-collar courage, surely this was an instance. Stegner knew that if things were going to change, he had to get his colleagues' Elephants on his side. If he had made an ana­ lytical appeal, he probably would have gotten some supportive nods, and the execs might have requested a follow-up meeting six weeks later (and then rescheduled it). The analytical case was compelling-by itself, it might have convinced Stegner's col­ leagues that overhauling the purchasing system would be an im­ portant thing to do . . . next year. Remember that if you reach your colleagues' Riders but not their Elephants, they will have direction without motivation. Maybe their Riders will drag the Elephant down the road for a while, but as we've seen, that effort can't last long. Once you break through to feeling, though, things change. Stegner delivered a jolt to his colleagues. First, they thought to themselves, were crazy! Then they thought, we canfix this. Every­ one could think of a few things to try to fix the glove problem­ and by extension the ordering process as a whole. That got their Elephants fired up to move. We don't expect potential billion-dollar change stories to come dressed up like this. The change effort was led by a single employee, T h r e e S u r p ris es A b out C h a n g e 15 with the able help of a summer intern. I t focused on a single prod­ uct. The scope of the presentation didn't correspond in any way to the scope of the proposal. Yet Stegner's strategy worked. That's the power of speaking to both the Rider and the Elephant. 8. � It's tru that an unmotivated Elephant can doom a change effort, but let's not forget that the Rider has his own issues. He's a navel­ gazer, an analyzer, a wheel-spinner. If the Rider isn't sure exactly what direction to go, he tends to lead the Elephant in circles. And as we'll see, that tendency explains the third and final surprise about change: What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. Two health researchers, Steve Booth-Butterfield and Bill Reger, professors at West Virginia University, were contemplating ways to persuade people to eat a healthier diet. From past re­ search, they knew that people were more likely to change when the new behavior expected of them was crystal clear, but unfor­ tunately, "eating a healthier diet" was anything but. Where to begin? Which foods should people stop (or start) eating? Should they change their eating behavior at breakfast, lunch, or dinner? At home or in restaurants? The number ofways to "eat healthier" is limitless, especially given the starting place of the average American diet. This is exactly the kind of situation in which the Rider will spin his wheels, analyzing and agonizing and never moving forward. As the two researchers brainstormed, their thoughts kept coming back to milk. Most Americans drink milk, and we all know that milk is a great source of calcium. But milk is also the single largest source of saturated fat in the typical American's diet. In fact, calculations showed something remarkable: IfAmericans Three S urprises About Change 16 switched from whole milk to skim or 1 % milk, the average diet would immediately attain the USDA recommended levels of sat­ urated fat. How do you get Americans to start drinking low-fat milk? You make sure it shows up in their refrigerators. And that isn't an entirely facetious answer. People will drink whatever is around the house-a family will plow through low-fat milk as fast as whole milk. So, in essence, the problem was even easier than an­ ticipated: You don't need to change drinking behavior. You need to change purchasing behavior. Suddenly the intervention became razor-sharp. What behav­ ior do we want to change? We want consumers to buy skim or 1 % milk. When? When they're shopping for groceries. Where? Duh. What else needs to change? Nothing (for now). Reger and Booth-Butterfield launched a campaign in two communities in West Virginia, running spots on the local media outlets (Tv; newspaper, radio) for two weeks. In contrast to the bland messages of most public-health campaigns, the 1 % milk campaign was punchy and specific. One ad trumpeted the fact that one glass of whole milk has the same amount of saturated fat as five strips of bacon! At a press conference, the researchers showed local reporters a tube full of fat-the equivalent of the amount found in a half-gallon of whole milk. (Notice the Ele­ phant appeals: They're going for an "Oh, gross!" reaction.) Reger and Booth-Butterfield monitored milk sales data at all eight stores in the intervention area. Before the campaign, the market share of low-fat milk was 1 8 percent. After the campaign, it was 41 percent. Six months later, it held at 35 percent. This brings us to the final part of the pattern that character­ izes successful changes: If you want people to change, you must provide crystal-clear direction. By now, you can understand the reason this is so important: T h r e e S u r p ris es A b o u t C h a n g e 17 It's so the Rider doesn't spin his wheels. If you tell people to "act healthier," think of how many ways they can interpret that­ imagine their Riders contemplating the options endlessly. (Do I eat more grains and less meat? Or vice versa? Do I start taking vi­ tamins? Would it be a good trade-off if! exercise more and bribe myself with ice cream? Should I switch to Diet Coke, or is the ar­ tificial sweetener worse than the calories?) What looks like resistance is often a lack ofclarity. Before this study, we might have looked at these West Virginians and con­ cluded they were the kind of people who don't care about their health. But if they were indeed "that kind" of people, why was it so easy to shift their behavior? If you want people to change, you don't ask them to "act healthier." You say, "Next time you're in the dairy aisle of the gro­ cery store, reach for a jug of 1 % milk instead of whole milk." 9. Now you've had a glimpse of the basic three-part framework we will unpack i n this book, one that can guide you in any situation where you need to change behavior: • Direct the Rider. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction. (Think 1 % milk.) • Motivate the Elephant. What looks like laziness is often exhaustion. The Rider can't g�t his way by force for very long. So it's critical that you engage people's emo­ tional side-get their Elephants on the path and cooper­ ative. (Think of the cookies and radishes study and the boardroom conference table full of gloves.) Three S urprises About Change 18 • Shape the Path. What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. We call the situation (includ­ ing the surrounding environment) the "Path." When you shape the Path, you make change more likely, no matter what's happening with the Rider and Elephant. (Think of the effect of shrinking movie popcorn buckets.) We created this framework to be useful for people who don't have scads of authority or resources. Some people can get their way by fiat. CEOs, for instance, can sell off divisions, hire peo­ ple, fire people, change incentive systems, merge teams, and so on. Politicians can pass laws or impose punishments to change be­ havior. The rest of us don't have these tools (though, admittedly, they would make life easier: "Son, if you don't take out the trash tonight, you're fired") . In this book, we don't talk a lot about these structural methods. As helpful as we hope this framework will be to you, we're well aware, and you should be, too, that this framework is no panacea. For one thing, it's incomplete. We've deliberately left out lots of great thinking on change in the interests of creating a framework that's simple enough to be practical. For another, there's a good reason why change can be difficult: The world doesn't always want what you want. You want to change how others are acting, but they get a vote. You can cajole, influence, inspire, and motivate­ but sometimes an employee would rather lose his job than move out of his comfortable routines. Sometimes the alcoholic will want another drink no matter what the consequences. . So we don't promise that we're going to make change easy, but at least we can make it easier. Our goal is to teach you a frame­ work, based on decades of scientific research, that is simple enough to remember and flexible enough to use in many differ­ ent situations-family, work, community, and otherwise. T h ree 5 u r p rj 5 e 5 A b o u t e h a n 9 e 19 To change behavior, you've got to direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path. If you can do all three at once, dramatic change can happen even if you don't have lots of power or resources behind you. For proof of that, we don't need to look beyond Donald Berwick, a man who changed the face of health care. 1 0. In 2004, Donald Berwick, a doctor and the CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), had some ideas about how to save lives-massive numbers of lives. Researchers at the IHI had analyzed patient care with the kinds of analytical tools used to assess the quality of cars coming off a production line. They dis­ covered that the "defect" rate in health care was as high as 1 in 10-meaning, for example, that 10 percent of patients did not receive their antibiotics in the specified time. This was a shock­ ingly high defect rate-many other industries had managed to achieve performance at levels of 1 error in 1 ,000 cases (and often far better). Berwick knew that the high medical defect rate meant that tens of thousands of patients were dying every year, unnecessarily. Berwick's insight was that hospitals could benefit from the same kinds of rigorous process improvements that had worked in other industries. Couldn't a transplant operation be "produced" as consistently and flawlessly as a Toyota Camry? Berwick's ideas were so well supported by research that they were essentially indisputable, yet little was happening. He certainly had no ability to force any changes on the industry. IHI had only seventy-five employees. But Berwick wasn't deterred. On December 14, 2004, he gave a speech to a room full of 20 T h r e e 5 u r p rj 5 e 5 A b o u t e h a n 9 e hospital administrators at a large industry convention. He said, "Here is what I think we should do. I think we should save 100,000 lives. And I think we should do that by June 14, 200� 18 months from today. Some is not a number; soon is not a time. Here's the number: 100,000. Here's the time: June 14, 200�9 a.m." The crowd was astonished. The goal was daunting. But Berwick was quite serious about his intentions. He and his tiny team set out to do the impossible. IHI proposed six very specific interventions to save lives. For instance, one asked hospitals to adopt a set of proven procedures for managing patients on ventilators, to prevent them from get­ ting pneumonia, a common cause of unnecessary death. (One of the procedures called for a patient's head to be elevated between 30 and 45 degrees, so that oral secretions couldn't get into the windpipe.) Of course, all hospital administrators agreed with the goal to save lives, but the road to that goal was filled with obstacles. For one thing, for a hospital to reduce its "defect rate," it had to ac­ knowledge having a defect rate. In other words, it had to admit that some patients were dying needless deaths. Hospital lawyers were not keen to put this admission on record. Berwick knew he had to address the hospitals' squeamish­ ness about admitting error. At his December 14 speech, he was joined by the mother of a girl who'd been killed by a medical error. She said, 'Tm a little speechless, and I'm a little sad, be­ cause I know that if this campaign had been in place four or five years ago, that Josie would be fine . . . . But, I'm happy, I'm thrilled to be part of this, because I know you can do it, because you have to do it." Another guest on stage, the chair of the North Carolina State Hospital Association, said: "An awful lot of people for a long time Three S urprises About Change 21 have had their heads in the sand on this issue, and it's time to do the right thing. It's as simple as that." IHI made joining the campaign easy: It required only a one­ page form signed by a hospital CEO. By two months after Berwick's speech, over a thousand hospitals had enrolled. Once a hospital enrolled, the IHI team helped the hospital embrace the new interventions. Team members provided research, step-by­ step instruction guides, and training. They arranged conference calls for hospital leaders to share their victories and struggles with one another. They encouraged hospitals with early successes to become "mentors" to hospitals just joining the campaign. The friction in the system was substantial. Adopting the IHI interventions required hospitals to overcome decades' worth of habits and routines. Many doctors were irritated by the new pro­ cedures, which they perceived as constricting. But the adopting hospitals were seeing dramatic results, and their visible successes attracted more hospitals to join the campaign. Eighteen months later, at the exact moment he'd promised to return-June 14,2006, at 9 a.m.-Berwick took the stage again to announce the results: "Hospitals enrolled in the 100,000 Lives Campaign have collectively prevented an estimated 122,300 avoidable deaths and, as importantly, have begun to institution­ alize new standards of care that will continue to save lives and improve health outcomes into the future." The crowd was euphoric. Don Berwick, with his 75-person team at IHI, had convinced thousands of hospitals to change their behavior, and collectively, they'd saved 122,300 lives-the equivalent of throwing a life preserver to every man, woman, and child in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This outcome was the fulfillment of the vision Berwick had articulated as he closed his speech eighteen months earlier, about Three 5 u 22 r p r i s e s A b o u t e h a ng e how the world would look when hospitals achieved the 1 00,000 lives goal: And, we will celebrate. Starting with pizza, and ending with champagne. We will celebrate the importance of what we have undertaken to do, the courage of hon­ esty, the joy of companionship,the cleverness of a field operation, and the results we will achieve. We will cel­ ebrate ourselves, because the patients whose lives we save cannot join us, because their names can never be known. Our contribution will be what did not happen to them. And, though they are unknown, we will know that mothers and fathers are at graduations and wed­ dings they would have missed, and that grandchildren will know grandparents they might never have known, and holidays will be taken, and work completed, and books read,and symphonies heard, and gardens tended that, without our work, would have been only beds of weeds. 11. Big changes can happen. Don Berwick and his team catalyzed a change that saved 1 00,000 lives, yet Berwick himself wielded no power. He couldn't change the law. He couldn't fire hospital leaders who didn't agree with him. He couldn't pay bonuses to hospitals that accepted his proposals. Berwick had the same tools the rest of us have. First, he di­ rected his audience's Riders. The destination was crystal clear: Some is not a number; soon is not a time. Here's the number: T h r e e S u r p rj 5 e 5 A b o u t e h a n 9 e 23 1 00,000. Here's the time: June 1 4, 2006-9 a.m. But that wasn't enough. He had to help hospitals figure out how to get there, and he couldn't simply say, "Try harder." (Remember "act healthier" versus "buy 1 % milk.") So he proposed six specific interventions, such as elevating the heads of patients on ventilators, that were known to save lives. By staying laser-focused on these six inter­ ventions, Berwick made sure not to exhaust the Riders of his au­ dience with endless behavioral changes. Second, he motivated his audience's Elephants. He made them feel the need for change. Many of the people in the audience already knew the facts, but knowing was not enough. (Remem­ ber, knowing wasn't enough for executives at Jon Stegner's com­ pany. It took a stack of gloves to get their Elephants engaged.) Berwick had to get beyond knowing, so he brought his audience face-to-face with the mother of the girl who'd been killed by a medical error: "I know that if this campaign had been in place four or five years ago, that Josie would be fine." Berwick was also careful to motivate the people who hadn't been in the room for his presentation. He didn't challenge people to "overhaul medi­ cine" or "brillg TQM to health care." He challenged them to save 1 00,000 lives. That speaks to anyone's Elephant. Third, he shaped the Path. He made it easier for the hospitals to embrace the change. Think of the one-page enrollment form, the step-by-step instructions, the training, the support groups, the mentors. He was designing an environment that made it more likely for hospital administrators to reform. Berwick also knew that behavior was contagious. He used peer pressure to persuade hospitals to join the campaign. (Your rival hospital across town just signed on to help save 100, 000 lives. Do you really want them to have the moral high ground?) He also connected people-he matched up people who were struggling to implement the changes with people who had mastered them, almost like the "mentors" found 24 T h r e e 5 u r p rj 5 e 5 A b o u t e ha n 9 e in Alcoholics Anonymous. Berwick was creating a support group for health care reform. In this book, you'll learn about people like Berwick who've created sweeping change despite having few resources and little structural authority. You'll learn about an entrepreneur who saved his small company by turning his skeptical employees into customer-service zealots; a student fresh out of college who saved an endangered species from extinction; a manager who plotted a way to get his colleague to stop acting like a jerk; and a therapist who reformed a group of child abusers. Whether the switch you seek is in your family, in your char­ ity, in your organization, or in society at large,you'll get there by making three things happen. You'll direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path. DIRECT TH E RIDER , " , DIRECT THE RIDER , , 2 Find the Bright Spots 1. In 1990, Jerry Sternin was working for Save the Children, the in­ ternational organization that helps children in need. He'd been asked to open a new office in Vietnam. The government had in­ vited Save the Children into the country to fight malnutrition. But when Sternin arrived, the welcome was rather chilly. The for­ eign minister let him know that not everyone in the government appreciated his presence. The minister told Sternin, "You have six months to make a difference." Sternin was traveling with his wife and 10-year-old son. None of them spoke Vietnamese. "We were like orphans at the airport when we arrived in Vietnam," he recalled. "We had no idea what we were going to do." Sternin had minimal staff and meager re­ sources. Sternin had read as much as he could about the malnutri­ tion problem. The conventional wisdom was that malnutrition 28 DI R E C T T H E R ID E R was the result of an intertwined set of problems: Sanitation was poor. Poverry was nearly universal. Clean water was not readily available. The rural people tended to be ignorant about nutrition. In Sternin's judgment, all of this analysis was "TBU"-true but useless. "Millions of kids can't wait for those issues to be ad­ dressed," he said. If addressing malnutrition required ending poverty and purifYing water and building sanitation systems, then it would never happen. Especially in six months, with almost no money to spend. Sternin had a better idea. He traveled to rural villages and met with groups of local mothers. The mothers divided into teams and went out to weigh and measure every child in their village. They then pored over the results together. Sternin asked them, "Did you find any very, very poor kids who are bigger and healthier than the typical child?" The women, scanning the data, nodded and said, "Co, co, co. "(Yes, yes, yes.) Sternin said, "You mean it's possible today in this village for a very poor family to have a well-nourished child?" "Co, co, co. " "Then let's go see what they're doing." Sternin's strategy was to search the community for bright spotr­ successful efforts worth emulating. If some kids were healthy de­ spite their disadvantages, that meant malnourishment was not inevitable. Furthermore, the mere existence of healthy kids pro­ vided hope for a practical, short-term solution. Sternin knew he couldn't fix the thorny "root causes." But if a handful of kids were staying healthy against the odds, why couldn't every kid be healthy? Notice that Sternin was trying to focus the mothers' Riders. The overall topic-what can you do to make your child health­ ier?-is simply too big and loaded to take on at once. The moth­ ers needed direction, not motivation. Mter all, every mother's F i n d t he B r i g ht S p o t s 29 Elephant is going to be motivated to make her child healthier. But how? Remember the power of the 1 % milk campaign, which made an abstract idea ("eat healthier") practical. Sternin was saying: Let's not sit around analyzing "malnutrition." Let's go study what these bright-spot mothers are doing. As a first step, Sternin and the mothers had to eliminate any bright spots who weren't "typical." For example, a boy might have an uncle in the government who could send extra food his way. Other families wouldn't be able to replicate that. In order to recognize what the bright-spot mothers were doing differently, the group had to synthesize the "conventional wisdom" about feeding kids. So they talked to dozens of peo­ ple-mothers, fathers, older brothers and sisters, grandparents­ and discovered that the community norms were pretty clear: Kids ate twice a day along with the rest of their families. They ate food that was appropriate for kids-soft, pure foods like the highest-quality rice. Armed with an understanding of the norms, Sternin and the mothers went into the homes of the bright-spot kids and ob­ served the way the homes were run, alert for any deviations. Their observation yielded some unexpected insights. For one thing, bright-spot moms were feeding their kids four meals a day (using the same amount of food as other moms but spreading it across four servings rather than two). The larger twice-a-day meals eaten by most families turned out to be a mistake for children, because their malnourished stomachs couldn't process that much food at one time. The style of eating was also different. Most parents believed that their kids understood their own needs and would feed them­ selves appropriately from the communal bowl. But the healthy kids were fed more actively-hand-fed by parents if necessary. 30 D I R ECT THE RIDER They were even encouraged to eat when they were sick, which was not the norm. Perhaps most interesting, the healthy kids were eating differ­ ent kinds of food. The bright-spot mothers were collecting tiny shrimp and crabs from the rice paddies and mixing them in with their kids' rice. Shrimp and crabs were eaten by adults but gen­ erally weren't considered appropriate food for kids. The mothers also tossed in sweet-potato greens, which were considered a low­ class food. These dietary improvisations, however strange or "low class," were doing something precious: adding sorely needed pro­ tein and vitamins to the children's diet. As an outsider, Stern in never could have foreseen these prac­ tices. He knew nothing about sweet-potato greens. The solution was a native one, emerging from the real-world experience of the villagers, and for that reason it was inherently realistic and in­ herently sustainable. But knowing the solution wasn't enough. For anything to change, lots of mothers needed to adopt the new cooking habits. Most people in Sternin's situation would have been itching to make an announcement, to call the village together and unveil a set of recommendations. Gather 'round, everyone: I've studiedyour problem and now I have the answer! Here are Sternill's 5 Rules for Fighting Malnutrition. But Sternin refused to make a formal announcement. "Knowledge does not change behavior," he said. "We have all en­ countered crazy shrinks and obese doctors and divorced marriage counselors." He knew that telling the mothers about nutrition wouldn't change their behavior. They'd have to practice it. The community designed a program in which fifty malnour­ ished families, in groups of ten, would meet at a hut each day and prepare food. The families were required to bring shrimp, crabs, and sweet-potato greens. The mothers washed their hands Find the Bright S pots 31 with soap and cooked the meal together. Sternin said that the moms were "acting their way into a new way of thinking.» Most important, it was their change, something that arose from the local wisdom of the village. Sternin's role was only to help them see that they could do it, that they could conquer malnutrition on their own. By organizing these cooking groups, Steroin was addressing both the Rider and the Elephant. The mothers' Riders got highly specific instructions: Here's how to cook a tasty lunch with shrimp and sweet-potato greens. And their Elephants got a feeling: hope. There really is a way to make my daughter healthier. And it's not very hard-it's something 1 can do! Notice that the Path played a role, too. W hen so many of the mothers were doing something, there was strong social pressure to go along. The cooking classes, in effect, were changing the culture of the village. Best of all, bright spots solve the "Not Invented Here" prob­ lem. Some people have a knee-jerk skeptical response to "im­ ported" solutions. Imagine the public outcry if an American politician proposed that the United States adopt the French health care system. (Or vice versa.) We all think our group is the smartest. By looking for bright spots within the very village he was try­ ing to change, Sternin ensured that the solution would be a na­ tive one. He would have faced a much more difficult quest if he'd brought in a plan from a different village. The local mothers would have bristled: Those people aren't like us. Our situation is more complicated than that. Those ideas wouldn't work here. Finding bright spots, then, solves many different problems at once. That's no surprise; successful change efforts involve con­ necting all three parts of the framework: Rider, Elephant, and Path. (Although in this book we explain one part of the frame­ work at a time, we'll continue to remind you that even an 32 DI R E C T T H E R IDER example in the "Rider" chapters will influence the Elephant and Path. Concepts are rarely exclusive.) Six months after Sternin had come to the Vietnamese village, 65 percent of the kids were better nourished and stayed that way. Later, when researchers from Emory University's School of Pub­ lic Health came to Vietnam to gather independent data, they found that even children who hadn't been born when Sternin left the villages were as healthy as the kids Sternin had reached di­ rectly. That discovery provided proof that the changes had stuck. Sternin's success began to spread. "We took the first 14 villages in different phases of the program and turned them into a social laboratory. People who wanted to replicate the nutrition model came from different parts of Vietnam. Every day, they would go to this living university, to these villages, touching, smelling, sniffing, watching, listening. They would 'graduate,' go to their villages, and implement the process until they got it right. . . . The program reached 2.2 million Vietnamese people in 265 villages. Our living university has become a national model for teaching villagers to re­ duce drastically malnutrition in Vietnam," Sternin said. Stories don't come much more heroic than this. Sternin and his small team of believers, working with a shoestring budget, man­ aged to make a big dent in malnutrition. What makes it more re­ markable is that they weren't experts. They didn't walk in with the answers. All they had was a deep faith in the power of bright spots. 2. The Rider part of our minds has many strengths. The Rider is a thinker and a planner and can plot a course for a better future. But as we've seen, the Rider has a terrible weakness-the tendency to spin his wheels. The Rider loves to contemplate and analyze, and, making matters worse, his analysis is almost always Find the Bright S p ots 33 directed at problems rather than at bright spots. (You can prob­ ably recall a conversation with a friend who agonized for hours over a particular relationship problem. But can you remember an instance when a friend spent even a few minutes analyzing why something was working so well?) These analytical qualities can be extremely helpful, obviously­ many problems get solved through analysis-but in situations where change is needed, too much analysis can doom the effort. The Rider will see too many problems and spend too much time sizing them up. Look again at Jerry Sternin and the Vietnam story: Dozens of experts had analyzed the situation in Vietnam. Their Riders had agonized over the problems-the water supply, the sanitation, the poverty, the ignorance. They'd written posi­ tion papers and research documents and development plans. But they hadn't changed a thing. In tough times, the Rider sees problems everywhere, and "analysis paralysis" often kicks in. The Rider will spin his wheels indefinitely unless he's given clear direction. That's why to make progress on a change, you need ways to dz"rectthe Rider. Show him where to go, how to act, what destination to pursue. And that's why bright spots are so essential, because they are your best hope for directing the Rider when you're trying to bring about change. 3. "School stinks," said Bobby, a ninth grader who'd just reported for his first school counseling session. John J. Murphy, the school psychologist, was surprised Bobby had shown up at all. Several teachers had referred Bobby for counseling, frustrated by his bad behavior. He was constantly late, rarely did his work, was disruptive in class, and sometimes made loud threats to other kids in the hallways. DI R E C T T H E R ID E R 34 Bobby's home life was just as chaotic. He'd been shuffied in and out of foster homes and special facilities for kids with be­ havioral problems. He and his father were on the waiting list for family counseling. The local social service agency in Covington, Kentucky, was keeping tabs on Bobby. By the time he showed up for his session with Murphy, he was in danger of being placed in another special facility because of his problems at school. Murphy was almost powerless in the situation. The counselor had no way to improve Bobby's situation at home, and time was working against him-at best, he'd see Bobby for an hour here, an hour there. Murphy couldn't reward Bobby if he behaved well or punish him if he behaved poorly. (Not that punishment would have worked. Bobby usually ended up in the principal's office by mid-morning for disciplinary issues, but his behavior never changed.) Ignoring the "school stinks" comment, Murphy began talking to Bobby and posed a series of unusual questions. So began the first of a handful of conversations between Murphy and Bobby. Now, fast-forward to three months later: A dranlatic change had occurred. The number of days Bobby was sent to the princi­ pal's office had declined by 80 percent. Bobby hadn't become an Eagle Scout, mind you, but the improvement was strong enough to keep social services from having to transfer him to the school for troubled kids. Bobby, a chronic offender, had become an oc­ casional offender. And it happened because of a few hours of talk­ ing with a counselor. What, exactly, happened in those conversations? 4. John Murphy is a practitioner of solutions-focused brief therapy ("solutions-focused therapy" for short). Solutions-focused therapy Find the Bright S pots 35 was invented in the late 1 970s by a husband-and-wife therapist team, Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, and their colleagues at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee. Solutions­ focused therapy is radically different from traditional therapy. In classical psychotherapy (think Tony Soprano and Dr. Melfi) , you and your therapist explore your problem. What are its roots? Does it trace back to something in your childhood? There's a sense of archaeological excavation: You're digging around your mind for a buried nugget of insight, something that may explain why you behave the way you do. Excavating the past takes time. A standard Freudian psychoanalysis might take five years ofwork, with sessions once or twice a week. (And after five years and $50,000, you discover it's all your mom's fault.) Solutions-focused therapists, in contrast, couldn't care less about archaeology. They don't dig around for clues about why you act the way you do. They don't care about your childhood. All they care about is the solution to the problem at hand. Marriage therapist Michele Weiner-Davis was initially trained as a classical psychoanalyst. Like all psychoanalysts, she believed that childhood experiences created unresolved traumas that fed current problems, and she tried to help her clients understand how their upbringing had shaped their behavior in relationships. But she was often unhappy with the outcomes her clients achieved through psychoanalysis. In her book Divorce Busting, she explained why: "My clients would frequently plead, 'Now I see that we are reenacting our parents' marriages, but what do we do about it? We can't stop fighting.' '' She learned that under­ standing a problem doesn't necessarily solve it-that knowing is not enough. Weiner-Davis was initially skeptical about solutions-focused brief therapy: "It seemed too simple. . . . Most people, including most therapists, believe the change process has to be complicated D I R E C T T H E R ID E R 36 and arduous. 'No pain, no gain' is the general rule of thumb." To describe how her thinking about solutions-focused therapy changed, she used an analogy from golE At one point, her golf swing started misfiring, so she went to a golf pro, thinking her technique needed a major overhaul. She noted that the golf pro didn't do any archaeology. He never said, "You obviously have a fear of winning. Did your father intimidate you as a little girl?" Instead, all he did was suggest a minor modi­ fication: relaxing her tight grip on the club. At first, she was a lit­ tle peeved by this advice. It didn't seem profound enough to justifY his fee. But later; on the course, her balls were going straighter and farther. Maybe small adjustments can work after all she thought. 5. Solutions-focused therapists use a common set of techniques for discovering potential solutions. Early in the first session, after hearing the patient explain his or her problem, the therapist poses the Miracle Question: "Can I ask you a sort of strange question? Suppose that you go to bed tonight and sleep well. Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved. When you wake up in the morning, what's the first small sign you'd see that would make you think, 'Well, something must have happened-the problem is gone!'?" Here's how one couple in marital therapy answered the Mir­ acle Question posed by their therapist, Brian Cade of Sydney, Australia: WIFE: I'd be happy, feeling at ease at last. I'd be more pleasant to Bob, not jumping down his throat all the time. F i n d the B r ig ht S pots CADE: WIFE: H U S BAN D : CADE: WIFE: H USBAN D : 37 What will you do instead? Well, there would be more understanding between us. We'd listen to what each other was saying. Yes. At the moment, we don't really listen to each other. We just can't wait to get our own point in. How could you tell that the other was really listening? In the face, I think. We'd perhaps make more eye contact. (Pauses, then laughs.) We'd nod in the right places. Yes. We'd both respond to what the other was saying rather than just attacking or ignoring it. Notice that Cade prods the couple for specifics: "What will you do instead?" "How could you tell the other person was really listening?" The Miracle Question doesn't ask you to describe the miracle itself; it asks you to identifY the tangible signs that the miracle happened. Here's another example from a therapist's session with a man with a drinking problem: !fa miracle solvedyour drinkingproblem, what would you be doing differently the next morning? "I don't know, I can't imagine." Try. "Well, all my friends drink, so what do you expect me to do?" I know it's not easy, but think about it. "Well, there are all sorts of things." Name one. "Maybe I would go to the library and look at the newspapers." How wouldyour day be different ifyou went to the library? Solutions-focused therapists learn to focus their patients on the first hints of the miracle-"What's the first small sign you'd see that would make you think the problem was gone" -because D I R E C T T H E R IDE R 38 they want to avoid answers that are overly grand and unattain­ able: "My bank account is full, I love my job, and my marriage is great. " Once they've helped patients identify specific and vivid signs of progress, they pivot to a second question, which is perhaps even more important. It's the Exception Question: "When was the last time you saw a little bit of the miracle, even just for a short time?" An alcoholic would be asked: "When was the last time you stayed sober for an hour or two?" Or the wife in the dialogue quoted above would be asked: "When was the last time you felt like your husband was truly listening to you?" It's an ingenious tactic. What the therapist is trying to demon­ strate, in a subtle way, is that the client is capable of solving her own problem. AB a matter of fact, the client is offering up proof that she's already solved it, at least in some circumstances. For in­ stance, Brian Cade worked with a mother whose children were out of control. He asked her the Exception Question: "What was different about the last time your kids obeyed you? In what cir­ cumstances do they seem to behave better?" MOM: (after a pause) I guess it's when they realize they have pushed me too far. CADE: MOM: How could they tell that? You know, it's funny. I think it's when I stop rant­ ing and raving at them and my voice goes very, very calm . . . . I think I'm able to do that when I feel generally less harassed, when I feel I've got things done rather than spent the whole day wor­ rying about getting things done. When I feel I've not been able to get on top of the housework, I tend to panic. F i n d the Bright S p ots 39 Cade asks her what the kids might notice on good days. MOM: I think I just look calmer. CADE: What else? MOM: I probably greet them more enthusiastically and smile more. Solutions-focused therapists believe that there are exceptions to every problem and that those exceptions, once identified, can be carefully analyzed, like the game film of a sporting event. Let's replay that scene, where things were working for you. What was happening? How did you behave? Were you smiling? Didyou make eye contact? And that analysis can point directly toward a solution that is, by definition, workable. After all, it worked before. These "exceptions" are just like Jerry Sternin's bright spots. Just as there were some kids in the Vietnamese village who man­ aged to stay healthy despite the poverty, there are some moments in an alcoholic's life when he is sober despite the cravings. Those bright spots are gold to be mined. (Notice again that bright spots provide not only direction for the Rider but hope and motivation for the Elephant.) What does this mean for you? You may not fight malnutri­ tion, and you may not need therapy. But if you're trying to change things, there are going to be bright spots in your field of view, and if you learn to recognize them and understand them, you will solve one of the fundamental mysteries of change: What, exactly, needs to be done differently? Suppose you're a human relations manager, and you've been encouraging line managers to give feedback to their employees more frequently, rather than storing it up for their once-a-year performance reviews. You hosted an offsite training program for ten managers so they could practice the recommended new style DI R E C T T H E R IDE R 40 ofin-the-moment feedback, and they all left the program pledg­ ing to experiment with it. After four weeks, you start to hear back from some of the managers, and their results have been mixed. Two of the man­ agers seem genuinely transformed-excited about the way the faster feedback has improved their relationships with team mem­ bers. Five of the managers are weakly positive, saying they tried it a few times. Two of the managers say, regretfully, that they've been too busy to try. One is an outright skeptic and thinks the whole initiative is hogwash. What now? The bright spots give you an action plan: Go investigate the two successful managers. First, see if either situ­ ation is an anomaly. For instance, in your follow-up, you might discover that one of the successful managers had not been giv­ ing any more feedback to his t(lam-he'd simply been ap­ proaching individuals more often to make small talk. The extra social contact made him feel good but annoyed team members (who were constantly interrupted) . That manager is not a real bright spot. The other success might be legitimate. Maybe the manager, Debbie, devised a tracking sheet that reminds her to provide feed­ back to every employee every week. Maybe she set a goal for her­ self that her "quick feedback" will never last longer than two minutes and will apply only to a specific project-it won't be a referendum on an employee's overall performance. Maybe she set up open-door "office hours" so that employees can drop by for quick feedback on ongoing projects. Now that you've defined your bright spot, you can try to clone it. Have the other managers spend an hour or two shadowing Debbie, seeing firsthand how she incorporated the new style into her workday. Get Debbie to attend your next offsite training pro­ gram so she can coach other managers on the mechanics of quick Find the Bright S pots 41 feedback. Talk to IT and see if there's a way to roll out a more pol­ ished version of Debbie's impromptu tracking sheet. Bottom line: You are spending 80 percent of your time ex­ ploring Debbie's success and finding ways to replicate it. You aren't obsessing about the manager who was skeptical. You aren't planning another training program with the same managers to review the material. You are simply asking yourself, "What's working and how can we do more of it?" That's the bright-spot philosophy in a single question. 6. Focusing on bright spots can be counterintuitive for businesses. Richard Pascale, one of Jerry Sternin's collaborators, discovered this in 2003 when he accepted a consulting assignment with Genentech. The company had recently launched a drug called Xolair, which had been regarded as a "miracle drug" for asthma. It had proved effective in preventing asthma attacks for many pa­ tients. Yet six months after launch, sales ofXolair remained well below expectations. Pascale and his team were asked to help figure out why Xolair was underperforming. They immediately started looking for bright spots and soon found one: Two saleswomen who worked the Dallas-Fort Worth area were selling twenty times more Xo­ lair than their peers. Further investigation revealed that the women were using a fundamentally different kind of sales pitch. Rather than selling the health benefits of the drug-which doc­ tors largely understood-they were helping doctors understand how to administer the drug. Xolair was not a pill or an inhaler; it required infusion via an intravenous drip. This technique was un­ familiar (and therefore Elephant-spooking) to the allergists and pediatricians who would be prescribing the drug. 42 D I R E C T T H E R ID E R Here was a classic bright-spot situation. Like the Vietnamese mothers who mixed sweet-potato greens into their kids' rice, these saleswomen were achieving radically different results with the same set of resources everyone else had. Having discovered the bright spot, Genentech's managers could help spread the innova­ tion across their entire sales force. But that didn't happen. And here is where a cautionary tale in­ trudes on our success story. What actually happened was this: The superior results of the Dallas-Fort Worth reps were viewed with suspicion! Managers speculated that the saleswomen had an unfair advantage, and their initial assumption was that the pair's sales territories or quotas needed to be revisited. (Later investiga­ tion established that the two women had the same type of client base as the other reps.) To be fair to the Genentech managers, let's acknowledge that there was indeed a chance that those two reps were simply an anomaly. But the managers' first reaction to the good news was that it must be bad news! That reaction is a good reminder that the Rider's capacity for analysis is endless. Even successes can look like problems to an overactive Rider. 7. Let's circle back to Bobby, the troubled student, because now we can start to understand his rather abrupt transformation. Here's a brief exchange from one of Bobby's counseling sessions. Notice how Murphy, the school counselor, starts by popping the Excep­ tion Question: M U RPHY: Tell me about the times at school when you don't get in trouble as much. Fin d t h e B r i g h t S p o t s B O B BY: 43 I never get in trouble, well, not a lot, in Ms. Smith's class. M U RP H Y : B O B BY: M U RPHY: What's different about Ms. Smith's class? I don't know, she's nicer. We get along great. What exactly does she do that's nicer? Murphy wasn't content with Bobby's vague conclusion that Ms. Smith is "nicer." He kept probing until Bobby identified sev­ eral things about Ms. Smith and her class that seemed to help him behave well. For instance, Ms. Smith always greeted him as soon as he walked into class. (Other teachers, understandably, avoided him.) She gave him easier work, which she knew he could complete (Bobby has a learning disability) . And whenever the class started working on an assignment, she checked with Bobby to make sure he understood the instructions. Ms. Smith's class was a bright spot, and as we've seen, any­ time you have a bright spot, your mission is to clone it. Using Ms. Smith's class as a model, Murphy gave Bobby's other teach­ ers very practical tips about how to deal with him: Greet Bobby at the door. Make sure he's assigned work he can do. Check to make sure he understands the instructions. What Murphy had avoided, of course, was archaeology. He didn't dig into Bobby's troubled childhood, and he didn't try to excavate the sources of his anger and willfulness. For Murphy, all that information would have been TBU, as Sternin would say: true but useless. The other thing Murphy avoided was Genen­ tech's knee-jerk skepticism. The mental quibbles could have come so easily: Ms. Smith isjust a nicerperson than the other teachers or Her class is easier or Teachers shouldn't have to adapt their approach to aproblem student. Instead, Murphy found a bright spot, and he trusted it. D I R E C T T H E R ID E R 44 Bobby's teachers were pleased when Murphy approached them with such specific guidance, and they promised to give his recommendations a try. Murphy asked the teachers to help him track whether the solutions were working by recording Bobby's performance on three metrics: (1) arriving to class on time, (2) completing assignments in class, and (3) behaving acceptably in class. Over the next three months, as reported earlier, Bobby's rate of being sent to the principal's office for a major infraction decreased by 80 percent. Bobby also made striking progress on day-to-day behavior as measured by the three metrics. Before solutions-focused therapy, his teachers typically rated his perfor­ mance as acceptable in only 1 or 2 out of 6 class periods per day. After solutions-focused therapy, he was rated as acceptable in 4 or 5 of the 6 periods. Bobby is still not a model student. But he's a lot better. 8. Notice something remarkable about both the Vietnam and the Bobby case studies. In each one, relatively small changes­ cooking with sweet-potato greens, greeting Bobby at the door­ had a big impact on a big problem. There is a clear asymmetry between the scale of the problem and the scale of the solution. Big problem, small solution. This is a theme you will see again and again. Big problems are rarely solved with commensurately big solutions. lnstead, they are most often solved by a sequence of small solutions, sometimes over weeks, sometimes over decades. And this asymmetry is why the Rider's predilection for analysis can backfire so easily. W hen the Rider analyzes a problem, he seeks a solution that befits the scale of it. If the Rider spots a hole, he wants to fill it, and if he's got a round hole with a 24-inch diameter, he's gonna Find the Bright Spots 45 go looking for a 24-inch peg. But that mental model is wrong. For instance, in analyzing malnutrition in Vietnam, the experts had exhaustively analyzed all the big systemic forces that were re­ sponsible for it: lack of sanitation, poverty, ignorance, lack of water. No doubt they also concocted big systemic plans to ad­ dress those forces. But that was fantasy. No one, other than Sternin, thought to ask, "What's working right now?" In reviewing Bobby's situation at high school, the teachers and administrators whispered about all the things that were bro­ ken: broken home, learning disability, uncontrollable impulses. Any normal person, analyzing Bobby's situation, would have craved an intensive, complex solution to match the intensive, complex problem. But no one, other than the counselor Mur­ phy, thought to ask, "What's working right now?" To pursue bright spots is to ask the question "What's work­ ing, and how can we do more of it?" Sounds simple, doesn't it? Yet, in the real world, this obvious question is almost never asked. Instead, the question we ask is more problem focused: "What's broken, and how do we fix it?" This problem-seeking mindset is a shortcoming of the Rider in each of us. Psychologists who have studied this phenomenon­ our predilection for the negative-have reached some fascinat­ ing conclusions. Ai; an illustration of what they've found, take a look at the following words taken from a "Learn English at home" website. They're all words for emotions. We've excerpted the first twenty-four of them from an alphabetical list. See if you notice any patterns: ANGRY DELIGHTED ANNOYED D I SAPPOINTED APPALLED ECSTATIC APPREHENSIVE EXCITED 46 DI R E C T T H E R ID E R ASHAMED EMOTIONAL BEWILDERED ENVIOUS BETRAYED EMBARRASSED CONFUSED FURIOUS CONFIDENT FRIGHTENED C H EATED GREAT CROSS HAPPY DEPRESSED HORRIFIED Those are 24 of the most common "emotion" words in En­ glish, and only 6 of them are positive! In a more exhaustive study, a psychologist analyzed 558 emotion words-every one that he could find in the English language-and found that 62 percent of them were negative versus 38 percent positive. That's a pretty shocking discrepancy. According to an old urban legend, Eski­ mos have 100 different words for snow. Well, it turns out that negative emotions are our snow. This negative focus is not confined to emotions. Across the board, we seem wired to focus on the negative. A group of psy­ chologists reviewed over two hundred articles and concluded that, for a wide range of human behavior and perception, a general principle holds true: "Bad is stronger than good." Exhibit A: People who were shown photos of bad and good events spent longer viewing the bad ones. Exhibit B: When people learn bad stuff about someone else, it's stickier than good stuff. People pay closer attention to the bad stuff, reflect on it more, remember it longer, and weigh it more heavily in assessing the person overall. This pattern is so robust that researchers who study how we perceive one another have a label for it-"positive-negative asymmetry." Exhibit C: A researcher reviewed seventeen studies about how people interpret and explain events in their lives-for example, F i n d the Bright S p ots 47 how sports fans interpret sporting events or how students describe their days in their journals. Across multiple domains-work and politics and sports and personal life-people were more likely to spontaneously bring up (and attempt to explain) negative events than positive ones. We could present plenty more exhibits, but for now we'll give the study's authors the last (disappointed) word on the subject: "When we began this review we anticipated finding some excep­ tions that would demarcate the limits of the phenomenon . . . [but] we were unable to locate any significant spheres in which good was consistently stronger than bad" (emphasis added) . Bad is stronger than good. As Leslie Fiedler once said, lots of novelists have achieved their fame by focusing on marital problems, but there's never been a successful novel about a happy marriage. 9. A particular strain of this "bad is stronger than good" bias is crit­ ical when it comes to tackling change. Let's call it a problemfocus. To see it, consider this situation: Your child comes home one day with her report card. She got one A, four B's, and one F. Where will you spend your time as a parent? This hypothetical comes from author Marcus Buckingham, who says that nearly all parents will tend to fixate on the F. It's easy to empathize with them: Something seems broken-we should .fix it. Let's get her a tutor. Or maybe she should be punished-she's grounded until that grade recovers. It is the rare parent who would say, instead, "Honey, you made an 'N. in this one class. You must really have a strength in this subject. How can we build on that?" (Buckingham has a fine series of books on making the most of your strengths rather than obsessing about your weaknesses.) When the Rider sees that things are going well, he doesn't 48 D I R E C T T H E R IDE R think much about them. But when things break, he snaps to at­ tention and starts applying his problem-solving skills. So when your kids are making Ns and B's, you don't think much about their grades. But when they make a 0 or an F, you spring into ac­ tion. It's weird when you think about, isn't it? What if the Rider had a more positive orientation? Imagine a world in which you experienced a rush of gratitude every single time you flipped a light switch and the room lit up. Imagine a world in which after a husband forgot his wife's birthday, she gave him a big kiss and said, "For thirteen of the last fourteen years you remembered my birthday! That's wonderful!" This is not our world. But in times of change, it needs to be. Our Rider has a prob­ lem focus when he needs a solutionfocus. If you are a manager, ask yourself: "What is the ratio of the time I spend solving problems to the time I spend scaling successes?" We need to switch from archaeological problem solving to bright-spot evangelizing. There's no question that it's possible to do. Take Jerry Sternin. He came into an environment riddled with failure. The opportunities for analysis were endless. He could have stayed in Vietnam for twenty years, writing position papers on the malnutrition problem. But what he knew was this: Even in failure there is success. An alcoholic goes an hour without a drink. Three sales reps out of fifty sell like crazy. A few Vietnamese mothers, with no more money than any others, manage to raise healthy kids. These flashes of success-these bright spots--can illuminate the road map for action and spark the hope that change is possible. 3 Script the Critica l Moves 1. A doctor was asked to consider the medical records of a 67-year-old patient who had chronic hip pain from art...
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