This is the fifth part in a 5-part series that I’m having this week on books. Here’s part one, part two, part three. and part four. I hope you enjoyed these reviews.

It was really hard to choose the last book in this week’s series, but I think I managed to read one where I went AHA a lot of the time while reading it. I kept saying so myself ” So, that’s why I behave the way I do!”

Now, I know why I have such a hard time making a decision when I’m faced with too many choices. Limit my choices so that I don’t get overwhelmed.

I also now know how to motivate myself when I’m stuck in the analysis-paralysis stage of decision-making. Get clarity and use black and white goals.

In their latest book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath (the authors of Made To Stick  – which I also highly recommend), the brothers explain in simple terms that our minds have two competing systems, ‘The Rider’ – the rational part and ‘The Elephant’ – the emotional part.

Both of these parts have strengths and weaknesses and are in competition with each other. But, if you know how to use both parts, you are able to control each independent part and are able to make better choices to deal with change.

No wonder it’s so hard to make up our minds sometimes – we have such a struggle going on in our minds! This struggle can result in serious tension, but once you realize what is going on and use the framework that the Heath brothers describe in the book, you can have confidence in making decisions, even the hard ones.

It’s funny how just this week, we’ve been exposed to the same concept of our minds actually having two different systems that are in a constant battle with each other. In my recent book review of Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? Seth Godin talked about the ‘lizard’ part of our brain and the civilized part of our brain.

In Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, we are introduced to ‘The Rider’ and ‘The Elephant’ parts of our minds. I must admit that the way that the Heath brothers explained ‘The Rider’ and ‘The Elephant’ analogy makes a lot of sense. Apparently, the analogy is based on Jonathan Haidt’s work and his book ‘The Happiness Hypothesis’.

Obviously there is a lot of psychology behind these concepts, which the book backs up with a lot of narrative case studies. The case studies are real-life examples, some of which may be familiar while others are less newsworthy.

What is ‘The Rider’ and ‘The Elephant’?

Think of a rider on top of an elephant. Who controls whom? Does the rider tug on the reins of the elephant and direct it? Is he the leader of the elephant? Or does the elephant decide where it wants to go and the rider is just along for the ride? Sometimes both cases happen (that’s when you don’t understand why you do some of the things you do). The happy path is to use both the rider and the elephant and use them in combination. Each has their strengths and weaknesses.

“Most of us are all too familiar with situations in which our Elephant overpowers our Rider. You’ve experienced this if you’ve ever slept in,overeaten, dialed up your ex at midnight, procrastedinated, tried to quit smoking and failed, skipped the gym, gotten angry and said something you regretted, abandoned your Spanish or piano lessons, refused to speak up in a meeting because you were scared, and so on.”

‘The Rider’ is the rational part our of minds while ‘The Elephant’ is the emotional part. The Heath brothers offer a great framework (the Switch framework) to deal with these two independent parts of our brains. They offer the framework of Directing the Rider, Motivating the Elephant and Shaping the Path. By using this pattern, we can make transformative changes in our lives.

What other nuggets of wisdom did I learn from the book?

I learned that ‘what looks like a people problem is often a situation problem’. If you figure out how to fix the situation, then the people problem often resolves itself.

I also learned that ‘relatively small changes have 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’. I think one of my problems is that I build up issues until they are almost overwhelming and then am scared to make a change, any change.

I don’t think that I’m alone in this, either. With so many choices, and decisions having so much impact on our lives, it can be quite overwhelming to make any choice at all. I’ve found out that ‘The Rider’ part of our brain loves the status quo because it feels comfortable and doesn’t want to deal with change. In these cases, we need to speak to ‘The Elephant’ part of our brain to move in the direction that we really want to go.

I learned that ‘The Rider’ is great at analyzing and rationalization. When the emotional part of our brain wants something, we will convince ourselves of our decisions, even if they are clearly not in our best interests. That chocolate cake looks so good! Oh, come on, you know you stuck to your diet all day and that it’s only one small piece of cake. Go ahead – I won’t tell anyone. Sound familiar? That’s your Elephant and Rider working in combination to make you not stick to your diet.

Your emotional part of your brain ‘The Elephant’ wants the piece of cake. Your  rational part of your brain, ‘The Rider’ will do almost anything to rationalize away and go where the elephant wants to go. Hence, most of the time you give in and eat the cake.

We need to put systems in place where our rational minds have no choice but to hold the reins strong and direct the elephant (throwing out the cake and other tempting food, telling yourself ‘I do not eat cake’ are a good start).

I learned that the concept of two competing parts of our brain is not really a new concept.

Apparently, Freud wrote about the id and the conscientious superego. Plato wrote about a ‘rational charioteer who has to rein in an unruly horse that barely yields to horsewhip and goad combined’. And, recently, the two independent parts of our brain have been referred to as ‘The Doer’ and ‘The Planner’ by behavioural economists. Isn’t that fascinating?

If you are interested, check out the resources at the book’s site: www.switchthebook.com/resources. Chip and Dan Heath have offered some great free resources (you’ll have to sign up for their newsletter).

When I was reading the book, it reminded me an awful lot of the style of Malcolm Gladwell and two of his books, Blink and Outliers (both highly recommended). If you enjoy reading compelling and story-based books infused with psychology, sociology and real-world examples, you’ll really like this book, too.

I know that I certainly learned quite a bit from reading it and I know you will too. You should definitely consider reading this book if you are interested in learning about How to Change Things When Change is Hard. I didn’t find it a dry read, either. The examples from people, from companies, and from governments were all compelling and interesting. I really enjoyed reading this book.

Have you read Switch, yet? Let me know what you think of it by leaving a comment. Thanks!

Related Posts:

1. Are Books Worth The Money?
2. Book Review: Crush It: Why Now Is The Time to Cash In On Your Passion
3. Book Review: 100 Ways To Improve Your Life
4. Book Review: The Leap
5. Book Review: Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

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Tagged as: Book Review, Change is Hard, Switch