This is fourth part of my review/learning while reading the book Switch and it forms a critical step for the change process. This post covers - Motivate the Elephant.
If you drive any vehicle, have you ever wondered why it takes more energy to move the vehicle in first gear. Read this in Quora. The simple answer is - "more" energy is needed to overcome inertia. It applies to Change too. When you are about to Switch, the folks who need to undergo a change and responsible for the change have to beat their initial inertia. It needs a lot of motivation to embrace the change as the people are quite comfortable in status quo.
In previous posts, we saw that Elephant is powerhouse and actually works on getting things done. It gives energy to the change process. Without Elephant's energy (and motivation), the change process is very likely to be a failure. In this section, Heaths discusses three important methods of getting started with change and keep it going - Find the Feeling, Shrink the Change and Grow the people.
Find the Feeling - The section on "Find the Feeling" discusses the importance of appealing to Elephant and help Elephant make the first step. It is very difficult to make Elephant move with analytical acumen. We have to appeal to Elephant emotionally by SEE-FEEL-CHANGE. The case study of HopeLab is amazing and it conveys how appealing Elephant changes one's life. It also discussed the effects of "Positive Illusion" with a case study. It is very important to find the feeling - feeling of control and power, determination to fix the issues or undergo the change and being empathetic. For any change that is big, we need to get to the Elephant with positive psychology, fresh thinking, creativity and instill hope and optimism.
Shrink The Change - Why is it important to shrink the change? Because the Elephant feels that it is easier to "do" which is very important to beat the inertia. Not only does it help to beat inertia, it constantly helps Elephant to march towards the destination (remember sequence of bright spots?). The case studies on Hotel Maids and Free Car Wash are excellent examples for a head start and keeping the ball rolling. Two strategies are discussed here - Limit the investment (amount of time required to complete the tiny change) and Small wins (ensure that small wins are meaningful and within immediate reach).
Grow The People - One way to make Elephant to make feel big is to shrink the change. Another way is to actually grow the Elephant big (bigger than the size of change). In both cases, the Elephant feels that it is easier to get it done. The section gives out two models of decision making - consequences model and identity model and discusses why the identity model is so important during a change process. It also discusses building identities leading to people learning new things and why it is important to set expectations of failure when people learning (During the learning process people tend to fail. Every failure will demotivate Elephant and hence set expectation on failure during learning process). It discusses on two mindsets - fixed mindset and growth mindset (pain now, payoff later). The case study of minimally invasive cardiac surgery is simple awesome.
Summary:
Like previous sections, the section is also to the point and centered on critical case studies with some serious takeaway. After reading this chapter, you would certainly feel that you can catalyst a change (the chapter kindles your Elephant)
Disclaimer: I neither get commission for a writing review nor using Affiliation of any Bookstore. The whole purpose of these posts is to provide value to my readers and give them information to be better.
