A Pattern for Change

‘How to change things when change is hard’. This is the subtitle for the book 'Switch'

It seems like change is most always hard and that is probably why many people don’t like change.

I recently read this book on change by Chip and Dan Heath who became well known through their best selling book ‘Made to Stick’.

Their book ‘Switch’ …is a book to help you change things. [They] consider change at every level – individual, organizational and societal.

…all change efforts have something in common. For anything to change, someone has to act differently.

So there are hard changes and easy changes. What distinguishes one from the other? In this book we argue that successful changes share a common pattern. They require the leader of the change to ...consider a three part framework...that can guide you in any situation where you need to change behavior:

o To change someone’s behavior, you’ve got to change that person’s situation

o Change is hard because people wear themselves out. What looks like laziness is often exhaustion

o If you want people to change, you must provide crystal-clear direction