I am a huge fan of the Heaths’ first book, Made to Stick, so it was a no-brainer to pick up Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, especially because it dealt with “change.” Change is a difficult thing for most people. This has always been hard for someone like me to understand because I’m never satisfied with the status quo. I’ve either been gifted or cursed with the ability to see every change as the possibility of something even better. (Gifted in that it makes my life personally easier, but cursed in that I’m never satisfied with the here and now.)

Unfortunately, my optimism about change always made it difficult for me to comprehend why others are so fearful or reluctant. This is why the big lesson I took away from Switch is that if I want the change to happen, it’s entirely up to me to set the stage to show others how and why they should make the change. How does one do this?According to Chip and Dan Heath, in order to bring about change, you need to do three things: Direct the rider, motivate the elephant and shape the path.

The Heath brothers derived these analogies from Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Happiness Hypothesis.

Haidt said that our emotional side is an Elephant, and our rational side is its Rider. The Rider, perched atop the Elephant, holds the reins and seems to be the leader. The Rider’s control is precarious, though, because he’s so tiny relative to the Elephant. Anytime the 6-ton Elephant disagrees with the direction, the Rider is going to lose. He’s completely overmatched.