Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard 2010-07-29

Reviewer: Bud Michael

A "must read" for anyone involved with change, trying to make change happen, or dealing with change. In other words, all of us. The brothers Heath provide very concrete steps for navigating change that can be applied to personal and professional shifts in life.

Switch Your Mind 2010-07-25

Reviewer: GTO

Creative, well referenced help, for anyone looking to make personal or corporate changes. Using an analogy of a rider steering an elephant down a path, the Heath brothers present a collections of alternative change beliefs, many of which are just the opposite of what we have been taught in self-help books and management courses. Full of great stories and entertaining asides, this book is a perfect way to get yourself off the dime and moving in the direction of change.

Incredibly Powerful Concepts to "Encourage" Change 2010-07-18

Reviewer: Phyllis Zimbler Miller

The new book SWITCH by Chip Heath & Dan Heath (who also wrote MADE TO STICK) is full of fascinating case studies of how people used the concepts in this book to "encourage" change. These concepts are very clearly expressed and the case studies show how powerfully the concepts can work.

What's most important, the brothers demonstrate how "little" solutions can be used to help "large" problems. I loved all the book's information and have already begun to implement these concepts in my personal and professional life.
-- Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Miller Mosaic Power Marketing

Switch review 2010-07-18

Reviewer: Bob Curry

Excellent book -- simple way to break down complex issues and concerns as organizations go about changing -- ANYTHING

Switching the terms on change management 2010-07-17

Reviewer: Douglas Brown

SWITCH differs radically from the vast majority of change management texts. It starts from the same initial premise: change is difficult to implement. Although it does not cite the old maxim, its sub-title could well be "people don't resist change, they resist being changed." It then takes off on a completely divergent path from that point forward. The book does provide a framework that it uses consistently, but it is not laden with steps and prescriptions, and in a way that is the whole point. Most texts focus on the need to get top-down commitment to the thing driving the change, and developing a very conscious rationale such as a powerful business case or perhaps a clear exposition of WIIFM (what's in it for me). The Heaths point out that the rational perspective is only half of the equation, and that the psyche has to be involved also if the intiative is ever going to develop its own momentum. And of course if process changes can eliminate the sense of "being changed" at all, thereby avoiding the whole problem, or prevent any possibility of backsliding, so much the better.

Some reviewers have observed that a number of the examples are relevant only in the context of highly-placed executives who can deploy major resources. My own observation was that the other examples were in fact the meat of the book. The conventional approach to organizational change pretty much says that you cannot be successful at introducing change unless you are, or have the unmitigated support of, such an executive. The strategy of appealing to "the elephant" - the Feeler side - is exactly what is needed if you are trying to effect change at your own level with nothing but influence to rely on.

Since I have only just read the book I can't warrant that the framework does work, but it does seem to explain a lot of the times when change initiatives have not worked; I can already see some ways to re-formulate approaches to things that our organization has tried without success to implement over a very long time. Trying something different can't hurt.