For those of us who have been involved in Organisation Change Management for many years, we can be seduced by our favourite models and acronyms and over-intellectualise organisation change. From this rarefied position we can become divorced from the human fundamentals which drive our perceptions and reactions to change.  In doing so, we make change even harder for us to manage despite our voluminous and highly rational change management plans.

So, I could not help myself thinking that a book with the simplistic title "Switch" written by two guys called “Chip” and "Dan", with a graphic of a light switch, be of any value? But I was surprised. So suspend your pre-conceptions just for a few minutes as I explain ...

The central premise of this book is that we put most of our energies into treating organisation change management as primarily a rational exercise. When change gets hard we pull on the ‘rational lever’ even harder which can be counter-productive. Chip and Dan Heath assert that we need to devote as much effort to the emotional reaction to change as we do to the intellectual side, for change to stick. In doing so, we can find an emotional connection (other than fear) with those being impacted by the change, to the change outcomes and increase their commitment and motivation to the change. 

The Heath brothers challenge us to step outside our preconceptions, our sophisticated models and rational thinking about effective change management and take us for a ride on an elephant… Huh?. A ride on an elephant? Have these guys lost it? No, in fact they may have found it. Found the value in tapping into the elephant’s heart along with it’s head. We all know this intuitively but how much effort do we really put into this area?

Using the metaphor of riding an elephant let me deconstruct it for you:


To emphasise this point the author use the story of trying reduce infections in a hospital and finding the positive emotional connection with staff. This challenge was re-defined as “saving 100,000 lives through reduced infections” and as such created and emotional connection for the hospital staff.

Another simple but powerful concept the Heath Bros highlight is the power of “bright spots”. Not UFOs, rather successful efforts worth emulating. The authors provide a story of the power of ‘bright spots’ related to the challenge of reducing malnutrition in Vietnam. Rather than going to areas where children were malnourished the researchers instead went to where the children were healthy and found the ‘bright spots’ to understand what caused this to happen. This approach, although very effective, is counter-intuitive for most of us because we tend seek out solutions by focussing on situations where things are going wrong.

I found this book to be quite engaging and informative because the Heath brothers achieve a good balance of storytelling, research and practical tips. This approach encourages the jaded change management practitioner to put aside their cynicism for a moment and allow a few new ideas into the void.  I enjoyed the opportunity to step outside the rigid and rational intellectual constructs and look at change from a fundamental and humanistic perspective.

Maybe just maybe, we change management practitioners are responsible for making change even harder to implement. Join me in the challenge of suppressing our highly rational and complex paradigms, and;

-    Find the bright spots
-    Connect with the heart

Your efforts will be rewarded.