If you are a manager, ask yourself: “What is the ratio of the time I spend solving problems to the time I spend scaling successes?”

We read tons of books on change while writing Switch. Here are some of our favorites, in no particular order: The Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt [Psychology, Philosophy, Happiness]. Haidt came up with the Elephant/Rider analogy that we use in Switch. If you want to be happier and smarter, you should read his book. Mindset, by Carol Dweck [

When Gerard Cachon took over MSOM, most peer reviews were taking from seven to eight months, and many were taking over a year. Early in his tenure, Cachon got e-mails from professors who were hesitantly checking in with him about a paper. A typical note might say, “I submitted this paper two years ago and I just wanted to check into progress.” In s

Direct the Rider. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction. (Think 1% milk.) Motivate the Elephant. What looks like laziness is often exhaustion. The Rider can’t get his way by force for very long. So it’s critical that you engage people’s emotional side—get their Elephants on the path and cooperativ

This is what we mean by “scripting” the critical moves. Change begins at the level of individual decisions and behaviors, but that’s a hard place to start because that’s where the friction is. Inertia and decision paralysis will conspire to keep people doing things the old way. To spark movement in a new direction, you need to provide crystal-clear

Gollwitzer says that, in essence, what action triggers do is create an “instant habit.”

With the online tracking sheet, Cachon was using the hotel-towel strategy. He was publicizing the group norm. Other people are getting their work done on time. Why won’t you?

Gollwitzer says that when people predecide, they “pass the control of their behavior on to the environment.” Gollwitzer says that action triggers “protect goals from tempting distractions, bad habits, or competing goals.”

At the beginning of the school year, she announced a goal for her class that she knew would captivate every student: By the end of this school year, you’re going to be third graders. (Not literally, of course, but in the sense that they would be at third-grade skill levels.) That goal was tailor-made for the first-grade psyche. First graders know v