Have you ever thought?
“I would do that if I had any will power or could motivate myself.” I know I
have. I know that I will start out strong on a project or a goal and then my
motivation withers away as the days go by.
The Heath brothers tackle this
problem in their book Switch: How to
Change Things When Things Are Hard. In their research they discovered that
there are two parts in a human mind. There is the rational mind and the
emotional mind. The rational part is the leader but the emotional part is 3
times larger. How do you get the rational mind to guide to the emotional mind?
How do you get the emotional mind to use its fierce instincts to light a fire
under the rational mind?
Self-control is an exhaustible
source. Change is hard because people wear themselves out. When people attempt
to change things, they are fixing habits that have become automatic and
changing those behaviors will drain a person’s self-control. If you want to
change things, you’ve got to appeal to both the rational mind and the emotional
mind.
This idea not only applies to an
individual but it applies to teams, organizations and businesses as well as
countries. The book tells a story about the St. Lucia Parrot which only exists
on the island of St. Lucia in the Caribbean. This is a beautifully stunning
bird with deep blue, lime green and red feathers. In 1977, there were only 100
of these birds still alive because of the desolation hunters and those who
wanted them as pets. One biologist said they would be extinct by the year 2000.
The country’s leaders had worked so hard trying to implement laws to punish
such actions but nothing had worked up to this point. People simply didn’t care
about the bird. Until a grad student, fresh out of a London university, had an
idea. What about using patriotism and pride to motivate people? They started a
campaign to make the public more familiar with the bird. They did puppet shows,
made t-shirts, convinced a band to record a song about the parrot, got
volunteers to go into the school dresses as the parrot and talk about the bird.
They even did a card campaign comparing the parrot to the bald eagle with the
slogan “Who has the better national bird?” By 2008, there were close to 700 St.
Lucia Parrots on the island and there hadn’t been a report of a bird shooting
for 15 years. By motivating the emotion side of the population with a rational
idea, they were able to have widespread change where there was no movement
before.
This book was ingenious, full of real stories and gave
me many clever ideas to try in my own life to achieve change. If you want some
tools in your toolbox for the next time you want to attempt change this is a
perfect book for you.
