Quotes from Chip Heath

Thinking, Fast and Slow, mentioned above, and Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational. One of the handful of books that provides advice on making decisions better is Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, which was written for "choice architects" in business and government who construct decision systems such as retirement plans or organ-donation policies. It has been used to improve government policies in the United States, Great Britain, and other countries.

What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem.

This is the Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has "cursed" us. And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can't readily re-create our listeners' state of mind.

themselves. In turn, that discovery makes the need for action obvious. Guthrie doesn't share his findings from his customer meetings; he creates a situation where they can replicate his discovery. It becomes their own insight, and as a result, they're motivated to act. Similarly, CLTS facilitators see the problem vividly, but they don't share their concerns directly. They let the villagers see for themselves. The

Defining moments rise above the everyday. They provoke not just transient happiness, like laughing at a friend's joke, but memorable delight.

Or you could focus on the Path, in which case you would disregard hearts and minds entirely. In fact, suppose you stipulated outright that your workers are hopeless, that they're irredeemable daredevils who are determined to waggle their fingers in the machine's danger zone for the sheer sport of it. Could you still keep them from dismembering themselves?

This three-part recipe—a (1) clear insight (2) compressed in time and (3) discovered by the audience itself—provides a blueprint for us when we want people to confront uncomfortable truths.

High standards + assurance is a powerful formula, but ultimately it's just a statement of expectations. What great mentors do is add two more elements: direction and support. I have high expectations for you and I know you can meet them. So try this new challenge and if you fail, I'll help you recover. That's mentorship in two sentences. It sounds simple, yet it's powerful enough to transform careers.

Self-control is an exhaustible resource

Can I ask you a sort of strange question? Suppose that you go to bed tonight and sleep well. Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved. When you wake up in the morning, what's the first small sign you'd see that would make you think, 'Well, something must have happened—the problem is gone!'?

The lack of attention paid to an employee's first day is mind-boggling. What a wasted opportunity to make a new team member feel included and appreciated. Imagine if you treated a first date like a new employee: "I've got some meetings stacked up right now, so why don't you get settled in the passenger seat of the car and I'll swing back in a few hours?

If Palmer wants to persuade the professors, he needs them to trip over the truth. And that starts with a focus on the problem, not the solution.

most often solved by a sequence of small solutions, sometimes

This "moment-spotting" habit can be unnatural. In organizations, for instance, we are consumed with goals. Time is meaningful only insofar as it clarifies or measures our goals. The goal is the thing.

Behavior is contagious. Help it spread.

Sometimes, in life, we can't get our bearings until we trip over the truth.

In looking for a goal that reaches the Elephant—that hits people in the gut—you can't bank on SMART goals. (There are some people whose hearts are set aflutter by goals such as "improving the liquidity ratio by 30 percent over the next 18 months." They're called accountants.)

Habits are behavioral autopilot, and that's why they're such a critical tool for leaders. Leaders who can instill habits that reinforce their teams' goals are essentially making progress for free.

This is a critical point: Multitracking keeps egos in check. If your boss has three pet projects in play, chances are she'll be open to unvarnished feedback about them, but if there's only one pet project, it will be harder for her to hear the truth. Her ego will be perfectly conflated with the project. So

Responsiveness is correlated with attachment security, self-esteem, emotional well-being, and a laundry list of other positive attributes (even healthier levels of diurnal cortisol, which sounds like a Harry Potter spell but is actually a stress hormone). So when we ask what made the home visits at Stanton

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.

In 2000, Gladwell wrote a brilliant book called The Tipping Point, which examined the forces that cause social phenomena to "tip," or make the leap from small groups to big groups

When you use analogies—when you find someone who has solved your problem—you can take your pick from the world's buffet of solutions. But when you don't bother to look, you've got to cook up the answer yourself. Every time. That may be possible, but it's not wise, and it certainly ain't speedy. DUNBAR

What she gained was the insight that comes from experience.