Quotes from Chip Heath

To increase positive variance is to welcome humanity and spontaneity into the system.

Nonresponsiveness is corrosive.

Small targets lead to small victories, and small victories can often trigger a positive spiral of behavior.

What should a Pegasus person do in this situation?

Welcome to the most important work you'll ever do.

by disrupting routines, we can create more peaks.

When it comes to performance, strong purpose trumps strong passion.

Ooching, in short, should be used as a way to speed up the collection of trustworthy information, not as a way to slow down a decision that deserves our full commitment. 3

peaks can also be used to mark transitions. (Think weddings and graduations.)

self-insight"—a mature understanding of our capabilities and motivations—and it's correlated with an array of positive outcomes, ranging from good relationships to a sense of purpose in life. Self-insight and psychological well-being go together.

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).

To make our communications more effective, we need to shift our thinking from "What information do I need to convey?" to "What questions do I want my audience to ask?

Failing is often the best way to learn, and because of that, early failure is a kind of necessary investment.

Knowledge does not change behavior," he said. "We have all encountered crazy shrinks and obese doctors and divorced marriage counselors.

A good change leader never thinks, "Why are these people acting so badly? They must be bad people." A change leader thinks, "How can I set up a situation that brings out the good in these people?

Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that's the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.

The Curse of Knowledge: when we are given knowledge, it is impossible to imagine what it's like to LACK that knowledge.

Fundamental Attribution Error." The error lies in our inclination to attribute people's behavior to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in.

Transitions should be marked, milestones commemorated, and pits filled. That's the essence of thinking in moments.

Any time in life you're tempted to think, 'Should I do this OR that?' instead, ask yourself, 'Is there a way I can do this AND that?

And that's the first surprise about change: What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem.

Success emerges from the quality of the decisions we make and the quantity of luck we receive. We can't control luck. But we can control the way we make choices.

The status quo feels comfortable and steady because much of the choice has been squeezed out. You have your routines, your ways of doing things.

What's working, and how can we do more of it?" Sounds simple, doesn't it? Yet, in the real world, this obvious question is almost never asked. Instead, the question we ask is more problem focused: "What's broken, and how do we fix it?