Quotes from Chip Heath

The growth mindset, then, is a buffer against defeatism. It reframes failure as a natural part of the change process. And that's critical, because people will persevere only if they perceive falling down as learning rather than as failing.

The promise of stretching is not success, it's learning. It's self-insight. It's the promise of gleaning the answers to some of the most important and vexing questions of our lives: What do we want? What can we do? Who can we be? What can we endure?

Mother Teresa once said, "If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will." In

If you're worried about the possibility of rationalization at home or at work, you need to squeeze out the ambiguity from your goal. You need a black-and-white (B&W) goal. A B&W goal is an all-or-nothing goal, and it's useful in times when you worry about backsliding.

It changed their attitude from reactive and critical to active and creative.

Roy Baumeister draws an analogy to driving—in our cars, we may spend 95% of our time going straight, but it's the turns that determine where we end up.

SMART goals presume the emotion; they don't generate it.

You can be the architect of moments that matter.

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. They've changed behavior in a way that doesn't draw down the Rider's reserves of self-control.

How can you create a habit that supports the change you're trying to make? There are only two things to think about: (1) The habit needs to advance the mission, as did Pagonis's stand-up meetings. (2) The habit needs to be relatively easy to embrace. If it's too hard, then it creates its own independent change problem. For

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!'?

In tough times, the Rider sees problems everywhere, and "analysis paralysis" often kicks in. The Rider will spin his wheels indefinitely unless he's given clear direction. That's why to make progress on a change, you need ways to direct the Rider. Show him where to go, how to act, what destination to pursue. And that's why bright spots are so essential, because they are your best hope for directing the Rider when you're trying to bring about change.

A 1993 study by Nutt, which analyzed 168 decisions in this laborious way, came to a stunning conclusion: Of the teams he studied, only 29% considered more than one alternative.† By way of comparison, 30% of the teens in the Fischhoff study considered more than one alternative.

One of the worst things about knowing a lot, or having access to a lot of information, is that we're tempted to share it all.

Checklists educate people about what's best, showing them the ironclad right way to do something.

Psychologists have identified two contrasting mindsets that affect our motivation and our receptiveness to new opportunities: a "prevention focus," which orients us toward avoiding negative outcomes, and a "promotion focus," which orients us toward pursuing positive outcomes.

motivation comes from feeling—knowledge isn't enough to motivate change. But motivation also comes from confidence. The Elephant has to believe that it's capable of conquering the change. And there are two routes to building people's confidence so that they feel "big" relative to their challenge. You can shrink the change or grow your people (or, preferably, both).

You can't count on these milestones to occur naturally. To motivate change, you've got to plan for them.

One important implication of the gap theory is that we need to open gaps before we close them. Our tendency is to tell people the facts. First, though, they must realize that they need these facts. The

Don't obsess about the failures. Instead, investigate and clone the successes. Next, give direction to the Rider—both a start and a finish. Send him a destination postcard ("You'll be a third grader soon!"), and script his critical moves ("Buy 1% milk").

British Medical Journal asked its readers to vote on the most important medical milestone that had occurred since 1840, when the BMJ was first published. Third place went to anesthesia, second place to antibiotics. The winner was one you might not have expected: the "sanitary revolution," encompassing sewage disposal and methods for securing clean water. Much of the world, though, is still waiting for that revolution to come.

the sequence of change is not ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE, but

When responsiveness is coupled with openness, though, intimacy can develop quickly.

if appropriate, add an element of surprise.