Switch [A Review]

25 Sep, 2025

Finished the book Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath on the bus about a week ago. It's a good book. But first, some meta.

Interlude: Meta

I've recently been working in The City (San Francisco). It's a great place to be and I liked doing what I did, but the 3.5-4 hours spent commuting every day has definitely taken its toll on me. The only silver lining is I've been quite productive during some¹ of those commuting hours – "on the grind" if you will. As a result, I've done quite a bit of reading, as evidenced by my recent blog posts.
In essence, I've had a lot of time to read, and I have an urgency that I need to read. And thus it makes sense that I was able to essentially finish this book in a week.

For me, that's shockingly fast.

Switch: The Book

This book is titled "Switch" and is subtitled "How To Change Things When Change is Hard". The title gives an accurate description of the book, the subtitle less so.
The main topic that Switch tackles is how to switch - especially the issue of how to get other people to switch (to a different behavior). Switch does this by essentially laying out a blueprint and giving readers the steps to make this happen -- Chapter 4 for example is named "Point To The Destination", and focuses on explaining firstly why pointing to a concrete destination is useful in getting people to switch their behavior and also secondly how to point towards a good destination. For all chapters, this is done through examples, studies and empirical surveys, and general, broad, intuitive statements².
Thus, at the end of the book, the Heath brothers have shown various techniques for changing behaviors and have layed out a step-by-step plan towards affecting change. Of course, the plan is not coarse and detailed, yet it still acts as a great supporting structure that can guide any towards getting other people to switch.

In all, like I said (wrote?), it's a great read. The stories are riveting (this might just be for me though), the concept is fascinating (who doesn't want to learn how to switch behaviors?), and the ideas I've taken away from this book are semi-novel. As such, I give this book a 8.8/10, and recommend you read this book too. It probably won't be super helpful, but it may shine light on a dead horse and is not a boring read.
Notes to the book are down below.

Book Notes

Switch - On changing!

• (6) - "Clocky [the rolling alarm clock that rolls around when it goes off and forces its owner to chase it down and stop it] is not a product for sane species"
• (11) - Self-control is more like self-supervision rather than willpower; willpower directs the brain towards actions, yet self-control is more like self-limiting; e.g. when talking to a superior, you're not actively using willpower to generate words or stay in the conversation but rather are more actively monitoring the conversation and what you want to say to make sure it fits the situation
• (17) - the 3 principles to switching; Direct the Rider, Motivate the Elephant, Shape the Path [Translated: Make sure the switch is rational and makes sense, make you/others want to do the goal (and emotionally connected?), and make sure the plan towards achieving the goal is laid out and doable.]

~ Part 1: Direct The Rider ~

• (30) - Sternin in Vietnam! "Find the Bright Spots" (title of Chapter 1) is basically related to 'deviating positively' - focus on what worked rather than what didn't work and build off of there [e.g. if trying to study more, focus not on the days when you didn't study but rather on those days when you did study and try to replicate those days]
• (37) - The concept of Miracle and Exception Questions (see Solution-focused therapy)
• (43) - "true but useless" - statements that are true but useless (e.g. a bully might be being a bully since his home situation isn't great, but there's no real way to change his home situation so this information is true but useless in the sense that it doesn't lead to action)
• (chapter 3) - lots of choices --> hard to make a singular choice --> the status quo is great because choice is gone; everything is familiar
• (58) - clinic
• (69) - Digging tree stumps - damn. (just a note I made :P)
• Script the Critical Moves ~> Draw the Path Forwards towards a different action.
• (72) - The power of small goals/changes; everyone wants to "eat healthy" but that's too hard. Instead, just tell everyone to "buy 1% milk" and they'll do that since that's simple and actionable (and contributes to the overall goal of getting healthy).
• (chapter 4) - a la destination
• (77) - BHAG (Big, Hard, Audacious, Goal) that's also gut punching is a good goal.
• (84) - clinic
• (86) - B&W (Black and White) goals can be super useful as they stop rationalization for happening. Saying "no donuts ever" draws a clear line between the black and the white. It at least is much better than "eat less donuts"
• (98) - Recap; Follow the Bright Spots, give Direction to the Rider.

~ Part 2: Motivate the Elephant ~

• (ch 5) - Find the Feeling
• (106) - Fuzzy situations ~ uncertainity ~ emotions take over. If you want a change in fuzzy situations, use the See-Feel-Change model instead of the Analyze-Think-Change (e.g. to get a product line changed, don't analyze market futures and make decisions based off of that and pitch that; instead, see what's going on and make a demo that focuses on the visual, make people feel a certain way (oh yeah this product does look good) and then pitch the change)
• (110) - clinic
• (??) - It's not a "lack of understanding" -- it's a 'lack of care' or a "lack of feeling" (why doesn't [x] stop smoking?)
• (ch 6) - Shrink the Change.
• (127) - Start partially finished rather than from scratch (e.g. 1/10 = 10% of the way there rather than 0/9 = 0%)
• (130) - the 5 minute clean concept - (todo? is interesting and seems beneficial.)
• (134) - clinic
• (144) - Emphasis on small, visual goals
• (144) - "Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens--and when it happens, it lasts." - John Wooden
• (146) - break todo lists from vague tasks into doable ones!!!!
• (ch 7) - Grow Your People.
• (151) - Example of St. Lucia Parrot -- the shift from killing the bird being a matter of consequences => a matter of identity is why its resurgence worked
• (162) - growth mindset ~ expectation of failure/setback (+ the knowingness that those setbacks will be overcome)
• (167) - the U shape of design/learning; good in the beginning, a grind in the middle (and suffering and everything looks and feels terrible and like failing), success at the end.

~ Part 3: Shape the Path ~

• (ch 8) - Environment Tweaking
• it's not the person; it's the environment they're in. so go change that environment -> that person's behavior will also change (switch)
• (191) - swe 'sterile cockpit' (no meetings, gatherings/lots of talking) hours -> big benefits!?
• (192) - Interesting suggestion on snack eating; always disregard the size of the container (bag, wrapper) and only eat after the food is poured out onto a dish/plate
• (198) - Haddon Matrix thinking (pre-event, event, post-event interventions)
• (ch 9) - Build Habits
• (210) - the unreasonable effectivness of action triggers towards getting things done
  --> be specific with them!!
• (213) - clinic
• (216) ~ the origin of the word 'standup' (in startups) - literally dudes stood up during general Pagonis' meeting during the Gulf War
• (222) - the unreasonable goodness of checklists
• (ch 10) - Rally the Herd
• (228) - Herd behavior happens when you publicize the majority (e.g. most people here wash their hands with soap!)
• (240) - John clinic
• (246) - "free spaces" are important (third spaces but where reformers get together and discuss ways of reform (and where the dominant group isn't present))
• (ch 11) (last chapter) - Keep the Switch going!
• (251) - ill-conceived ambles also start from a single step.
• (252) - we do be quicker to grouse than to praise
• [257] - Reminder of book examples