Chip Heath > Quotes

“The most basic way to get someone's attention is this: Break a pattern.”
― Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“Stephen Covey, in his book The 8th Habit, decribes a poll of 23,000 employees drawn from a number of companies and industries. He reports the poll's findings:

* Only 37 percent said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why
* Only one in five was enthusiastic about their team's and their organization's goals
* Only one in five said they had a clear "line of sight" between their tasks and their team's and organization's goals
* Only 15 percent felt that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals
* Only 20 percent fully trusted the organization they work for



Then, Covey superimposes a very human metaphor over the statistics. He says, "If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only 4 of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care. Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but 2 players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent.”
― Chip Heath & Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“Anger prepares us to fight and fear prepares us to flee.”
― Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“Knowledge does not change behavior,” he said. “We have all encountered crazy shrinks and obese doctors and divorced marriage counselors.”
― Chip Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

“Failing is often the best way to learn, and because of that, early failure is a kind of necessary investment.”
― Chip Heath, Switch

“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?”
― Chip Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“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?”
― Chip Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

“The first problem of communication is getting people's attention.”
― Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that’s the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.”
― Chip Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

“The Curse of Knowledge: when we are given knowledge, it is impossible to imagine what it's like to LACK that knowledge.”
― Chip Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“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.”
― Chip Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

“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?”
― Chip Heath, Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work

“Transitions should be marked, milestones commemorated, and pits filled. That’s the essence of thinking in moments.”
― Chip Heath, The Power of Moments: Why Certain Moments Have Extraordinary Impact

“The bigger the change you’re suggesting, the more it will sap people’s self-control. And when people exhaust their self-control, what they’re exhausting are the mental muscles needed to think creatively, to focus, to inhibit their impulses, and to persist in the face of frustration or failure. In other words, they’re exhausting precisely the mental muscles needed to make a big change. So when you hear people say that change is hard because people are lazy or resistant, that’s just flat wrong. In fact, the opposite is true: Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that’s the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.”
― Chip Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

“And that’s the first surprise about change: What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem.”
― Chip Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

“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.”
― Chip Heath, Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work

“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?”
― Chip Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

“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.”
― Chip Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

“The most basic way to make people care is to form an association between something they don’t yet care about and something they do care about. We”
― Chip Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“There’s nine times more to gain by elevating positive customers than by eliminating negative ones.”
― Chip Heath, The Power of Moments: Why Certain Moments Have Extraordinary Impact

“People tend to overuse any idea or concept that delivers an emotional kick.”
― Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“You can’t appreciate the solution until you appreciate the problem. So when we talk about “tripping over the truth,” we mean the truth about a problem or harm. That’s what sparks sudden insight.”
― Chip Heath, The Power of Moments: Why Certain Moments Have Extraordinary Impact

“Regrets of the Dying.” She shared the five most common regrets of the people she had come to know: 1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. (“Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.”) 2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. 3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. (“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others.”) 4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. 5. I wish that I had let myself be happier. (“Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits.”)”
― Chip Heath, The Power of Moments: Why Certain Moments Have Extraordinary Impact

“Until you can ladder your way down from a change idea to a specific behavior, you’re not ready to lead a switch.”
― Chip Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

“To get someone's attention break a pattern of thinking.”
― Chip Heath and Dan Heath

“If I already intuitively "get" what you're trying to tell me, why should I obsess about remembering it? The danger, of course, is that what sounds like common sense often isn't.... It's your job, as a communicator, to expose the parts of your message that are uncommon sense.
(p.72)”
― Chip Heath & Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“Trying to fight inertia and indifference with analytical arguments is like tossing a fire extinguisher to someone who’s drowning. The solution doesn’t match the problem.”
― Chip Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

“Create a need for closure.”
― Chip Heath and Dan Heath

“When you say three things, you say nothing.”
― Chip Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
― Chip Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die