The Power of Habit!

Finished reading the book, “The Power of habit” by Charles Duhigg, an incredible account of all the automatic decisions we make without knowing about it. The book is a fascinating read with a gripping narrative from Neurology of habit to how organizations form habits. It is a rare book with impressive mass of research, lively writing style and just the right balance of intellectual seriousness with practical advice. A mind-blowing perspective on what we do and how we do it!

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Habits that are technically defined as choices that all of us deliberately make at some point, and then stop thinking about but continue doing, often every day.

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The way we habitually think about ourselves, and our surroundings creates the world each one of us inhabit. A very apt description of the same was given by the writer David Foster Wallace,” There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?? And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over and goes ‘what the hell is water?’” The water is habits, the unthinking choices and invisible decisions that surround us every day- and which just by looking at them, become visible again. The most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.

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Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save efforts. Left to it’s own devices, the brain will try to make almost any routine into a habit, because habits allows our minds to ramp down more often. This effort-saving instinct is a huge advantage. An efficient brain requires less room, which makes for a smaller head, which makes childbirth easier and therefore causes fewer infant and mother deaths. An efficient brain also allows us to stop thinking constantly about basic behaviour such as eating, walking etc. and we can devote our mental energy to something useful and constructive. So, we create habit loops- Cue- routine- reward.

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The most important aspect of discovery of habit loop is that it reveals a basic truth: when a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard or diverts focus to other tasks. So, unless you deliberately fight a habit- unless you find new routines- the pattern will fold automatically.

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Research suggests that 40 percent of the actions people performed each day weren’t actual decisions, but habits. In the past two decades scientists and marketers has built significant understanding on how habits work and more important how they change.

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The book covers a lot of interesting case studies on how organizations have created competitive advantage or growth by using this understanding. A case in point is Starbucks - it made willpower a habit: by choosing a certain behavior ahead of time, and then following that routine when an inflection point arise. The reward is a memorable customer experience. It’s amazing how this organization created this competitive advantage by just using the Cue-Routine- Reward loop of habit. The managers drilled employees, role-playing with them until the response became automatic. In the words of Howard Behar (Former president of Starbucks), “We are not in coffee business serving people. We’re in the people business serving coffee. Without that, we’re toast”.

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Another interesting case study is that of Target and Amazon and how it knows what you want before you do. They have developed predictive systems and pattern analysis to explain, predict and manipulate human behaviour. The simple theory is that: if you dress a new something in old habits, it’s easier for the public to accept it.

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The book helps in understanding why habits emerge, how they change, and the science behind their mechanics. Provides the essential know how on how to break a habit into parts and rebuild it to our specifications. Transforming a habit isn’t necessarily easy or quick. It isn’t always simple.

But it is possible, and the books helps in understanding the how.

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A must read….