The Rider and The Elephant
Josh Dietrich
Executive coach leveraging neuroscience, ontological coaching, and software executive experience within higher education and EdTech.
This week’s post continues the theme of Influencing for Change which I started last week when I discussed how to strengthen your connections. Today I want to share a few insights from an excellent book on the topic, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by brothers Chip and Dan Heath.
I was gifted this book a few months ago by a fellow coach. I have a pretty large stack of books in my backlog, but her enthusiasm about this one was palpable, so I let it leapfrog several others, and I’m happy that I did. The authors outline an efficient framework you can use to drive change in difficult situations, accompanied by numerous case studies that illustrate the concepts very effectively.
Their model uses the metaphor of a person riding an elephant. The rider represents rational thinking, and the elephant represents emotions. To some extent, the rider can guide the elephant, but they run out of energy to do so at some stage, and the emotional elephant takes over. They offer three key methods to drive change: directing the rider, motivating the elephant, and shaping the path.
Direct The Rider
Three strategies help us “Direct the Rider,” appealing to people’s rational minds.?
One great example of Script the critical moves is a campaign launched in two West Virginia communities focused on improving public health. Rather than using high-level messaging about the importance of eating healthy, they got specific. They knew that getting individuals to switch from whole milk to 1% milk would bring them in line with the USDA recommended levels of saturated fat. So, they launched campaigns focused on this specific action. The campaign increased the market share of low-fat milk from 18 percent to 41 percent (it eventually settled at 35 percent).
Motivate The Elephant
Often we focus too much energy trying to direct the rational rider when the barrier to change is emotional. The Heath brothers offer three strategies aimed at motivating the emotional elephant.
One simple yet powerful example of Shrink the change was a local car wash experiment with loyalty cards. Some customers were given loyalty cards that required eight stamps to get a reward. Others were given cards that required ten but were given a head-start with two stamps on their card. The customer needed eight more car washes to get the reward in each case. After a few months, 19 percent of the first group earned the reward, compared to 34 percent of the second group. Being 20 percent done motivated their elephant.
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Shape The Path
The third strategic area for driving change focuses on the environment. Often we commit what Stanford psychologist Lee Ross refers to as the “Fundamental Attribution Error.” We believe the barrier to change is the individual when the real obstacle is their environment. There are three strategies for shaping the path.
Switch’s Model and Ontological Coaching
As I read this book, I was struck by the similarities between the Heath brothers’ model for driving organizational change and the models of ontological coaching that my colleagues and I use to support personal change.
Ontology is a branch of philosophy that deals with the study of being and existence. In ontological coaching, we look to understand our current Way of Being and how we are observing our world. When that Way of Being is not serving us, we look to generate ontological shifts (change) that shift our view of the world, creating a new Way of Being that opens new possibilities.
Your Way of Being originates from the coherence of your language (The Rider), your moods and emotions (The Elephant), and your body (The Path). When a coachee comes to me with a challenge they want to work through, we will typically explore their use of language and their story, what moods and emotions they are experiencing, and how they are holding their body. Through ontological coaching, I help the coachee identify strategies to direct their rider, motivate their elephant, and shape the path to create change for themselves.
Closing
I’ll admit we barely scratched the surface on the change model in Switch. I hope that this overview has given you enough insights to convince you to read the book if you have difficult change ahead of you. It will not disappoint!
Executive Coach- Helping leaders recharge their 5 batteries
10 个月Great summary. Thank you Josh Dietrich ?? for capturing the key elements so clearly. Yes, the metaphor is now widely used and it helps the business world to recognize and accept the 'elephant weight' of our emotions.
Director, Cloud Operations and Engineering, Ellucian
2 年Have actually been introduced to the elephant/rider concept from this book in numerous settings, including in weight loss/health management programs, and found this particularly relevant in a period of both organizational and personal change.
Executive coach leveraging neuroscience, ontological coaching, and software executive experience within higher education and EdTech.
2 年Felicity Coe thank you for gifting this book to me!
Enterprise Security and Technology Leader | CISO, CISM, CCISO | Trusted Advisor | Community Builder
2 年I love this post Josh! I'm going to get a copy of this book and move it up toward the top of my list ??