Why You Can't Opt Out of Emotion: Q&A with Dan Heath

One of my favorite business writers is Dan Heath, who has co-authored three terrific books with his brother Chip. A fourth book is coming this fall. In honor of his oeuvre - and ahead of his next work - I asked if Dan if he'd answer some burning questions. Happily for this fan, he agreed. Stay tuned in October, when we'll have a conversation about his upcoming book, The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact.

Q: Let’s take a quick tour through your books. In Made to Stick, you and Chip write about shaping ideas to stick in people’s minds. In Switch, you focus on how to inspire change when change is hard. And in Decisive, you share how to make better decisions in life and work. You’ve essentially tackled three of the most fundamental challenges we all face: getting people to pay attention to us, getting ourselves and others to change, and getting our arms around tough decisions. What drives you to take on these kinds of tough topics – and what is it like to wrestle with them in the process of shaping your theses?

A: Chip and I see ourselves as research assistants for the world. We obsess about big, complex questions: How do you make better decisions? How do you make messages stick with people? In a typical cycle, we’ll spend a few years digging up answers, then we’ll dress them up in a book. That’s what we do for fun. Some brothers fix up old Mustangs; we pan for gold in the psychology literature.

Q: As a superfan who has read all four of your books, including the one about to come out, there are a few themes that weave in and out of all your works: the importance of perspective, the merits of the unexpected and the power of emotions and storytelling in making anything happen. Could you share what theme has stood out to you, over and over, in all the subjects you’ve explored?

A: Our books are on the business shelf in the bookstore but really they’re psychology books. And if your topic is psychology—how people think and behave—then all roads lead back to emotion. But in organizations we’re taught to ignore or marginalize emotion. We’re taught that a “good decision” is 100% rational and 0% emotional, even though research shows people primed to think rationally are more likely to cheat their partners. We’re taught that, if we want people to change, we should present them with the right analysis, even though information is a feeble force in motivating behavior change. So, in our books, we often return to a basic point: You can’t opt out of emotion. A message without emotion is lifeless. A change effort without emotion is dead on arrival. A decision without emotion is ungrounded.

Q: Much of your work focuses on essential human truths that we tend to forget all the time in our work. What is going on with that? How do we find a way to step back and embrace the kind of thinking you share in your work?

A: The best way we can help is to stay simple and practical. Chip and I hate business books that are full of “on one hand, on the other hand” advice. Good advice should reduce complexity, not multiply it. Google Maps doesn’t say: “Turn left. Unless you feel like you may be taxing the growth capacity of your team, and then turn right. Or if you’re experiencing a disruptive change, then go straight but accelerate like a demon.” We try hard to give simple advice that’s not oversimplified. As a result, we tend to look for situations where people are naturally leaning in the wrong direction. For instance, in Decisive, we talk about the pervasive bias of narrow framing, which says that when we make decisions, we tend to fixate on one option and then ask ourselves: “Should I do that thing or not?” It’s a horrible bias; it blinds us to other possibilities. So, in the book, we show people how to spot that tendency in themselves and others. We suggest that people be on guard any time they hear the phrase “whether or not,” and to be diligent about surfacing one more viable alternative in their decisions. Never settle for one option. So that’s an example of our approach—we’re offering one practical thing you can do to make better decisions without wallowing in the endless nuance of the research literature.

Q: What’s been your favorite finding or story you uncovered in your all your research – the one that is made to stick for you?

A: This is kind of a “which kid is your favorite?” question. Fortunately, I do have a favorite kid: the notion of “finding bright spots” from Switch. The idea is that we have a natural lean toward the negative. (A famous psychology paper says, when it comes to the way we think, “Bad is stronger than good.”) In times of change, we instinctively ask, “What’s the problem and how do I solve it?” But we tend to ignore a question that is every bit as useful: “What’s working already and how can we do more of it?” Can we study our own bright spots (in our lives, our teams, and our communities) and scale the elements that have allowed us to succeed? The “bright spots” idea is a mashup of a lot of related methodologies: positive deviance, appreciative inquiry, “strengths-based” growth, solutions-focused brief therapy, etc. And it’s a powerful brew: over the years, we’ve heard from countless people who have used the bright-spots approach to change their lives for the better—from a graduate student who cured his own procrastination problem to a company that boosted its revenue by nine digits. All by studying their own bright spots. (That’s why this work is more fun than fixing up Mustangs!)