Chip Heath Quotes & Sayings

What is the ratio of the time I spend solving problems to the time I spend scaling successes? — Chip Heath

Self-control is an exhaustible resource. This is a crucial realization, because when we talk about "self-control," we don't mean the narrow sense of the word, as in the willpower needed to fight vice (smokes, cookies, alcohol). We're talking about a broader kind of self-supervision. Think of the way your mind works when you're giving negative feedback to an employee, or assembling a new bookshelf, or learning a new dance. You are careful and deliberate with your words or movements. It feels like there's a supervisor on duty. That's self-control, too. — Chip Heath

Use statistics as input not output. Use them to make up your mind on an issue.Don't make up your mind and then go looking for the number to support yourself. — Chip Heath

In this chapter, we've seen that what looks like a "character problem" is often correctible when you change the environment. The — Chip Heath

We can't unlearn what we already know and there are only two ways to beat the curse, the first is not to learn anything, the second is to transform our ideas. — Chip Heath

Big-picture, hands-off leadership isn't likely to work in a change situation, because the hardest part of change - the paralyzing part - is precisely in the details. — Chip Heath

Mysteries are powerful, Cialdini says, because they create a need for closure. "You've heard of the famous Aha! experience, right?" he says. "Well, the Aha! experience is much more satisfying when it is preceded by the Huh? experience." By creating a mystery, the writer-astronomer made dust interesting. He sustained attention, not just for the span of a punch line but for the span of a twenty-page article dense with information on scientific theories and experimentation. — Chip Heath

What's broken, and how do we fix it? — Chip Heath

Grit is not synonymous with hard work. It involves a certain single-mindedness. An ungritty prison inmate will mount a daring new escape attempt every month, but a gritty prison inmate will tunnel his way out one spoonful of concrete at a time. Grit — Chip Heath

the more successful change transformations were more likely to set behavioral goals: 89 percent of the top third versus only 33 percent of the bottom third. For instance, a behavioral goal might be that project teams would meet once a week — Chip Heath

Smart enough to get into Yale. Economists studied students who had been admitted to two schools of higher and lower prestige but decided to attend the school with lower prestige. Estimated sacrifice in lifetime earnings from attending the less prestigious school: none. — Chip Heath

This message is that skin damage is cumulative and irreversible. So we've rewritten the message to stress that point and eliminate nonessential information. We've done this to illustrate the process of forced prioritization; we've had to eliminate some interesting stuff (such as the references to melanin) in order to let the core shine through. We've tried to emphasize the core in a couple of ways. First, we've unburied the lead - putting — Chip Heath

When you're at the beginning, don't obsess about the middle, because the middle is going to look different once you get there. — Chip Heath

Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Timely — Chip Heath

So, a good process for making your ideas stickier is: (1) Identify the central message you need to communicate - find the core; (2) Figure out what is counterintuitive about the message - i.e., What are the unexpected implications of your core message? Why isn't it already happening naturally? (3) Communicate your message in a way that breaks your audience's guessing machines along the critical, counterintuitive dimension. Then, once their guessing machines have failed, help them refine their machines. — Chip Heath

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

Mental practice alone produced about two thirds of the benefits of actual physical practice — Chip Heath

In situations where your herd has embraced the right behavior, publicize it. For instance, if 80 percent of your team submits time sheets on time, make sure the other 20 percent knows the group norm. Those individuals almost certainly will correct themselves. But if only 10 percent of your team submits time sheets on time, publicizing those results will hurt, not help. — Chip Heath

punch line: 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. — Chip Heath

An old advertising maxim says you've got to spell out the benefit of the benefit. In other words, people don't buy quarter-inch drill bits. They buy quarter-inch holes so they can hang their children's pictures. — Chip Heath

successful change transformations were more likely to set behavioral goals: — Chip Heath

Challenge plot, the Connection plot, and the Creativity plot. — Chip Heath

a secondary effect of being angry, which was recently discovered by researchers, is that we become more certain of our judgments. When we're angry, we know we're right, as anyone who has been in a relationship can attest. — Chip Heath

The discovery of Viagra was a similar story. Initially, the drug had been tested as a treatment for chest pain (angina), and for that purpose it was a failure. Then patients started reporting a curious side effect. (Imagine those awkward conversations: "Doc, my chest still hurts ... but, um, I've been noticing an effect somewhere else ... ") — Chip Heath

TO OOCH IS TO ask, Why predict something we can test? Why guess when we can know? — Chip Heath

Confirmation bias is probably the single biggest problem in business, because even the most sophisticated people get it wrong. People go out and they're collecting the data, and they don't realize they're cooking the books. — Chip Heath

The problem is that urgencies - the most vivid and immediate circumstances - will always hog our spotlight. — Chip Heath

A pyramid signifies hierarchy, yet no hierarchy is evident in the Food Pyramid. — Chip Heath

When it comes to statistics, our best advice is to use them as input, not output. Use them to make up your mind on an issue. Don't make up your mind and then go looking for the numbers to support yourself - that's asking for temptation and trouble. But if we use statistics to help us make up our minds, we'll be in a great position to share the pivotal numbers with others, — Chip Heath

In Sternin's judgment, all of this analysis was "TBU" - true but useless. — Chip Heath

Many armies fail because they put all their emphasis into creating a plan that becomes useless ten minutes into the battle — Chip Heath

Research has found that interviews are less predictive of job performance than work samples, job-knowledge tests, and peer ratings of past job performance. Even a simple intelligence test is substantially more predictive than an interview. — Chip Heath

For individuals' behavior to change, you've got to influence not only their environment but their hearts and minds. — Chip Heath

Common sense is the enemy of sticky messages, if I already "get" what you're trying to tell me, why should I be obsessed about remembering it. — Chip Heath

The Curse of Knowledge: when we are given knowledge, it is impossible to imagine what it's like to LACK that knowledge. — Chip Heath

One solution to this is to bundle our decisions with "tripwires," signals that would snap us awake at exactly the right moment, compelling us to reconsider a decision or to make a new one. Think of the way that the low-fuel warning in your car lights up, grabbing your attention. — Chip Heath

Sportsmanship" had been stretched too far. Like "relativity," it had migrated far afield from its original meaning. It used to refer to the kind of behavior that Lance Armstrong showed Jan Ullrich. But over time the term was stretched to include unimpressive, nonchivalrous behavior, like losing without whining too much or making it through an entire game without assaulting a referee. — Chip Heath

One of my favorite bloggers who can articulate his ideas clearly is Avinash Kaushik. The only problem? His ideas are so awesome his posts are a mile long, but I promise they are worth the time. — Chip Heath

Kotter and Cohen observed that, in almost all successful change efforts, the sequence of change is not ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE, but rather SEE-FEEL-CHANGE. You — Chip Heath

Just look for a strong beginning and a strong ending and get moving. — Chip Heath

The most basic way to get someone's attention is this: Break a pattern. — Chip Heath

As I see it, I am not just in charge of food service; I am in charge of morale. — Chip Heath

The more we reduce the amount of information in an idea, the stickier it will be. — Chip Heath

What would I tell my best friend to do in this situation? — Chip Heath

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

The company wants to sell you more shampoo, your friend doesn't, so she gets more trust points. — Chip Heath

Feature creep is an innocent process. An engineer looking at a prototype of a remote control might think to herself, Hey, there's some extra real estate here on the face of the control. And there's some extra capacity on the chip. Rather than let it go to waste, what if we give people the ability to toggle between the Julian and Gregorian calendars? — Chip Heath

W. Edwards Deming, the chief instigator of the Total Quality Management movement that revolutionized manufacturing, told a story about a company that used a variety of flammable products in its production process. Unsurprisingly, fires frequently broke out in its plants. But the president of the company didn't think he had a situation problem; he thought he had a person problem. He sent a letter to every one of the company's 10,500 employees, pleading with them to set fewer fires. Ahem. (What — Chip Heath

Most analysts are SO SMART and have amazing ideas, but they can't convey their genius ideas to others. — Chip Heath

People tend to overuse any idea or concept that delivers an emotional kick. — Chip Heath

The simple act of committing to an answer makes the students more engaged and more curious about the outcome. — Chip Heath

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

As we gain information we are more likely to focus on what we don't know : Someone who knows the state capitals of 17 of 50 states may be proud of her knowledge. But someone who knows 47 may think of herself as not knowing 3 capitals — Chip Heath

Thinking, Fast and Slow — Chip Heath

When you engineer early successes, what you're really doing is engineering hope. Hope is precious to a change effort. — Chip Heath

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

Stories are flight simulators for our brains. — Chip Heath

Knowledge does not change behavior," he said. "We have all encountered crazy shrinks and obese doctors and divorced marriage counselors. — Chip Heath

You don't have to speak monosyllables to be simple. What we mean by simple is finding the core of the idea. — Chip Heath

Simple tweaks of the Path can lead to dramatic changes in behavior. — Chip Heath

If an atomic bomb fell on Raleigh, it wouldn't be news in Benson unless some of the debris and ashes fell on Benson. — Chip 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

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

Researchers have found again and again that people act as though losses are from two to four times more painful than gains are pleasurable. — Chip Heath

Rather than focusing solely on what's new and different about the change to come, make an effort to remind people what's already been conquered. — Chip Heath

What if we started every decision by asking some simple questions: What are we giving up by making this choice? What else could we do with the same time and money? — Chip Heath

a technique called "failure mode and effect analysis" (FMEA), a precursor to the premortem that has been used for decades in the military and government. — Chip Heath

One of his friends, a marketing professor at Stanford, said, "Think about this from a marketing perspective. We can change behavior in a short television ad. We don't do it with information. We do it with identity: 'If I buy a BMW, I'm going to be this kind of person. — Chip Heath

Exception Question: "When was the last time you saw a little bit of the miracle, even just for a short time? — Chip Heath

Priestley, a brilliant man with an astonishing variety of talents, did not lack for career options. He was employed as a minister for a Dissenting church in Leeds, England. ("Dissenting" meant that it was not affiliated with the Church of England, the state-sanctioned religion.) But — Chip Heath

If the Rider isn't sure exactly what direction to go, he tends to lead the Elephant in circles. And as we'll see, that tendency explains the third and final surprise about change: What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. — Chip Heath

The Springboard. Denning — Chip Heath

This is the biggest problem in analytics today. — Chip Heath

Our struggles with e-mail are a bit pathetic, but the larger topic is worth considering: Is it possible to design an environment in which undesired behaviors - whether yours or your colleagues' - are made not only harder but impossible? As it turns out, lots of people actually make their living contemplating how to wipe out the wrong kinds of behaviors. — Chip Heath

To make good decisions, CEOs need the courage to seek out disagreement. Alfred Sloan, the longtime CEO and chairman of General Motors, once interrupted a committee meeting with a question: "Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here?" All the committee members nodded. "Then," Sloan said, "I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what this decision is about. — Chip Heath

There's a good reason why change can be difficult: The world doesn't always want what you want. — Chip Heath

It seems some CEOs who pay extremely large acquisition premiums ... come to believe their own press. — Chip Heath

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

One of IDEO's designers even sketched out a "project mood chart" that predicts how people will feel at different phases of a project. It's a U-shaped curve with a peak of positive emotion, labeled "hope," at the beginning, and a second peak of positive emotion, labeled "confidence," at the end. In between the two peaks is a negative emotional valley labeled "insight. — Chip Heath

Knowledge curses us, if we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. And it becomes difficult to share our knowledge with others because we can't readily re-create our listener's state of mind. — Chip Heath

Create a need for closure. — Chip Heath

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

Work to make the core message itself more interesting. — Chip Heath

What should a Pegasus person do in this situation? — Chip Heath

Why are habits so important? They are, in essence, behavioral autopilot. They allow lots of good behaviors to happen without the Rider taking charge. Remember that the Rider's self-control is exhaustible, so it's a huge plus if some positive things can happen "free" on autopilot. — Chip Heath

Anger prepares us to fight and fear prepares us to flee. — Chip Heath

It takes emotion to bring knowledge to a boil. — Chip Heath

Don't obsess about the failures. Instead, investigate and clone the successes. — Chip Heath

Thinking, Fast and Slow, mentioned above, and Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational. One of the handful of books that provides advice on making decisions better is Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, which was written for "choice architects" in business and government who construct decision systems such as retirement plans or organ-donation policies. It has been used to improve government policies in the United States, Great Britain, and other countries. — Chip Heath

No detail is too small. — Chip Heath

When you say three things, you say nothing. — Chip Heath

Multitracking keeps egos in check. If your boss has three pet projects in play, chances are she'll be open to unvarnished feedback about them, but if there's only one pet project, it will be harder for her to hear the truth. Her ego will be perfectly conflated with the project. — Chip Heath

serving food is a job, but improving morale is a mission. — Chip Heath

As stories are told and retold, they evolve. They come to emphasize individuals, not organizations; to celebrate a flash of insight over stepwise improvements; and to exaggerate obstacles while downplaying institutional support. — Chip Heath

ladder your way down from a change idea to a specific behavior, you — Chip Heath

Lots of us have expertise in particular areas. Becoming an expert in something means that we become more and more fascinated by nuance and complexity. That's when the Curse of Knowledge kicks in, and we start to forget what it's like not to know what we know. — Chip Heath

Mental simulation is not as good as actually doing something. But it's the next best thing. And the right kind of a story is a simulation. — Chip Heath

Say your husband wants to start a business creating topiary sculptures for clients. You think the idea is bonkers, but you admire his passion, so it seems cruel to veto it. Instead, set a tripwire. Okay, dear, let's give the topiary-sculpture business a shot, but can we agree that we won't invest more than $10,000 of our savings in it? Alternatively, you might say: Go for it, but if you don't have a paying customer within three months, let's talk seriously about Plan B. — Chip Heath

(We cut back on expenses today to yield a better balance sheet next year. We avoid ice cream today for a better body next year.) — Chip Heath

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