Switch is about making difficult changes. The author came up with a formula how to direct the rider, motivate the Elephant and shape the path. I think they are probably a good framework. Many examples were given to reinforce the framework. Very good book for someone who want to take on the challenge of changing people and make a difference. A summary is as follows:

Direct the rider (the thinker)

Find the bright spots:
Investigate what’s working and clone it.
Solving malnutrition problem in a Vietnam village.
Use solution-focused therapy (not caring about archaeology): what’s the first small sign you’d see that would make you think the problem was gone.

Script the critical moves
Don’t think big picture, think in terms of specific behavior.
When the road is uncertain, the Elephant will insist on taking the default path. Decision paralysis can be deadly for change – because the most familiar change is always the status quo. Use clear rules. 1% milk vs. eat healthy. Set behavior goals. Force abusive parents to play with the kids (bend like a reed.) Clarity dissolves resistance.

Point to the Destination
Change is easier when you know where you’re going and why it’s worth it.
Destination postcards: “You will be 3rd grader soon.” Use SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and timely) goals. Emotional goals work better. B&W (Black & White) goals: BP’s “no dry holes” goal. “When you’re at the beginning, don’t obsess about the middle, because the middle is going to look different once you get there. Just look for a strong beginning and a strong ending and get moving.”

Motivate the Elephant (emotion)
Find the feeling
Knowing something isn’t enough to cause change. Make people feel something.
Use the SEE-FEEL-CHANGE. Use of video game for teenager cancel patients.

Shrink the change
Break down the change until it no longer spooks the Elephant. Limit the investment you’re asking for. Think small wins. A small deal reduces importance, reduces demand, and raises received skill levels – all three factors will tend to make change easier and more self-sustaining.

Grow the people
Cultivate a sense of identity and instill the growth mindset.
Convince people they’re the people of the desired state. Two basic models of decision making: consequence model and identity model (ask “who am I? what kind of situation is this? What would someone like me do in this situation?”). How can you make your change a matter of identity rather than a matter of consequences? Fixed mindset vs. growth mindset – Will struggle, we will fail, we will be knocked down – but throughout, we’ll get better and we’ll succeed in the end. The Elephant has to be believe that it’s capable of conquering the change: shrink the change or/and grow the people.

Shape the Path
Tweak the environment
When then situation changes, the behavior changes. So change the situation. [Front coaches for early bird students. Quiet hours. Throwing out the phone system at Rackspace, 1-click ordering, simplifying the online time sheet]

Build habits
When behavior is habitual, it’s “free” – it doesn’t tax the rider. Look for ways to encourage habits. [Setting “action triggers,” eating two bowls of soup while dieting, using checklists]

Rally the herd
Behavior is contagious. Help it spread. [“Fataki” in Tanzania, “free spaces” in hospital, seeding the tip jar]

In a way, Tony Hsieh is a genius by definition. He has the book smart and talents; he was able to breeze through high school and Harvard with ease. But most importantly, he has the entrepreneur blood running since childhood with his earthworm venture and button-making business. He stumbled into the Internet craze during the dotcom boom with the LinkExchange in his first endeavor after quitting the boring Oracle QA job upon graduating from Harvard. He made a killing after selling it to Microsoft for $265M and walked away with almost $32M, forfeiting $8M during the VIP (Vesting in peace) period because he was bored. Up until this, one can probably discount his ability that he was born the right time and got lucky. But what came next defined how he was as a mature businessman and visionary.

Zappos.com was one of his angel investment. He was supposed to sit back and pick the winning horses. Instead, he dived in and staked all of his “easy” money in it. Along the journey, he evolved the company into a company with a mission and strong differentiating culture with emphasis in customer service – an unusual differentiator for an internet company. At the end, he was the white knight that Zappos needed and a better man he became.

There are lots of lessons learned (like never outsourcing your differentiators) and interesting stories that Tony told throughout the book. I admire his entrepreneur spirit (quitting when he’s not challenged) and tenacity (tough it out like climbing the summit of Kilimanjaro and driving 36 hours from California to Kentucky). It’s a very good book who wants to start and grow a business with a good culture as a foundation. “Your brand is your culture.”

This is a great book to learn and it’s quite funny too. Highly recommended.

Seth Godin wrote a great book in this new era about how to be indispensable. He first argues his case why the new connected world has changed what’s required of the employees – not the compliant kind – but linchpins that create arts. He elaborates on the “resistance” that faces more people and boxes people into the compliant employees. In the end, he describes what linchpins are really like and he encourages everyone to reach for the higher level of art creations and give the gifts. Very good book. I listened to the audiobook twice and read the book. A summary is as follows:

The New World of Work:
This chapter paints the picture of the new world order, thanks to the Internet, versus the old industrial world. In the old days, the companies own the means of production. Now, it’s your laptop and the Internet. Godin insinuates the old white collar jobs are like the day laborers. If you’re just a hired hand, you’re not much different. “The only way to get what you’re worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about.”

Thinking About Your Choice:
The author encourages the readers to make the choice to become a linchpin. There is no other choices really. Most of us seek out art – experiences and products that deliver more value, more connection, and more experience, and change us for the better. “What the boss really want is an artist, someone who changes everything, someone who makes dreams come true… If he can’t have that, he’ll settle for a cheap drone.”

Indoctrination: How we Got Here
The chapters goes into details how we’re taught to be a replaceable cog in the industrial machine, to consume our way to happiness, and to fit in. The school should have taught : solving interesting problems, and lead. Godin advocates that we free the teachers from tests and reports and busywork but don’t blame the teachers – blame the corporate systems that are still training compliant workers who test well.

Becoming the Linchpin
A linchpin is someone who can accurately see the truth, understand the situation, and understand the potential outcomes of various decisions, and is able to make something happen. From the outside, it appears that the art is created in a moment. The arts created by linchpins carry massive amount of leverage. Deep knowledge is not sufficient. “Emotional labor is the hard work of making art, producing generosity, and exposing creativity.” Top Ten factors that motivate people to do their best: 1. challenge and responsibility, 2. flexibility, 3. stable work environment, 4. money, 5. professional development, 6. peer recognition, 7. stimulating colleagues and bosses, 8. exciting job content, 9. organizational culture, 10. location and community.

Is It Possible to Do Hard Work in a Cubicle?
Emotional labor is the task of doing important work, even when it isn’t easy. When you do emotional labor, you benefit. “Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn’t matter. The intent does. Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.” Passion is a desire, insistence, and willingness to give a gift.

The Resistance
“Real artists ship.” “Artists think along the edges of the box, because that’s where things get done. That’s where the audiences is, that’s where the means of production are available, and that’s where your can make an impact.” Shipping is difficult because of two challenges (thrashing and coordination) and one reason: the resistance (the lizard brain). The daemon is the source of great ideas, groundbreaking insights, generosity, love, connection, and the kindness. “Anxiety is practicing failure in advance – it’s needless and imaginary. It’s fear about fear, fear that means nothing.” Shenpa (Tibetan word meaing “scratching the itch”) is a spiral of pain.

The Powerful Culture of Gifts
Becoming a linchpin is an act of generosity. It’s difficult to be generous when you’re hungry. Yet being generous keeps you from going hungry.

There is No Map:
Two reasons seeing the future is so difficult: attachment to an outcome combined with a resistance and fear of change. Successful people are able to see the threads of the past and the threads of the future and untangle them into something manageable. There is no map to be a leader, no map to be an artist. If there were a map, there’d be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map.

Making the Choice
Transferring your passion to your job is far easier than finding a job that happens to match your passion.

The Culture of Connection
How people look at a linchpin: openness, conscientiousness, extra-version, agreeableness, and emotional stability.

The Seven Abilities of the Linchpin:
1. Providing a unique interface between members of the organization.
2. Delivering unique creativity.
3. Managing a situation or organization of great complexity.
4. Leading customers.
5. Inspiring staff.
6. Providing deep domain knowledge.
7. Possessing a unique talent.
Humility permits us to approach a problem with kindness and not arrogance.

When it Doesn’t Work
Do you art. But don’t wreck your art if it doesn’t lend itself to paying the bills. When people are committed to their arts, they never stop giving.

Mr. Zinsser gave us the permission to write well without using big words and inhuman descriptions. The book was first published in 1976 and it has aged well like a good wine. The only shortcomings are the unfamiliar movies and books referenced. Some of the quick take-aways:
“The essence of writing is rewriting.”
“Good writing rests on craft and always will.”
Writing as a craft like carpentry.
Do two things: relax and have confidence.
There are 4 things he advocates for good writing: clear, simple, brevity, and humanity/warmth.
You should be writing for yourself, not others.
“Writing is learned by imitation.”
“Bear in mind, when you’re choosing words and stringing them together, how they sound.”
“All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.”
“Unity is the anchor of good writing.” Unity of pronoun, tense, mood, and etc.
“The most important sentence in any article is the first one.” The fateful unit – the lead. It must capture the reader immediately. It must do some real work. Continue to build. Every paragraph should amplify the one that preceded it.

There were tips on interviews and travel articles.

On the abridged version of the audiobook, the author emphasizes the style and mostly on memoir. I learned about the distinction between memoir and autobiography is the time window difference; memoir zeros into one particular phase or era of a person’s life and autobiography covers the entire life. Definitely multiple memoirs are more interesting than one big autobiography, like Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and his follow-on memoirs. “The most interesting character in a memoir, who hope, will turn out to be the person who wrote it.” “The best gift you have to offer when you write personal history is the gift of yourself.”

Writing about sports: the values to look for: people, places time and transition.

Writing about humor: Strive for truth and hope to add humor along the way. “Ultimately we realized that the two intertwined.”

“Writing is related to character. If your values are sound, your writing will be sound. It all begins with intention. Figure out what you want to do and how you want to do it, and worth your way with humanity and integrity to the completed article.”

The authors put the various personality styles in a succinct manner that was easy to understand. I had some inclination of the various personality styles but this is the most systematic way I have seen so far. The key takeaway of the Platinum Rule is to treat people how they want to be treated but just how you want to be treated (Golden Rule).

This book is about the “Growth” mindset vs. “Fixed” mindset. My key take-aways:
Don’t praise a child’s talent but praise his/her efforts. Lots of prominent examples like John McEnroe, Tiger Wood, and etc. The concept was repeated throughout book. When listening to the Audiobook, I kept hearing “mindset” repeated so many times that I almost had to turned off the audiobook. Yes, it’s best to have a growth mindset instead of the fixed mindset.

A DVD review was done a couple of months ago. Click here. But this review is on her audiobook.

I listened to this audiobook after watching the DVD movie of the same subject. I must say Liz Gilbert is incredible in her use of metaphors in her writing – very impactful. Some Amazon reviewers complained about her whining of her divorces and circumstances. I found it very therapeutic having been through the same things before. Her voice in the audiobook is soothing and at times emotional – like someone’s telling a mesmerizing story. The words of book reveal more than the movie as you cannot “read” the emotional undertone of the actions, despite Julia Robert’s great acting.

There are some understandable discrepancies/omissions between the movies and the book. The author possessed great writing and speaking skills. I enjoyed listening to this book.