Literary Analysis Essay on Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard

Introduction

For any change to be affected, it is the law of someone having to decide on something and hence begin the initiative of working differently from the previous traits. The change cans start with either you, your family or even your team. Thus, in case people ought to have any change, then they are obliged to behave differently. Changing people's behavior would require one to have their mind, heart and their situational environment influenced. Besides, self-control can also be seen as another reliable way of changing people's behavior although it also falls short of control since it can quickly be exhausted. Thus, these two reasons give a foundation on why it is hard to impact change. Knowledge is seen to be a feeble way of influencing people's behavior. Tangible evidence exists as proof since, for example, however knowledgeable doctors are, there are still obese doctors, yet knowledgeable counselors are, there live depressed counselors and so on.

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However, change seems so hard to be impacted by people; there exist various ways in which a successful transformation can be realized. To change someone's behavior, or a person's behavior, three essential and reliable things do count in a paramount way. These three essential things include; directing the rider, which means to reach the rational part of that particular person, motivating the elephant, implying that one has to arrive on the emotional part, and finally, shaping the path, which means clearing the way to allow change to take place. It is believed that, if anyone can manage to apply all the three ways all at once, a significant difference can easily occur even in the cases where then a person has got little power and resources.

Direct the Rider. To direct the rider, one has to avail a crystal clear directions towards the rational fragment of the mortal nature. The sensible portion of the human mind is that particular part which is specialized in analyzing, deliberating and can focus on the future, also being referred to as the reflective, or alert system. Thus, directing the rider requires one to identify the bright spots in a given particular situation, and hence make to script critical moves on how the goal is going to be attained. However, the challenge associated with such is a necessary and wise method of solving the situation at hand is the case whereby descriptive language or procedure is not bright enough to be understood and accommodated as well.

Motivate the Elephant. Self-control is an essential tool which is necessary when it comes to altering change in the rational part of the mind. However, the challenge with restraint is that it comes with limited resources hence leading to the conceptual perception that laziness is a form of exhaustion. The only trusted way to have a change last for long is to have a well-controlled emotional drive, hence the demand for the people's emotional side to have a full engagement intended to make them feel competent enough to make a change. It is important to note that, the human emotional part is too intuitive and can be easily exposed to pain and pressure, hence demanding a well-schemed approach towards the same.

They are shaping the Path. The situational environment in which people live in determines a lot when it comes to impacting change. Thus, forming the path means that a lot has to be done towards changing the immediate environment in which people live in to have their mind and emotions get influenced too. Thus, the combination of all these three methods towards change is quite paramount.

Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change

According to several of this book, the information towards science which leads to change is presented in a two-axis framework. These are the Horizontal and the vertical axis. To begin with is the vertical axis which is composed of three main items of change namely, the personal, social and the structural approaches, while the horizontal axis has only two things which include motivation and the own capability on change. Thus, the intersection of the above tow axis together contributes to the six strategies of change as discussed in the sections below.

Personal Motivation. When people are motivated, they find it easier to carry on a particular task or job just because a certain sense has been put into them in a quite motivating manner. When someone is working on the methods to influence people's behavior, the strategies employed must be desirable, pleasurable, and of the required value by the people targeted for a change. Thus, the intended change must match with personal interests so that they can easily be accommodated. However, the intended changes may fail due to mismatch of the benefits between the influence and the targeted person.

Social Motivation. Peer pressure is one of the best social motivators. Hence its use is likely to accrue the best result ever if used for the good. However, for the social motivation method to work well, there are two significant conditions which have to be met. The first one requires that the expected behaviors to be crystal clear, while the second one holds on the fact that the motivator must be socially acceptable for every party to call each other out, in the case whereby they no longer uphold on the previous behaviors. The driving motive hears to embrace teamwork which is a great contributor towards social change.

Social Ability. It is believed that people who are within the immediate surrounding can easily be of great support towards the required change, or even contribute towards hindering them from happening. Such People are likely to either provide or even withhold beneficial information, help, and also resources.

Structural Motivation. Structural motivation is directly connected to the nature of the immediate environment where people live. Such situations may include home, workplace, school or any other environment which directly someone is involved in it.

Structural Ability. Several questions are connected with the fundamental ability in this way; whether the environment is in a position to support the desired behaviors, whether the physical world is in a place to provide the required materials and resources necessary for the intended change, and finally on whether the environment has the right team structure to impact on the switch. However change may be desired, some environments fail to provide the supportive tools for such an intended change, else providing the opposite which in turn may even end up deteriorating the situation and make it worse than it was before.