The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. If not for Alex Tabarrok's and David Brook's raving reviews, I would have easily ignored this brilliant Gladwellian book to be yet another book on popular psychology.
In the book Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Antonio Damasio's quoted Phillip Johnson-Laird which epitomizes beautifully the essence of his book:
"In order to decide, judge; in order to judge, reason; in order to reason, decide (what to reason about)."
Damasio was writing about how to hone one's intuition, gut feeling et al., but this applies to habit forming as well. I never knew how to equate this to habit formation, although I have habit-ized with great success a number of good things (work out, reading, walking, learning) and failed in a major one. Currently, I am struggling to make meditation, mathematics and writing a habit. All of them are notoriously difficult but making them a habit is the only way out. Thanks to Charles Duhigg for a confidence boasting book. Message of the book is simple -
In the book Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Antonio Damasio's quoted Phillip Johnson-Laird which epitomizes beautifully the essence of his book:
"In order to decide, judge; in order to judge, reason; in order to reason, decide (what to reason about)."
Damasio was writing about how to hone one's intuition, gut feeling et al., but this applies to habit forming as well. I never knew how to equate this to habit formation, although I have habit-ized with great success a number of good things (work out, reading, walking, learning) and failed in a major one. Currently, I am struggling to make meditation, mathematics and writing a habit. All of them are notoriously difficult but making them a habit is the only way out. Thanks to Charles Duhigg for a confidence boasting book. Message of the book is simple -
- Replace bad habits with good ones
- It's hard to change people (and ourself) but change comes easy only we unconsciously "tweak" their (and our) habits.
- Most of our habits are under our control (albeit unconsciously) and we cannot masquerade responsibility behind genetics or neuroscience.
- Some of the habits (cannot really use that term here) are actual genetic or brain defects.
- The blurry line that separates 3 and 4 will be the debate of this century.
A simplified habit loop:
The Habit Loop - Cue, routine and reward. Over time this loop becomes automatic. The cue and reward become intertwined until a powerful sense of anticipation and craving emerges. Eventually, a HABIT is born.
In my opinion, Paul O'Neill is the protagonist of this book...
Paul O'Neill needed a focus that would bring people together, that would give him leverage to change how people worked and communicated. "I went to basics. Everyone deserves to leave work as safely as they arrive, right? You shouldn't be scared that feeding your family is going to kill you. That's what I decided to focus on: Changing everyone's safety habits.
The brilliance of his approach was that one one, of course, wanted to argue with O'Neill about worker safety. Unions had been fighting for better safety rule for years . Managers didn't want to argue about it, either, since injuries meant lost productivity and low morale.What most people didn't realize, however, was that O'Neill''s plan for getting zero injuries entailed the most radical realignment in Alcoa's history.
The key to protecting Alcoa's employees was understanding why injuries happened in the first place. And to understand why injuries happened, you had to studt how the manufacturing process was going wrong. To understand how things were going wrong, you had to bring in people who could educate workers about quality control and the most efficient work processes, so that it would be easier to do everything right, since correct work is also safer work. In other words to protect workers, Alcoa needed to become the best, most streamlined company of earth.
The brilliance of his approach was that one one, of course, wanted to argue with O'Neill about worker safety. Unions had been fighting for better safety rule for years . Managers didn't want to argue about it, either, since injuries meant lost productivity and low morale.What most people didn't realize, however, was that O'Neill''s plan for getting zero injuries entailed the most radical realignment in Alcoa's history.
The key to protecting Alcoa's employees was understanding why injuries happened in the first place. And to understand why injuries happened, you had to studt how the manufacturing process was going wrong. To understand how things were going wrong, you had to bring in people who could educate workers about quality control and the most efficient work processes, so that it would be easier to do everything right, since correct work is also safer work. In other words to protect workers, Alcoa needed to become the best, most streamlined company of earth.
Importance of Small Wins during habit formation:
Small wins are steady application of a small advantage. Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor and another small win. Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within the reach.
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