Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

Author:Chip Heath & Dan Heath [Heath, Chip & Heath, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-08T20:23:07.334000+00:00


M O T I V A T E T H E E L E P H A N T

Over the following year, turnover decreased by 30 percent. And then the success made an unexpected leap: On regional surveys, Davis and Wood started seeing improved ratings on patient satisfaction with Lovelace Hospital.

It's critical to realize that these identity stories aren't just special case situations, confined to scientists or nurses or St. Lucians.

Identity is going to play a role in nearly every change situation.

Even yours. When you think about the people whose behavior needs to change, ask yourself whether they would agree with this statement: "I aspire to be the kind of person who would make this change." If their answer is yes, that's an enormous factor in your favor. If their answer is no, then you'll have to work hard to show them that they should aspire to a different self-image. And that's exactly what Paul Butler did in St. Lucia. He convinced the island's citizens to think, "This is our bird-if we want to be good St. Lucians, we'd better protect it."

To see what this means in a business context, consider a firm that invented an identity that subsequently became the engine of its success. The firm is Brasilata-it's a US$ 170 million manufacturing firm in Brazil that produces various kinds of steel cans.

As you'd imagine, the can manufacturing industry is relatively mature-not much growth, not much excitement. But Brasilata defies the stereotype of a boring, stuck-in-its ways manufacturer.

In fact, it has one of the best reputations for innovation of any company in Latin America.

How does a manufacturer of cans become known as an innovator? Brasilata's founders were inspired by the philosophy of Japanese car manufacturers like Honda and Toyota, which empowered their frontline employees to take ownership of their work. For instance, at Toyota, any employee who spotted a defect could stop the assembly line (this would have been unthinkable in Detroit at the time). Toyota and Honda also actively solicited G r o w Y o u r P e o p l e

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ideas for innovation from their employees. In 1 987, the founders of Brasilata launched an employee-innovation program modeled on the Japanese forerunners.

A new identity was the core of the program. Employees of Brasilata hecame known as "inventors," and when new employees joined the firm, they were asked to sign an "innovation contract."

This wasn't simply feel-good language. Top management challenged employees to be on the lookout for potential innovationsideas for how to create better products, improve production processes, and squeeze costs out of the system. Procedures developed within the factory made it easy for inventors to submit their ideas. The program succeeded beyond any reasonable expectations. In 2008, employees submitted 134,846 ideas-an average of 145.2 ideas per inventor! This figure puts Brasilata on par with the Japanese trendsetters that had inspired the program.

Many of the suggestions led to the development of new products. For instance, in late 2008, Brasilata came up with a new approach for steel cans designed to carry dangerous or flammable liquids.



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