Switch - Chip Heath [12]
Finding bright spots, then, solves many different problems at once. That’s no surprise; successful change efforts involve connecting all three parts of the framework: Rider, Elephant, and Path. (Although in this book we explain one part of the framework at a time, we’ll continue to remind you that even an example in the “Rider” chapters will influence the Elephant and Path. Concepts are rarely exclusive.)
Six months after Sternin had come to the Vietnamese village, 65 percent of the kids were better nourished and stayed that way. Later, when researchers from Emory University’s School of Public Health came to Vietnam to gather independent data, they found that even children who hadn’t been born when Sternin left the villages were as healthy as the kids Sternin had reached directly. That discovery provided proof that the changes had stuck.
Sternin’s success began to spread. “We took the first 14 villages in different phases of the program and turned them into a social laboratory. People who wanted to replicate the nutrition model came from different parts of Vietnam. Every day, they would go to this living university, to these villages, touching, smelling, sniffing, watching, listening. They would ‘graduate,’ go to their villages, and implement the process until they got it right…. The program reached 2.2 million Vietnamese people in 265 villages. Our living university has become a national model for teaching villagers to reduce drastically malnutrition in Vietnam,” Sternin said.
Stories don’t come much more heroic than this. Sternin and his small team of believers, working with a shoestring budget, managed to make a big dent in malnutrition. What makes it more remarkable is that they weren’t experts. They didn’t walk in with the answers. All they had was a deep faith in the power of bright spots.
2.
The Rider part of our minds has many strengths. The Rider is a thinker and a planner and can plot a course for a better future. But as we’ve seen, the Rider has a terrible weakness—the tendency to spin his wheels. The Rider loves to contemplate and analyze, and, making matters worse, his analysis is almost always directed at problems rather than at bright spots. (You can probably recall a conversation with a friend who agonized for hours over a particular relationship problem. But can you remember an instance when a friend spent even a few minutes analyzing why something was working so well?)
These analytical qualities can be extremely helpful, obviously—many problems get solved through analysis—but in situations where change is needed, too much analysis can doom the effort. The Rider will see too many problems and spend too much time sizing them up. Look again at Jerry Sternin and the Vietnam story: Dozens of experts had analyzed the situation in Vietnam. Their Riders had agonized over the problems—the water supply, the sanitation, the poverty, the ignorance. They’d written position papers and research documents and development plans. But they hadn’t changed a thing.
In tough times, the Rider sees problems everywhere, and “analysis paralysis” often kicks in. The Rider will spin his wheels indefinitely unless he’s given clear direction. That’s why to make progress on a change, you need ways to direct the Rider. Show him where to go, how to act, what destination to pursue. And that’s why bright spots are so essential, because they are your best hope for directing the Rider when you’re trying to bring about change.
3.
“School stinks,” said Bobby, a ninth grader who’d just reported for his first school counseling session. John J. Murphy, the school psychologist, was surprised Bobby had shown up at all.
Several teachers had referred Bobby for counseling, frustrated by his bad behavior. He was constantly late, rarely did his work, was disruptive in class, and sometimes made loud threats to other kids in the hallways.
Bobby’s home life was just as chaotic. He’d been shuffled in and out