Switch - Chip Heath [72]
Not Yet.
In Howard’s view, the students at Jefferson had accepted a “culture of failure.” In a fixed-mindset way, they acted as though they were failures to the bone. Students often didn’t do their homework, or they turned in shoddy work. Getting a D or an F was an easy way out in a way. They might get a poor grade, but at least they would be done.
In the new system, the students couldn’t stop until they’d cleared the bar. “We define up front to the kids what’s an A, B, and C,” said Howard. “If they do substandard work, the teacher will say, ‘Not Yet.’ … That gives them the mindset: My teacher thinks I can do better. It changes their expectations.”
The school was reborn. Students and teachers became more engaged, the school’s graduation rate increased dramatically, and student test scores went up so much that remedial courses were eliminated. In 2008, the National Association of Secondary School Principals declared Howard the U.S. Principal of the Year, out of 48,000 candidates.
Howard transformed her students. She cultivated a new identity in them. You’re all college-bound students. Then she flipped Jefferson from a fixed-mindset school to a growth-mindset school. She believed that every student was capable of doing acceptable work, that no student was doomed to failure. There’s no “never” at Jefferson anymore, only a “Not Yet.”
13.
In times of change, we need to remind ourselves and others, again and again, of certain basic truths: Our brains and our abilities are like muscles. They can be strengthened with practice. We’re not born skateboarders or scientists or nurses; we must learn how to skateboard, do science, or care for sick people. And our inspiration to change ourselves comes from our desire to live up to those identities.
In the story of Molly Howard, we see that amazing things can happen when you combine the aspiration of a new identity with the persistence of the growth mindset. That’s how you grow your people.
Over the past few chapters, we’ve seen that the central challenge of change is keeping the Elephant moving forward. Whereas the Rider needs direction, the Elephant needs motivation. And we’ve seen that motivation comes from feeling—knowledge isn’t enough to motivate change. But motivation also comes from confidence. The Elephant has to believe that it’s capable of conquering the change. And there are two routes to building people’s confidence so that they feel “big” relative to their challenge. You can shrink the change or grow your people (or, preferably, both).
Our picture of change is still incomplete, though, because it’s clear that in some situations even a reluctant Elephant and a confused Rider will manage to change their behavior. For instance, consider the fact that even a lost, angry driver who is hopelessly late for an appointment will stop dutifully for a red light.
That’s why, to make changes stick, we’ve got to think about shaping the Path.
SHAPE THE PATH
8
Tweak the Environment
1.
When some guy cuts you off in traffic, you probably think, instinctively: What a jerk. (Or perhaps your inner voice is more vulgar.) What you almost certainly don’t think to yourself is, Gosh, I wonder what’s wrong that he is in such a hurry.
It’s not hard to see why we don’t think that—it seems kind of naive, as if we’re making an excuse for a bad person. But think about your own behavior. Think of a time when you were driving so crazily that others would have been justified to curse you. Was your crazy driving on that day a manifestation of your true character (i.e., you’re a jerk to the core)? Or was it sparked by the situation you were in?
In the very first story in Chapter 1—about moviegoers who ate more popcorn when given bigger buckets—we saw how easy it can be to jump to conclusions about people. If we hadn’t known about the effect of bucket size, it would have been easy to conclude that the big-bucket people were Popcorn-Gorging