Switch - Chip Heath [73]
The same phenomenon holds true in the business world. W. Edwards Deming, the chief instigator of the Total Quality Management movement that revolutionized manufacturing, told a story about a company that used a variety of flammable products in its production process. Unsurprisingly, fires frequently broke out in its plants. But the president of the company didn’t think he had a situation problem; he thought he had a person problem. He sent a letter to every one of the company’s 10,500 employees, pleading with them to set fewer fires. Ahem. (What looks like a pyromania problem is often a flammable chemical problem.)
We are frequently blind to the power of situations. In a famous article, Stanford psychologist Lee Ross surveyed dozens of studies in psychology and noted that people have a systematic tendency to ignore the situational forces that shape other people’s behavior. He called this deep-rooted tendency the “Fundamental Attribution Error.” The error lies in our inclination to attribute people’s behavior to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in.
The Fundamental Attribution Error complicates human relationships. Marriage therapist Michele Weiner-Davis said, “Most people attribute their marital problems to some deeply engrained personality characteristics of their spouse.” A wife might say, “My husband is a stubborn person.” But Weiner-Davis might respond: “You’ve got to admit that your husband isn’t always stubborn. He doesn’t resist when his coworkers suggest a new client approach at work. And he doesn’t drag his feet when you propose new ways to handle the family’s finances. The stubbornness emerges mainly when you suggest a new approach with the kids at home—and when you do that, he is stubborn almost every time. It’s the situation, not an immutable stubbornness built into his character, that produces the behavior.” (This doesn’t excuse his stubbornness, of course, but it should provide hope for a solution, since situations should be easier to tweak than people’s core character.)
The Fundamental Attribution Error is the reason why we love TV shows like The Dog Whisperer or Supernanny, in which seemingly irredeemable dogs and kids are tamed by outsiders who come in with a new system of discipline. At the beginning of the episodes, we’re presented with a dog that bites everything in sight, or a child who won’t obey the simplest of commands, and we simply can’t avoid jumping to conclusions about their character: That dog is vicious. That boy is a terror. And when they’re reformed, in the course of a short intervention, it blows our minds.
If we could cure ourselves of the Fundamental Attribution Error, these shows would seem obvious to the point of absurdity. (It would be like watching a show whose premise was that if you take scalding-hot liquids—dangerous and slippery—and stick them in the freezer for a long time, they renounce their fiery former selves and turn to ice!)
Now you can see why the third element of our framework, the Path, is so critical. If you want people to change, you can provide clear direction (Rider) or boost their motivation and determination (Elephant). Alternatively, you can simply make the journey easier. Create a steep downhill slope and give them a push. Remove some friction from the trail. Scatter around lots of signs to tell them they’re getting close.
In short, you can shape the Path.
2.
To see how a smoother Path can change behavior, consider some research that studied why college students did (or didn’t) donate food to a canned-food drive for charity. The researchers knew some students would be more charitable and generous than others and would be more inclined to donate food. The researchers wondered: Can we alter the situation