Book Summary: The Power of Habit p8

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Starbucks taught their employees how to handle moments of adversity by giving them willpower habit loops. LATTE method: We Listen to the customer, Acknowledge their complaint, Take action by solving the problem, Thank them, and then Explain why the problem occurred.

There are learned habits to help baristas tell the difference between patrons who just want their coffee and those who need a bit more coddling.

This is how willpower becomes a habit: by choosing a certain behavior ahead of time, and then following that routine when an inflection point arrives.

When people are asked to do something that takes self- control, if they think they are doing it for personal reasons— if they feel like it’s a choice or something they enjoy because it helps someone else —it’s much less taxing. If they feel like they have no autonomy, if they’re just following orders, their willpower muscles get tired much faster.

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Book Summary: The Power of Habit p7

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Small wins are part of how keystone habits create widespread changes. A huge body of research has shown that small wins have enormous power, an influence disproportionate to the accomplishments of the victories themselves. “Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage,”

Concentrate on tiny moments of success and build them into mental triggers.

Keystone habit creates a structure that helps other habits to flourish.

At the core of that Starbucks education is an intense focus on an all- important habit: willpower. Dozens of studies show that willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success.

Students who exerted high levels of willpower were more likely to earn higher grades in their classes and gain admission into more selective schools.

“Highly self-disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on every academic- performance variable.” Self- discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.”

And the best way to strengthen willpower and give students a leg up, studies indicate, is to make it into a habit.

Willpower is a learnable skill, something that can be taught the same way kids learn to do math and say “thank you.” As willpower muscles strengthened, good habits seemed to spill over into other parts of life.

“When you learn to force yourself to go to the gym or start your homework or eat a salad instead of a hamburger, part of what’s happening is that you’re changing how you think. People get better at regulating their impulses. They learn how to distract themselves from temptations. And once you’ve gotten into that willpower groove, your brain is practiced at helping you focus on a goal.”

“When you learn to force yourself to practice for an hour or run fifteen laps, you start building
self- regulatory strength. A five- year- old who can follow the ball for ten minutes becomes a sixth grader who can start his homework on time.”

Firms such as Starbucks— and the Gap, Wal- Mart, restaurants, or any other business that relies on entry- level workers— all face a common problem: No matter how much their employees want to do a great job, many will fail because they lack self- discipline. They show up late. They snap at rude customers. They get distracted or drawn into workplace dramas. They quit for no reason.

If someone has trouble with self- discipline at work, they’re probably also going to have trouble attending a program designed to strengthen their self- discipline after work.

The solution, Starbucks discovered, was turning self- discipline into an organizational habit.

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Book Summary: The Power of Habit p6

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Attack one habit and then watch the changes ripple through the organization.

You can’t order people to change. That’s not how the brain works. Start by focusing on one thing. If we disrupt the habits around one thing, it would spread throughout the entire company.

Some habits have the power to start a chain reaction. Some habits, in other words, matter more than others in remaking businesses and lives. These are “keystone habits,” and they can influence how people work, eat, play, live, spend, and communicate. Keystone habits start a process that, over time, transforms
everything.

Keystone habits say that success doesn’t depend on getting every single thing right, but instead relies on identifying a few key priorities and fashioning them into powerful levers.

The habits that matter most are the ones that, when they start to shift, dislodge and remake other patterns.

Keystone habits explain how Michael Phelps became an Olympic champion and why some college students outperform their peers. They describe why some people, after years of trying, suddenly lose
forty pounds while becoming more productive at work and still getting home in time for dinner with their kids. And keystone habits explain how Alcoa became one of the best performing stocks in the Dow Jones index, while also becoming one of the safest places on earth.

Researchers have found institutional habits in almost every organization or company they’ve scrutinized. “Individuals have habits; groups have routines,” wrote the academic Geoffrey Hodgson. “Routines are the organizational analogue of habits.”

“The best agencies understood the importance of routines. The worst agencies were headed
by people who never thought about it, and then wondered why no one followed their orders.”

When people start habitually exercising, even as infrequently as once a week, they start changing other, unrelated patterns in their lives, often unknowingly. Typically people who exercise start eating better and becoming more productive at work. They smoke less and show more patience with colleagues and family. They use their credit cards less frequently and say they feel less stressed. It’s not completely clear why. But for many people, exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change. “Exercise spills over,” said James Prochaska, a University of Rhode Island researcher. “There’s something about it that makes other good habits easier.”

Studies have documented that families who habitually eat dinner together seem to raise children with better homework skills, higher grades, greater emotional control, and more confidence. Making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well- being, and stronger skills at sticking with a budget. It’s not that a family meal or a tidy bed causes better grades or less frivolous spending. But somehow those initial shifts start chain reactions that help other good habits take hold.

Detecting keystone habits means searching out certain characteristics. Keystone habits offer what is known within academic literature as “small wins.” They help other habits to flourish by creating new structures, and they establish cultures where change becomes contagious.

Book Summary: The Power of Habit p4

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A salesperson, for example, knows she can boost her bonus by giving favored customers hefty discounts in exchange for larger orders.

It’s okay to be ambitious, but if you play too rough, your peers will unite against you. On the other hand, if you focus on boosting your own department, rather than undermining your rival, you’ll probably get taken care of over time.

Sometimes, a truce can create dangers that outweigh any peace.

During turmoil, organizational habits become malleable enough to both assign responsibility and create a more equitable balance of power. Crises are so valuable, in fact, that sometimes it’s worth stirring up a sense of looming catastrophe rather than letting it die down.

Book Summary: The Power of Habit p3

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“When you learn to force yourself to go to the gym or start your homework or eat a salad instead of a hamburger, part of what’s happening is that you’re changing how you think. People get better at regulating their impulses. They learn how to distract themselves from temptations. And once you’ve gotten into that willpower groove, your brain is practiced at helping you focus on a goal.”

“When you learn to force yourself to practice for an hour or run fifteen laps, you start building self- regulatory strength. A five-year-old who can follow the ball for ten minutes becomes a sixth grader who can start his homework on time.”

Starbucks taught their employees how to handle moments of adversity by giving them willpower habit loops. One of the systems we use is called the LATTE method. We Listen to the customer, Acknowledge their complaint, Take action by solving the problem, Thank them, and then Explain why the problem occurred.

How willpower becomes a habit: by choosing a certain behavior ahead of time, and then following that routine when an inflection point arrives.

“When people are asked to do something that takes self- control, if they think they are doing it for personal reasons— if they feel like it’s a choice or something they enjoy because it helps someone else— it’s much less taxing. If they feel like they have no autonomy, if they’re just following orders, their willpower muscles get tired much faster.

Giving employees a sense of control improved how much self- discipline they brought to their jobs.

firms are guided by long- held organizational habits, patterns that often emerge from thousands of
employees’ independent decisions. And these habits have more profound impacts than anyone previously understood.

Routines provide the hundreds of unwritten rules that companies need to operate. They provide a kind of “organizational memory,”

Companies aren’t families. They’re battlefields in a civil war.

Book Summary: The Power of Habit p2

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For habits to permanently change, people must believe that change is feasible.

If we keep the same cue and the same reward, a new routine can be inserted.

For a habit to stay changed, people must believe change is possible.

If you want to quit smoking, figure out a different routine that will satisfy the cravings filled by cigarettes.

If you want to change a habit, you must fi nd an alternative routine, and your odds of success go up dramatically when you commit to changing as part of a group.

The habits that matter most are the ones that, when they start to shift, dislodge and remake other patterns.

Individuals have habits; groups have routines. Routines are the organizational analogue of habits.

“Highly self-disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on every academic-performance variable,” the researchers wrote. “Self-discipline predicted academic performance more robustly than did IQ. Self- discipline also predicted which students would improve their grades over the course of the school year, whereas IQ did not. . . . Self- discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.”

“If you want to do something that requires willpower— like going for a run after work— you have to conserve your willpower muscle during the day.” “If you use it up too early on tedious tasks like writing emails or filling out complicated and boring expense forms, all the strength will be gone by the time you get home.”

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The Power of Habit P.1

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Prologue

The brain changes as habits change.

“All our life, so far as it has defi nite form, is but a mass of habits,” William James wrote in 1892.

Habits can be changed, if we understand how they work.

A community is a giant collection of habits occurring among thousands of people.

Part One:  The Habits of Individuals

T H E H A B I T L O O P

First, find a simple and obvious cue.

Second, clearly define the rewards.

Why habits are so powerful: They create neurological cravings. Craving is what powers the habit loop.

“wanting evolves into obsessive craving” that can force our brains into autopilot

No one craves scentlessness. On the other hand, lots of people crave a nice smell after they’ve spent thirty minutes cleaning.”

toothpastes contain additives with the sole job of making your mouth tingle after you brush

Cravings are what drive habits. And figuring out how to create a craving makes creating a new habit easier.

THE GOLDEN RULE OF HABIT CHANGE
Why Transformation Occurs

The rule: If you use the same cue, and provide the same reward, you can shift the routine and change the habit. Almost any behavior can be transformed if the cue and reward stay the same.

Brad Dufrene: Most people’s habits have occurred for so long they don’t pay
attention to what causes it anymore.

Often, we don’t really understand the cravings driving our behaviors until we look for them.

If you identify the cues and rewards, you can change the routine.
At least, most of the time. For some habits, however, there’s one other ingredient that’s necessary: belief.

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