Book Archives - Page 2 of 2

Marketing Your Book

While you don’t need to have every detail of your marketing strategies mapped out when you begin writing your book, the earlier you get started on crafting this part of your platform, the better.

Speaking Events

When you appear at events, you can spread the gospel about your book. If you’re physically in contact with audiences, you can sell copies of your book. When people see and meet you, they frequently buy your book. If you give speeches, you’re almost guaranteed to sell your books because at most events, your books will be available for sale. However, when you try to publicize your book through the media, selling books is iffier.

Learn to become an accomplished speaker because speaking is a major platform for selling books. Plan ahead, early in the book-writing process. Begin speaking at least six months to a year before your book is published, to drum up interest in it and to build your speaking ability and reputation.

If you’re not an established speaker, take public-speaking classes or media training. Join speakers’ organizations. Then speak for free for local organizations where you can polish your craft. Start small and work your way up; build a following and a reputation for being a dynamic, entertaining, and enlightening speaker. Chamber of commerce events routinely feature business authors. Arrange with bookstore owners who are chamber members to sell your books at the events.

Also speak to local branches of industry or professional groups. If you’ve written a sales or networking book, you could speak at meetings of Sales and Marketing Executives International or the American Marketing Association. Try to build your base where you live and work because members of the community where you started will become your staunchest supporters.

When you become an accomplished speaker, assemble videotapes of your presentations, testimonials, a speech description, and your biography in a professional manner. Then, sign up with as many speaker bureaus as possible to get bookings. The top bureaus include the International Speakers Bureau, Leading Authorities, Inc., the Leigh Bureau, and Washington Speaker Bureau.

Author 101 Advice

A powerful strategy for launching your book is to reduce your fee on the condition that the host organization make up the difference by purchasing copies of your book. For example, if you normally command $5,000 for a keynote speech, cut your fee in half and take $2,500 if the host organization agrees to spend the other half buying $2,500 worth of your book.

The benefits you receive are that you’re guaranteed $2,500 worth of book sales that won’t be returned and more of your books get into circulation. Having books circulate builds word-of-mouth publicity, which should be your main objective because every book in a reader’s hands is an ambassador and a publicist for you and your book. If you are an established speaker, you can afford to take less cash in order to move more copies of your book. When you employ this strategy over a number of personal appearances, it can provide substantial book sales and excellent publicity.

Hook up with 800-CEO-READ, an online business-book retailer that sells books to the corporate market. It will feature your book in its newsletter and on its website and will solicit bulk orders for your book from corporations. 800-CEO-READ will arrange for copies of your books to be available at your public appearances, events, and speaking engagements. All sales made by 800-CEO-READ are reported to many of the leading bestseller lists. Either go through or clear it with your publisher.

E-Mail Blasts

E-mail blasts are campaigns intended to make books bestsellers with online booksellers. E-mail blasts work well with certain business books, especially motivational books. Incentives that can be a part of the package include free or discounted audiotapes, videos, books or chapters of books, resource lists, courses, newsletter subscriptions, or seminars.

A variation of the e-mail blast that works well for business books is what we call an awareness blast. This blast is intended to provide information and awareness, not free gifts. For example, if your marketing book is targeted to C-level executives (chief executive officers, chief information officers, and chief financial officers), you probably don’t want to conduct giveaways, because they’re too gimmicky for your audience. So, instead, you buy a list of C-level executives from Business Week and then send a general sales e-mail or letter to inform them about your new book. You can include high-level endorsements, favorable reviews, and even excerpts. The cost of buying sharply targeted lists can be expensive, but it can enable you to reach a precise audience.

As we mentioned in our discussion of authors’ Web sites, capturing names and e-mail addresses is a major objective of such sites. If you acquire enough names and addresses, you can hold your own e-mail blast and send other promotions to people who you know have some interest in you and your book.

Contests

Some business books lend themselves to creative campaigns. One that was highly successful was the Best Boss/Worst Boss contest that Planned Television Arts developed to promote The Corporate Coach: How to Build a Team of Loyal Customers and Happy Employees by James B. Miller, the CEO of Miller Business Systems (HarperBusiness, 1994).

The contest, which was promoted during Miller’s twenty-city tour, invited employees to submit essays describing their best and worst bosses. The grand-prize winner in each category received a trip to Hawaii. The contest generated many additional interviews for Miller during his tour as well as national placements, including three with the Associated Press. Both the Today Show and The Osgood File featured the contest winners and Miller’s book. Interestingly, the worst boss winner appeared in disguise.

Miller’s contest was so popular that he ran similar contests for another two years. He also used material obtained from the contests to write another book, Best Boss, Worst Boss: Lessons and Laughs from the International “Best Boss/Worst Boss” Contests (Summit Publishing Group, 1997).

Any entrepreneurial author should strongly consider running a contest. With the Internet, it’s not difficult.

Top BestSeller Lists

New York Times (monthly)

Business Week (monthly)

Wall Street Journal Business

USA Today

To make weekly bestseller lists, you usually need to sell at least 3,000 copies a week, and for monthly lists, 10,000 copies a month.

Making the business bestseller list is a matter of velocity; it’s a matter of how many books you sell in a particular week or month, not your cumulative sales. It’s a sprint, not a marathon. So, create your book campaign strategy to sell as many books in the smallest period of time possible in order to generate the maximum number of reported sales during that time. To create the most impact, orchestrate all your publicity efforts to come together during that window of time: your speaking engagements, op-ed piece, your e-mail blast, and your corporate orders. If your promotional efforts and your book sales are spread over a period of months, you will be less likely to make the bestseller lists.

The only sales figures used for bestseller lists are those that come from retail chains, online booksellers, and independent bookstores. So, if you make a bulk sale to a corporation or sell tons of books from the back of the room when you speak, those won’t be counted unless they’re made by one of the groups mentioned above.

Special Opportunities

Business news is always breaking. In areas such as parenting, lifestyles, entertainment, food, and even sports, the news can be slow. However, the business news never stops; it rarely slows down. So, business authors must position themselves to seize upon developments as soon as they occur in their areas of expertise.

Bill George’s book, Authentic Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2004), featured his expertise on good corporate governance and CEO pay. His publicity campaign focused on his high ethical standards and visionary ideas. When former New York Stock Exchange chief Richard Grasso came under fire, the media turned to George as an expert on ethical CEO behavior. George gave interviews that spawned more interviews, and he received great publicity, which boosted the sales of his book.

Business authors must also anticipate future news in order to time their books and publicity efforts around upcoming cycles that the media will cover. If you have a book on job searching or career advice, make sure that your book is released during April or May to tie it into the annual graduation cycle that follows. Every year, prior to graduation, the media churns out stories on finding jobs and establishing careers. By anticipating the media’s patterns, authors of books on these subjects can make themselves available to the media as experts. They can get great publicity for themselves and their books by giving the media explanations, insights, and quotations on careers. The assistance they provide to the media can pay off at other times of the year when the media needs experts to help it with news items on jobs and careers.

Hometowns

All authors should capitalize on the special attention that they can get from the media in their hometowns. For business authors, that means developing strong ties to the business editors and reporters for their local newspapers and business journals. It pays for authors to build strong hometown bases because locals take pride in the success of other locals and help promote them.

When it comes to hometown coverage, business authors have the advantage of having more outlets where they can speak than other authors. They can speak at chambers of Commerce; at service clubs such as Rotary, Kiwanis, and Elks Clubs; and to local business groups. Business authors should take advantage of these opportunities to build a strong local speaking base and solid grassroots support.

Extra Credit

Write biographies and promotional materials that build your credibility. In bios, stress the accomplishments that relate most to your book. Readers and the media want to know that you have outstanding credentials. It will make the information and advice in your book more authoritative.

The press materials for Bill George’s Authentic Leadership noted that George was a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). However, it stressed that he had been named the Corporate Director of the Year by NACD. The media picked up on this point and frequently referred to George as the former NACD Corporate Director of the year.

Tweak bios to emphasize the author’s expertise in areas in which individual media contacts are most interested. Conform news releases and other promotional materials so they also highlight authors’ expertise in the same areas.

Business authors should also utilize their media contacts. Over the years, most business authors, especially those who are business leaders, make extensive media contacts. To promote their books, they should contact their media contacts. When members of the media cover stories, they have the power to determine the direction and tenor of the piece. So using your personal connections can get you favorable coverage.

It’s a good idea to cultivate media contacts well before your book comes out. As we’ve suggested, become a media resource: feed the media stories, information, and sources; write byline articles; and volunteer your expertise. Then, when you need the help of those contacts, your relationship will have been established and you won’t have to start from scratch.

Book Review – Amrita Suresh’s "When a Lawyer Falls in Love"

Amrita Suresh’s “When a Lawyer falls in Love” is an exquisite piece of hilarious fiction that reflects originality in experience, and truthfulness in expression, to unravel the intricacies that lie beneath human thought and action.

The writer seems to make capturous use of the layering technique, where-in the mind’s eye and maturity coincide with the layers of meaning to be expressed. On the visible layer, it is legal campus life, with law graduates-in-pairs are fixed in a ‘to be or not to be situation,’ with only one couple actually witnessing a real-life wedding, when Jaishree turns Jaishree Bose and ravishingly presents the charms of a Hindu married lady.

The writer quite graphically presents this “For the first time in her life perhaps, Jaishree Subramanian decided to openly assert herself in college. She came for the Farewell wearing sindoor and a mangalsutra. Even some of the guys in the class actually felt their jaws fall to the ground. Even some of the lecturers were shocked. Yet it was the final send off and Jaishree didn’t want to do any more hiding”.

The writer presents truthfully the concerns of man for woman’s love. Men as children are blessed by the comforts and warmth of the mother’s lap, and later in youth shown to be lost in gauging woman’s beauty, “Ankur remembered well, the first time his lawyer brain got enmeshed in Sonali’s freshly shampooed hair s she swayed with the gay abandon of a seventeen year old, during the Fresher’s party.”

A woman appears man’s sole concern for all generations to come. She becomes his breath and mind, the lone purpose in life, making life itself worth living. “She is actually the reason behind him actually maintaining a rank in class and not selling his law text books to a recycling unit, which Ankur every other day was tempted to do. Sonali Shah, in a word was his life”.

It is action that is celebrated over thought, with Souvik being declared a man of action and Jaishree garlanding him for a whole life ahead. Jaishree wants Souvik to take the first step, giving expression to the Indianness in an Indian lady allowing her to-be-partner to take the first step, inspite of being doubly sure of her boldness to do on her own. At the lake-side finally Jaishree gives Souvik the strength to spell out, before which he confirms

“Will you swim with me?” and then poses the question, a question that jittered the whole of man’s world, for the excitement or depression that follows, with her reply. Souvik pulls himself together, symbolically presented as “adjust his pants in an effort to kneel sit” and then Souvik quietly asks “the most beautiful girl in the world, will you marry me?”

If thesis is love at first sight, antithesis is coming close to one’s partner, but it is synthesis which as a marriage bonds couples for a life of joy and happiness. All the young legal couples, are shown rather anxiously graduating from thesis to antithesis and later to synthesis. If Jaishree and Souvik have been blessed to achieve synthesis, though “Ankur drove the nervous groom to his final”, Ankur is still to graduate, and the writer leaves it open for the readers to decide. Ankur, it appears still seems confused to choose between marriage as “Bossed over for the rest of his life” or “Sonali meanwhile, had different plans up her pretty sleeve. Having known her for over half a decade, Ankur have known.”

This indecision in Ankur is carved into Ankur’s words to Sonali “a woman’s love should never be trusted…since it has no empirical evidence to support it” and Sonali retorting “You ought to find yourself a guy then…” leaving “Ankur turn to be slightly ruffled” and this kit-pit appears to continue for long self-hurdling in escalation towards Synthesis. Indeed, the writer couldn’t have drawn a better comparison between the two young legal couples, Jaishrees and Sonalis.

The thesis of ‘graveyard’ love of Vyas, and his lover-girl Caroline’s desperation to reach out to him, rather begins with an ending note. The first chapter announces the death of love even before life actually took birth. This is rather humorously presented, with the criminology Professor Prakash questioning Vyas in the dark of the night “So you have already made plans of meeting in your after life.” He continues to faithfully laugh away at the youthful passion rather misplaced “I must say the stress levels of students has seeped through their heads. Imagine hanging out at a graveyard!”

The writer reflects on accepted belief, that life is full of suffering. As one grows older there is a realization of pain constant due to illness or disease. All make efforts at every age possible to be without pain, and to make fellow humans become free of pain. If we could choose to be without pain we certainly would. Souvik’s desperation to give relief to his ailing mother, through his marriage with Jayashree seems to be a cure from all illness that torments her.

By presenting Jaishree to Bose’s house-hold, Souvik considers giving it a new lease of life. He faithfully tries to return the care and happiness blessed on him by his mother all through. Jaishree for Souvik is the “Nibbanam paramam sukham”, meaning “Nirvana is the highest happiness” and Jaishree is sure to deliver this to her just kidney-transplanted mother-in-law. The announcement in the hospital “A match has been found” awakens Souvik to the realization that Jaishree’s coming to the hospital and later into his life will bring fresh rays of hope “Jaishree had come visiting for the fourth consecutive time.”

With her care and respect for elders Jaishree “touched the old man’s feet and vanished from the room” leaving Souvik to re-affirm himself of how much his mother needs Jaishree, with thoughts of “Jaishree was truly the sunshine of his life” occupying his mind, totally. Even before this, he firmly announces his wedlock with Jaishree, even if it meant upsetting his plans to go abroad. “Ma will approve of Jaishree…I know it.”

Astrology and obsession of common human lives to know what is in store for them in the future is very well captured all through the novel. The Leo Sonali sounds very assertive when she lectures her way through the importance of astrology. It really bugs her when Caroline rather sarcastically points out “it doesn’t make much sense, does it?…But how can one’s future depend on the movement of some star and moon and other such crap?” She starts “Astrology is based on bio-rhythmic cyles…Positive energy and Negative energy…has to come back to you.”

By saying that “everything depends on everything else” she confirms that it is focus that is really missing in many human lives, with every scope to create or negate one’s life, she says “the cosmic force has ordained, that if a person genuinely wants to make amends, circumstances are arranged to provide for evolution of the soul.” Change and diversion has to be met with consistency and focus.

Sonali wants Caroline-like beings to realize this fast, she says “The human body, as also the world, is in a constant state of flux. Therefore astrology in its truest form, involves going deep within through meditation, to uncover the answers that the soul already knows.” Finally there is a message for all “astrology is all about bringing out the best in a person. Since one’s future or career depends on doing something one is inherently good at. After all, most catastrophes are caused due to human failings.” This hints at the catastrophe of the love life of Caroline, to leave Vyas as cheated and wreaked, and also to lead a life in an alien land self-imprisoned in a self-imposed heartless marriage in times to come.

Astrology is also employed as an avenue to announce the ‘iceberg’ in us all. Caroline’s rather practical approach towards life, her deserting of Vyas for her Dubai cousin is very well prophesied through the medium of astrology. Sonali notes, “You can try doing some business of your own, working under someone won’t suit you…If you run a business it will be successful, since you have rather shrewd business skills.” Bringing the ‘profit motive’ into human lives and relationships is sure to make one materialistic and inhuman, finally to be isolated from people, near and dear, and Caroline is sure to meet her fate.

Sonali’s rather frustrated flirtation with Rohit, and his gross misbehavior, much to the anxiety and anger of helpless Ankur evokes neither laughter nor sorrow. The writer means to convey that, every individual is a slave of circumstances, which bury us many a time, before we are actually buried. It is not whether Sonali’s self-interests have served her internship, but what happens along the way is the causing of intense pain and anxiety in her undecided lover.

Starting from the day when “Sonali called Rohit to come sit next to her…For Ankur, the line between normal and abnormal had begun to blur. He could still be abnormally obsessed with feelings he had for the Sonali he once knew…A Paradox. That’s just what love was.” No doubt the middle classed Sonali might also have been carried away by the “farm house” charms of Rohit, where all play “Let’ play spin the bottle” game, prophesying Sonali’s life is sure to spin from Rohit to Ankur again.

The writer weaves the comic and hilarious intricately into the thick of the plot. Ankur questioning Vyas, as Vyas is busy searching for a gift amongst darkness ridden graves in the first chapter “What did she gift you…a space in this grave yard?” Pavan’s ambassador car which breaksdown at the slightest of movements appears to be a perpetual source of humour.

“The car groaning was under understandable, but the collective groans of the lawyers as they tumbled out of the car, was something that even the best mechanics couldn’t rectify.” Vyas’s annoyance on finding that Caroline has been moving closer to her cousin from Dubai evokes more humor than pity in the readers towards him.

On being advised to stop her from doing so, he complains his lost case “she says I am being stupid.” Legally Ankur is the most eligible bachelor to suit Sonali. But he is not sure of his singing abilities, rather humoursly he says “forget courtship, if he ever sang to his girl during their honeymoon, she’d make the lawyer himself draft divorce papers.”

Even little happenings and the fall-out can evoke laughter, this is what the writer aims to prove when Ankur’s teeth-focus is elaborated. Ankur “took good care of, it was teeth.

Infact as a six year old Ankur remembered holding a solemn burial ceremony each time he lost one of his milk teeth. A welcome party would follow, with the first traces of his new tooth. That’s why probably his teeth served him well, accentuating the smile on his chubby face.”

At the VJ hunt the comic is compounded by Ankur’s spontaneous replies triggered off by his “art of sounding intelligent while speaking nonsense.” For the female judge’s question “If you are invited for a pool party and you arrive wearing your swimming trunks only to realize it is a billiards game in progress, how would you react and why?” Ankur ventures further to erupt the party to cheers saying “I will pretend like it is my normal outfit… after all presence of mind is what counts the most in life.” The expected crowds’ cheers may be due to Ankur’s pool party outfit like mind, which exposes him dumb, or may be his outfitting to pose smart that ends in an expose of ignorance. Whatever, the end-result is rib-tickling laughter.

Pavan is a world apart. He is typically different from his fellow legal graduates. In one way he is ahead of the generations with whom he shares the same classroom. His humoruous narrative is sure to split all to laughter. “There was this one time when I was seated at a fancy restaurant next to a girl who ordered ‘fresh salted crabs,’ I was accompanying my dad for a business do and this girl was probably his boss’s daughter. Yet she was just so hot!! When her crab arrived, I thought I was being very smart when I said, “Wow! Even the crab still has his yes… probably he wanted to watch you all through dinner! That was it! The girl got delusional! She actually felt the crab was looking at her and probably that’s why she simply refused to look at both the crab and me…!!”

The man and woman relations in the Indian context are to be dominantly decided by the society. The young legal graduates naturally question this state of affairs. They look for an air of change, with Sonali laughingly says “After all a guy and girl alone on a terrace at dusk, is never a good sign!” The system of arranged marriage is debated “the most annoying thing about arranged marriages, thought Jaishree, everybody knew the precise reason for which everybody else was here, yet there was a forced facade of casualness.”

All through the novel, the writer’s concerns for trust in man-woman relations and for creation of a healthy and positive thinking in the tradition bound Indian society are expressive and evident. Before you convince your elders and society, convince yourself first. This is what the author seems to convey to the rather displaced-minded youth who wish to love, and marry the person of their choice. Many youngsters cannot do this, the resultant is failure in love and of marriage.

The secret to love’s marriage success is very well unraveled. If one partner fails, other should stand rescue by offering a helping hand, this is what sustains love, this is what sustains marriage, and this between couples is a blessing for children to have a happy and congenial home environment.

When Jayashree is confused about a marriage proposal, Souvik comes to her mental rescue says supportingly “Listen, I am not going to let them happen…you somehow put off the engagement for a year… we are getting married the first thing after college” that is it, she gets the focus, the inner strength to counter argue her father saying “Appa, I don’t want to get married now!” Finally the couples’ strength to stand together survives their relationship, and become one forever and ever. When your thought is right, you action is sure to yield the result.

Uniquely, this young writer presents the essential harmony of the mundane and metaphysical, by condemning all intellectual pride says, “Since those who make predictions, begin to believe they are celestial bodies themselves, given the amount of reverence they get. They forget that they are mere post men and that the letter has been drafted by the Highest Power there is. The very Power which has created the mosquito as also the mighty mountains.”

Amrita Suresh employs an idiom which is evidently expressive of her thoughts and beliefs. In addition to strict adherence with the common everyday expression of young legal graduates, she leaves no stone unturned in inventing altogether a new phraseology. This is clearly seen in the description of the Dean’s presentation, “IT’S LEGAL of course ‘kick start’ ed with a lengthy formal speech by the Dean, which the collective crowds wanted to ‘kick stop’…”

If the College Festival at AIU heralds the celebration of final year’s legal graduates’ college life, Bhoomika’s arrival brings in a wiff of fresh air, for the new graduates to start afresh as legal professionals. Bhoomika rather in a ridiculing tone of male’s ego says “A bulb is easy to fix… A male ego isn’t.” This leaves to the readers thought, that the legal graduates are sure to carry forward with unquestionable pride their irrational and age-old legal practices, giving no scope for creativity or modesty.

The writer sums-up the message even before eight chapters are still to be read, by saying “Ankur would be the best man. The legal and practical aspects that were tickling the lawyer’s conscience could be dealt with later.” The message is loud and clear. If life is an opportunity to better one’s self, indecision hurdles the process, overcoming which by focus and good efforts means happiness all the way.

"Switch How to Change Things When Change is Hard" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath Business Book Review

Business mavens, Brothers Heath released their new book, entitled, “Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard,” (Broadway, 2010), in February. The authors address change at the individual, organizational, and societal level. Change involves the brain’s emotional and rational side. The Heath brothers identify the overpowering emotional element as the Elephant. The rational, decision-making component is secondary and sits atop the Elephant as the Rider. When conflict between the two exists, the Rider is inherently the underdog. To make lasting change, the Elephant and Rider need to unite. Also key is having clear direction. Following is an example from each of the nine principles contained within the triad to accomplish long-term change. It’s noteworthy that the change framework benefits anyone without a vast amount of authority or resources.

DIRECT THE RIDER-Analytical, Rational Thinking.

Find the Bright Spots. In 1990 an international organization that helps needy children accepted a Vietnamese government invitation to decrease malnutrition. They earned six months to make a difference. The short timeline negated ending poverty, purifying water and building sanitation systems to address starvation. Organizers traveled to a rural village and met with mothers. Despite widespread malnutrition, some children were thriving. Why? The team searched for bright spots-successful efforts worth emulating. They discovered bright spot moms fed their children four times a day (easier on kids’ digestive systems), vs. the standard two. Another finding among several was that bright spot moms added shrimp and crab from the rice paddies into their kids meals. Cooking classes originated with bright spot moms teaching other mothers how to prepare healthy meals for their children. The mothers already had the emotional component (Elephant) – natural concern for their kids. They needed direction (Rider) not motivation. Six months later, 65 percent of the village kids were better nourished and stayed that way.

Script the Critical Moves. Doctors studied a case history of a patient with chronic arthritic hip pain. Their options were to perform drastic hip replacement surgery or administer a single untried medication. They chose the drug 47 percent vs. doing hip surgery. Another doctor set studied a similar case history with two untried drugs presented as a choice. Here, only 28 percent of the doctors chose one of the prescriptions. The remainder selected hip surgery. The study results display decision paralysis. Too many choices tax the Rider’s strength; and it will always revert to the status quo. Change creates uncertainty and ambiguity. Any successful change requires translation of ambiguous goals into concrete behaviors. Script the critical moves (not every move but key moves). In the above studies, the critical directive to “Use invasive options only as a last resort” would have resulted in more physicians choosing the drug option. Clarity dissolves the Rider’s resistance.

Point to the Destination. In the mid 1980s a popular investment firm’s research department ranked an embarrassing fifteenth in its ability to generate revenue for banks. Top executives recruited a new leader who became both GM and coach. He announced that he expected analysts to initiate at least 125 client conversations a month. He promoted a team environment; requiring analysts to cite colleagues’ work at least twice during presentations. He also declared that the firm would crack the premiere investment magazine’s Top 5. He not only scripted the critical moves (make 125 calls, cite colleagues’ work); he also created a destination postcard- a vivid picture from the near-term future that shows what could be possible. In three short years the firm leapfrogged from fifteenth to first place. When you describe a compelling destination you decrease the Rider’s ability to get lost in analysis paralysis.

MOTIVATE THE ELEPHANT-Emotional, Instinctive.

Find the Feeling. In the late 1970s, a state’s Department of Youth Services (DYS), an agency that focuses on delinquent kids; overhauled its operations. Nonprofits including group homes and halfway houses replaced youth prisons. The head of accounting for DYS ruled his division with an iron fist, earning the title of Attila the Accountant. Expense reports submitted with a single mistake like a date omission or miscalculated subtotal were returned to the offending nonprofit for corrections. The organizations operated on a shoestring budget and delayed payments jeopardized their ability to service kids. Frustrated, Attila’s colleagues invited him on a field trip to visit some participating nonprofits. He witnessed firsthand their operational and financial challenges; and returned to the office a changed man. He was still authoritarian but less nitpicky about expense report submissions, allowing the nonprofits to receive their payments faster.

Shrink the Change. A local car wash ran a promotion using loyalty cards. One customer group received an 8-stamp card, earning a free car wash once filled. Another customer set received a 10-stamp card, with 2 stamps already completed, advancing them 20 percent towards their goal. Several months later, only 19 percent of the 8-stamp customers had earned a free car wash, vs. 34 percent of the head-start group, which also earned their free car wash faster. The authors state that people find it more motivating to be partially finished with a long-term goal than to be at the starting gate of a shorter one. How could you rally your family, coworkers, community, etc. to achieve a long-term goal by highlighting what’s already been accomplished towards its completion? To motivate an uninspired Elephant, shrink the change.

Grow Your People. In 1977 the St. Lucia parrot faced extinction. Island natives undervalued the bird, some even eating it as a delicacy. No clear economic case for saving the parrot existed. Conservationists knew an analytical case for protecting the bird would fail. Instead, they implemented an emotional appeal. Their goal was to convince St. Lucians that they were the kind of people who protected their own. They wanted St. Lucians to swell with pride over their exclusive island species. The St. Lucia Parrot Campaign included T-shirts, bumper stickers and locally recorded songs about the parrot. The animal became part of the natives’ national identity. In 2008, conservationists noted that no St. Lucian had been caught shooting the parrot in fifteen years, resurrecting the species from extinction.

SHAPE THE PATH-Provide Clear Direction.

Tweak the Environment. The airline industry abides by the “sterile cockpit” rule. Anytime a plane is below 10,000 feet, either ascending or descending (the most accident-prone times), no conversation other than flight-related is permitted. At 11,000 feet the crew can talk freely. An IT group adopted the sterile cockpit tenet to advance an important software development project. They aimed to reduce new product development time from three years to nine months. They established “quiet hours” Tuesday, Thursday and Friday mornings before noon. It gave coders a sterile cockpit, allowing them to concentrate on complex bits of code without being interrupted. Ultimately, the group achieved their nine-month development goal. What looks like a people problem is often a situational challenge. People have a systematic tendency to ignore situational forces that shape other people’s behavior. Simple tweaks of the path can produce dramatic behavioral changes.

Build Habits. One of the subtle ways our environment influences us is by reinforcing (or deterring) our habits. Habits are important because they’re behavioral autopilot. They allow good actions to happen “free” without taxing the Rider’s self-control, which is exhaustive. To change yourself or others you need to change habits. Forming a habit involves both environmental and mental influences. “Action triggers” are effective in motivating action. They preload a decision and are most useful in difficult situations when the Rider’s self-control is strained. Action triggers create “instant habits.”

Rally the Herd. A hotel manager tested a new sign in the hotel bathrooms. It simply stated “the majority of guests at the hotel reuse their towels at least once during their stay.” Guests who got the sign were 26 percent more likely to reuse their towels. They took cues from the herd. In ambiguous situations we all look to others for cues about how to behave. Change situations often involve ambiguity along with their inherent unfamiliarity. To change things, you must pay attention to social signals. They can either guarantee a change effort or doom it. Lead an Elephant on an unfamiliar path and it’s likely to follow the herd.

The authors acknowledge that change isn’t always easy. When change works it tends to follow a pattern. People will change with clear direction, ample motivation, and a supportive environment. The Rider, Elephant and Path need to align in support of the switch. Visit the authors at http://www.heathbrothers.com.