SMCC WEEK 5 FALL 2019

PART 3: THE HABITS OF SOCIETIES
Chapter 8: Saddleback Church and the Montgomery Bus Boycott – How Movements Happen
Rosa Parks. Movement was created by three elements coming together:

1. Starts because of the social habits of friendship and strong ties between close acquaintances
2. Grows because of the habits of a community and the weak ties that hold neighbourhoods and clans together
3. Endures because the movement’s leaders give participants new habits that create a fresh sense of identity and feeling of ownership.

Parks was by no means the first black person to be arrested for breaching segregation rules. The climate was shifting however at the time of Parks’ arrest. And the three ingredients were there to turn it into a movement. Parks had a close church community but also had many, weaker, links to other communities, so word got out. Then Martin Luther King Jr quickly was thrust into the epicentre of the movement, kind of by chance. And he brought the third element. A new set of habits that overwrote the hatred that existed in the black community and created something new.

Case Study of the growth of Saddleback church which used social habits to grow and spread its faith community. Using social methods and approaches, the congregation grew tilk it was too big and had become a bureaucratic nightmare of having to find larger and larger venues. Then changed tack – begin groups in own homes. Social vision of a faith rather than a cathedral congregation. But problem arose about what then was being discussed in homes – was it Christian doctrine or just another social gathering? So created a set of materials that taught new habits that could be used in these groups and participants could practice in their daily routines. Now the church had a way of creating a shared belief, not bound by walls, where habits could grow in communities that would eventually become self-propelling.

Movements don’t happen because everyone suddenly aligns. They begin through friendship, they grow through communities and they are sustained by new habits that change participants’ sense of self.

Chapter 9: The Neurology of Free Will – Are we responsible for our habits?
Two case studies form this chapter. One of the growing problems surrounding someone who became a compulsive gambler, the other noting the case of a man who murdered his wife, seemingly in his sleep during a bout of sleep terror.

The gambler’s habit grew slowly and manageably at first over a period of years. When life got tough she began to lose perspective and the habit loop had well and truly formed. Got into considerable debt until everything was gone. The casinos, who profile each customer and determine for the most frequent ones a “lifetime value” in revenue, used the techniques above (chapter 7) to keep enticing in. more and more offers, lines of credit etc. They allegedly train their managers to be good listeners and compassionate (see chapter 5). Research into the neurology of compulsive gambling has shown that, to a compulsive gambler, a near miss (eg 2 out of 3 hits in a slot machine, or presenting a win as an opportunity to take another gamble) neurologically has the same pattern as a win. Whereas to a normal punter, a near miss looks neurologically like a loss does. Hence, casinos/ bookmakers have complicated the landscape exponentially alongside the growth of information about their customers. Gambling is more profitable than ever before as the industry knows how to exploit habit loops for profit.

The sleep terror case where the man murdered his wife while apparently asleep resulted in the charges being dropped. Even though it was undisputed that he had killed her (he himself did not contest this), the court decided that he was not in control of his actions.

Book compares these two cases and notes the similarities in both in terms of automating the brain. However, one key distinction between the two is made; the gambler could reasonably have predicted the outcome of her habit. The sleep terror case he could not, because despite having suffered from sleep terror all his life, he had never had a sleep terror previously where he had endangered his own, hers or anyone else’s life. Therefore not reasonable to suggest it could have been predicted, nor reasonable to suggest he be held responsible for the crime.

However, the book concludes by suggesting that aside from a sleep-walking murderer’s actions, our lives are filled with habits that we do know exist. And once we understand that habits can change, then we have the freedom – and the responsibility – to change them.

SMCC WEEK 4 FALL 2019

Chapter 7: How Target knows what you want before you do – When Companies Predict (and Manipulate) Habits
When there is enough data, statisticians can analyse and identify patterns. Target is a large retailer with v broad product range in USA. They used data from loyalty schemes to stratify their customer groups based on buying patterns to then target specific product offers and coupons at them. Were even able to do this to identify pregnant mothers who didn’t want to be identified. So had also to figure out how to target them without them knowing they were being targeted.

To do this, use the research around habits. Habits (including buying habits) change most effectively a little at a time. One well known strategy in music industry is to “sandwich” a new song in between two existing well known ones. Did this with “Hey Ya!” 🙂 . Gradually the new song becomes habitual, as do buyer habits, so place new product offers in between existing product line choices and the change happens.

stem week 3 SMCC FALL2019

Chapter 5:  

Starbucks and the Habit of Success – When willpower becomes automatic

 
The cornerstone habit in Starbucks approach to training is willpower. Many studies apparently identify willpower/ self control/ self-discipline as the single most important keystone habit for individual success. Longitudinal studies observing childrens’ willpower, then tracking their lives consistently find a high correlation between those who resisted and those who attained selection for sought after schools and obtained higher SATs. Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than IQ. So push to make willpower a habit. Starbucks now train self-discipline to achieve better service quality. Willpower is learnable.

Researcher Mark Muraven not satisfied with explanation of willpower as a skill. A skill is something usually attained and not forgotten, so why does it seem to ebb and flow? He demonstrated that willpower is finite. Like a muscle, if used a lot it gets depleted. Hence if undertaking something that requires willpower, bring it earlier in the day and if that’s not possible, conserve your willpower til you need it. Not easy to put in place training for self-discipline though – many companies tried and failed. If you have low self-discipline, prob not likely to attend or do the work that’s needed.

Study in 1992 in an orthopaedic unit in Scotland demonstrated that patients will improve recovery rates following surgery if they plan and anticipate how they are going to manage the pain involved in recovering from joint ops. And if they plan themselves (not following someone else’s plan), and if the plan is specific. So, not “if/ when pain occurs I will…” but “when I go to the bus stop my knee will ache. When this happens I will rest on a seat for 5 minutes before pushing on”. Knowing their plan also meant planning ahead and thinking about what to do when their temptation to stop would be at its greatest, hence connection with willpower.

Starbucks gives employees routines to habitualise around difficult situations, but the training manuals also have lots of blank pages. Each employee is asked to think ahead and figure out for themselves what they will do when the cue occurs. And populate their own training manual.

Muraven wondered why in some situations willpower was easy to build and in others it was not. He found that when people were given a task that required willpower and they felt they had a choice or were asked in a friendly way, it was easy. It took less willpower. If people felt coerced or forced to participate, it took more willpower and was harder to foster. Hence, giving employees a sense of agency can radically increase the amount of energy and focus they bring to their jobs. And vice versa; lack of autonomy needs more willpower and likely more mistakes will occur when/ if it runs out.

Chapter 6

The Power of a Crisis – How Leaders Create Habits Through Accident and Design

 
Rhode Island Hospital had a lot of unhealthy habits. This was evident in a number of wrong site surgeries and incidents as well as staff climate. Uses this example to highlight that there are no organisations without habits. There are only those with ones that have been deliberately designed, and ones where habits have been created without forethought. But sometimes in the heat of a crisis, leaders can transform undesirable ones into virtuous ones.

Seminal economic study by Nelson and Winter of many organisations found that, though it might seem like organisations make rational choices based on deliberate decision making, particularly larger orgs are guided by long-held org habits formed from the thousands of interactions and independent decisions of its employees. These are what gets the work done. Or not. The habits of an org are the unspoken truces that dampen the civil war of rivalry, power-grabbing and success seeking that takes place within companies. They can prevent the outbreak of out and out conflict. However as with Rhode Island, they can create an unstable peace which can be as corrosive as any civil war. The truce here was inequitable, the nurses found workarounds to tyrannical medical behaviour.

A more equitable truce may have saved things, but a truce in keeping everyone level also has to paradoxically make it clear who is in charge. Lengthy case study into the KX fire in 1987 illustrates this point.

Rhode Island and KX both suggested that things had to deteriorate so low before enough people were motivated to change their daily routines. Never waste a good crisis.