The Heath brothers strike again! You may recognize them as the authors of the best selling “Made to Stick”. Their most recent work Switch is subtitled “How to Change Things When Change is Hard” and you will find lots of good practical information here. Their insights into what inspires people to change habits and actions is useful in any business and the information is interwoven with stories about single individuals and entire companies that brought about meaningful change. Building on the analogy of an elephant and its rider allows Dan & Chip Heath to demonstrate the barriers that often exist to change and communicate effective ways of overcoming the obstacles.

They illustrate the fact that all successful change follows a predictable pattern, even if we have failed to recognize it until them highlight the pattern and techniques that lead to effective change. So whether you are trying to implement new ideas for educational programs, get businesses to utilize social media more, lead a team that needs cohesion or are engaged in the promotion of social causes, you will find important insights and strategies in the book, Switch.

You can learn much more about Switch and the Heath Brothers from either their website or on their facebook fanpage.

Highly recommended reading for the age of change that we are all negotiating.

Chip Heath is a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Dan heath is a senior fellow at Duke University’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE).