Switch – Craig Groeschel Interviews Dan & Chip Heath

In session 7 of the summit, Craig Groeschel interview Dan & Chip Heath.

They are the authors of the incredible book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, a must read for any communicator. Here are my thoughts on that book.

The words in bold are the questions that Craig Groeschel asked.

• Think of something about yourself, ministry or business that you really think need to change
• Most react negatively against change thinking that many people hate change
• There are certain kinds of changes in the world that are big and happen almost effortlessly (marriage, kids)
• Why do some changes hurt?
• The smallest things are the most difficult things to change
• Change is filled with conflict
• Part of us see the need for change and want to change something, but part of us doesn’t want to change
• We have a planning long run thinking side of the brain and the other side is the doing side
• It is like a human riding an elephant
• The rider has to convince the elephant that there is something worth changing
• There are 9 major ministries, 2 are working well, 5 are marginal, 2 are failing miserable
• Ignore the bottom and the middle 5 and go straight to the 2 that are working and find out why they are working
• The 2 that are working show that success is possible
• Bright spots are proof this is possible
• Go with where God is working
• How does someone find the bright spot and make a significant change?
• You need to look for what is working
• Get rid of things that are T.B.U. (True but useless)
• “Big problems are rarely solved with big solutions, instead they are often solved by a sequence of small solutions”
• When you become optimistic that an idea might work, that’s when you have reached the elephant and you have “shrunk the change”
• Once you’ve made the change, how do you keep the momentum going?
• Most of us, our elephants are skittish and lazy
• We are tempted to leave the path and give up
• If you are forewarned that it will become hard and that it will feel like failure, it is easier to get through it and stay on course
• Some people have “the growth mindset” which means “with work I can accomplish_______”
• Built into “the growth mindset” is a tolerance for failure
• Failure may actually be an early warning sign for success
• A lot of times in ministry, we can’t figure out why people don’t love the church the way we do. “We might not have a person problem, but a situation problem.”
• When we make an assumption about someone, we’re attributed things to them
• We need to ask why it is that they are holding back and not fully jumping in
• If the path slopes downhill towards the goal will help people reach it as opposed to building a wall
• When change occurs, there is usually a predictable pattern
• There is a reason things work and don’t work
• Things are built in by society to make marriages easier to do
• If we can reverse engineer the successful changes, we can move forward in other areas

You can learn more about the Heath Brothers here and Craig Groeschel here.