Book Review - The Power of Habits
- brundidier
- Apr 12, 2022
- 9 min read
The Power of Habits
Why we do what we do and how to change
Charles Duhigg, 2012
Book synopsis
In the Power of Habits, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us into the thrilling and surprising world of the scientific study of habits.
He examines why some people and companies struggle to change despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. He visits laboratories, where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. And he uncovers how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Micheal Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr.
The result is a compelling argument and an empowering discovery: the key to exercising regularly, losing weights, raising exceptional children; becoming more productive or even building revolutionary companies is understanding how habits work. By harnessing this new science, we can transform our business, our communities, and our lives.
Impressions
An enjoyable and surprisingly addictive book!
It’s a terribly insightful and compelling read full of great catchy stories and real-life examples. Each story provides an interesting perspective on the nature of habits.
Perfect easy read for commuters or people who with little time for reading.
The case studies in this book are beyond interesting. They explore various industries and environments and provide insights on how habits were targeted to either fix an issue or improve a condition.
Last but not least, this book has what it takes to make you reflect on your own practices – and in a good way – so I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.
A top recommendation for any entrepreneur!
I absolutely recommend it. The teachings of this book go beyond the simple leisure bubble. You will learn about inherent mental patterns that have real personal and business applications. It also makes you more aware and critical of your own behaviours.
Reading this book may even be the first trigger for bigger change in your life. Sounds cheesy I know, but take my word for it, you will quickly realise it doesn’t take much to start doing things differently. So yes, I think this book can benefit all without a doubt.
I particularly recommend this to single entrepreneurs and business owners working with partners and small teams. I think the benefits for single entrepreneurs lie in the success of building good self-discipline and management habits while for teams, it can trigger a reflection on how processes impact he team’s productivity and may help you point out a few unexpected weaknesses.
My analysis
Experiencing new perspectives
I read this book during the development phase of my online digital marketing consultancy.
During this phase, I'd typically spend most of my day gathering research resources, reading a bunch of articles, noting stuff and then writing content for my website. What I’ve always expected from this effort was to render the complex less confusing and make it more approachable and ultimately more applicable.
Habits were never something I deeply looked into, mostly by lack of self-awareness but also by lack of knowledge so when I saw this book, I got curious. The first chapter really caught my attention and I knew from the first few pages I was in for a really insightful and interesting read. At some point, I even felt like I had just opened the door to a vast world of behaviours that was always there and yet to be seen. It clearly was my moneyball* moment! Once you understand the concept of habits, their nature, their effects and impact on silly daily decisions, you simply realise that we, human beings, are not in control of our own decisions most of the time and this got me to naturally widen up my analysis ground a bit more.
As you continue to explore the book, you then develop of new sense of self-awareness towards your decision and reactions that just makes you wonder things like: "I'm craving for a fresh Coke now. But wait, is it because I really want one or did I just trigger a habit of having one drink around this time so that I can just find an excuse to stop doing what I do? That kind of critical..
I'd say that overall, when it comes to my writing work, it got me to challenge myself and reposition not just as an adviser, or so called consultant and content writer but first, as a reader and help-seeker wondering the following:
· If I read an article with great ideas, what would it take me to follow these ideas?
· What would it take to start acting differently?
· How can I stick to a new way of working?
In my mind, these 3 questions open up a massive amount of thinking which takes me to consider explicit and implicit objectives, behavioural perceptions and cost and then habits..I'm telling you, it's passionating!
We often think about these questions when we write content, but I think we rarely consider them from a habit and goal perspective, and this is where it becomes interesting.
In my case, if I can pinpoint some of the habits that prevent the people I work with from taking an article seriously, or if I uncover habits that prevent them from taking actions right away, then I can identify and break down their habit loop and routine to adapt my content so that it doesn’t feel like it’s much of a change. A key lesson from the book is to make the "new" feel "normal", familiar. Introducing striking changes is hard firstly because the behavioral perception of a big change is high. It feels like too much effort. But if the change is subtle and therefore less new and more integrated into our daily moments, like an update let's say, we'll accept it more easily and swap our old action for this new improved one.
Fact is, we all grow habits, most of the time unconsciously, and we grow both good and bad habits, so it’s important to understand how they form and how can be more aware of them.
A good habit is maybe waking up at 7am and get on a routine that takes you for a 15min run with a healthy breakfast every day. A bad one could be snoozing your alarm a few extra times and end up waking up late with sipped breakfast because you wanted some extra sleep. The brain makes no difference, it sees cues and develops a routine for the reward it provides and this “habit loop” is fed by the anticipation of the reward. The craving feeling is what powers this loop.
In the good habit example, our reward may be the victorious and proud feeling we get after completing a good workout, or the satisfied feel of having cooked a good and healthy breakfast. Very basic feelings but you get the point. Bad habits work similarly, the alarms goes off, you know you should wake up but think you can enjoy 5 mins more. Your reward is the extra sleeping time but then the outcome will be being late at work.
So, yes, as you can imagine, it's better to work on developing more good habits than bad one but if you do develop bad habits, know that they are as powerful as positive ones which is why it takes a lot of willpower to break a bad routine.
Improving business practices
The success of a business idea starts with good market research insights, a strong value proposition that aligns with your consumer's goals and a marketing effort that aligns buying signals with the personal goals your customers want to achieve but behind the scenes, the growth and development of your business is tied down to your efforts and your ability to tackle a wide range of tasks head on. This is where your habits, and/or the habits of your team will play their part.
Type A
If you are the type of person that likes to have things organised and knows how to keep and run a schedule like running at 7am, breakfast at 8am etc. then it’s likely you will have a better time dealing with a huge load of task, managing priorities, and still finding ways to relax.
Type B
If you have shown signs of procrastinations, inconsistent levels of focus and motivation and sometimes simply lack energy, it sounds like you’ll have a more difficult time dealing with the same list of tasks above.
But here’s the best part, you, I, can be both these two types of personalities. In fact, Type A could have become type B or B become A or remain B.
In business, a key variable often sidelined is you. You are the results of your actions, partly the result of your habits but your business is the result of your inputs.
To move from type B to type A, all it takes is a simple change in the routine, a small win. A subtle one, easy and achievable to trigger further changes down the line.
It’s something you may have done unconsciously but once you become aware of this, it does grant some form of power over yourself and this is something the book helped me approach.
Insights and case-studies to reflect on with immediate business applications
· The more you read, the more you realise how habits are what makes us buy, consume and become loyal customers. As an entrepreneur, whether you’re selling products or services, if you understand the logic of habits, you can gain a competitive edge over your competitors with more relevant and targeted advertising. You will gain a better understanding of how consumer behaviours develop, and this could well increase your chances of converting more new buyers and turn more existing customers into advocates.
· The logic of habit creation is simple enough to help you reflect on your own customers but will take time to get right.
· Reading the many business cases explored in this book will expose you to practical strategies and tips. These tips can offer new ways to improve your business’ attractivity, whether it’s boosting brand loyalty, writing better targeted messages, or improving employee relationships.
· No matter the type of business you own, habits impact both you and your customers so spending some time understanding how they affect your business could also return some practical improvements.
Key take-aways
40% of our daily decisions are not actual decisions, but habits (Duke University research, 2006)
What are habits? How do they emerge?
Habits emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. It will try to make almost any routing into a habit to free our minds from mental effort.
It is possible to learn and make unconscious choices without remembering about the lesson or decision making. We don’t usually remember the experiences that created our habits, but once these habits are in our brain, they influence how we act without our realization.
The habit loop:
A cue triggers the brain to go into automatic habit mode and repeat a routine that is either physical, mental or emotional and consists of a sequence of actions and decisions to achieve a reward which is what makes the brain decide if a habit is worth remembering for the future or not.
When this loop repeats, over time, we develop a sense of anticipation and craving and that’s when the loop turns into a habit.
Craving is what makes cues and rewards work. Cultivating a craving is what powers the habit loop. Find a simple and obvious cue, clearly define the reward.
“Our brain can’t tell the difference between good or a bad habits”, it will always be waiting for the right cues and rewards to trigger the habit.
Email cue example: when a computer chimes or a smartphone vibrates, the brain starts anticipating the momentary distraction that opening he email provides. On the other hand, if you disable notifications and vibrations, you remove the cue and are more likely to work for hours undisturbed.
Habits can be changed
“Habits are powerful, but delicate. They can emerge outside our consciousness, or can deliberately designed”
“Habits can be changed, if we understand how they work”
You can never truly extinguish bad habits, instead of changing a habit, keep the old cue, deliver the old reward but insert a new routine.
What it takes to trigger changes
On willpower: “When people are asked to do something that takes self-control, if they think they are doing it for personal reasons – if they 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 will get tired much faster.
Selected Case Studies to remember
Alcoa
Alcoa is a
Problem: Alcoa’s market value kept on hitting new lows. Investors grew worried and bankruptcy was on the horizon. Fact is Alcoa had a terrible reputation of being employee injuries and toxic environment.
Solution: Countless CEO’s had fail until Paul O’Neil took over. Ex-CIA tasked with digging out speeding habits for the agency, he quickly isolated injury rate and poor safety measures as the key obstacles to Alcoa’s productivity and success and all he asked for was to manage a week without a single employee injury.
Insights: Better safety measures meant safer and happier employees. The quest for safety opened new communication channels between employees and managers and help build robust guidelines. This model then exported to all the other branches and triggered further improvements in other areas granting Alcoa more contracts.
Starbucks
Issues:
Problem:
Solution:
Insights:
Cookie experience on willpower resources
Issues:
Problem:
Solution:
Insights:
Hey-ya
Issues:
Problem:
Solution:
Insights:
Pregnant woman
Issues:
Problem:
Solution:
Insights:
Claude Hopkins - Pepsodent example
Issues:
Problem:
Solution:
Insights:
Applied business case
Ok, let’s experiment something here.
With a few targeted questions, I’d like to get you to think about your business from a habit perspective and eventually, ideally, help you spot some gaps in your approach to consumer behaviours and advertising:
Time required:
15mins if you do it seriously
1min if you just hover over my questions but then..
Rules: be honest, and if you don’t know, just say not sure/I don’t know.
What is the purpose of your business in 2-3 lines max?
What makes your business a contender in your market?
What customer pain -tension- points does your business address?
How would your customers be rewarded from using your products/services?
What triggers your customers to search/enquire for your products/services?
What triggers your customers to buy/subscribe to your products/services?
Could you define a habit loop for your product for each of your consumer personas? (Cue, routine, reward - The same way Claude Hopkins did for Pepsodent – Read the case study above if you haven’t heard or remember this)
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