Book of the Week: The Power of Habit
06 Jun 2015
There are few of copies of The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (Harvard MBA) around my workplace, so I decided to pick it up and read it. The book is separated into 3 parts: habits of individuals, habits of organizations and habits of societies. This was a good read. Habit Loop 
The central concept of the book is the habit loop, how it works, how you can change it and how it affects individuals, organizations and societies. The habit loop starts with a cue that makes you follow your routine until you get rewarded. That reward reinforces the loop, so that the next time you see the cue, you’ll be triggered again. This reminds me of Pavlov’s dog experiment where he conditioned dogs salivate when a bells rings by associating the bell with food then removing the food later with the dogs still salivating with no food present. Instead of dogs, this book focuses on people, organizations and societies. The Habits of Individuals Do you know why you use toothpaste? It’s because an advertiser programmed this habit into you. Toothpaste doesn’t really work. The tinglingly minty fresh taste is your reward. Toothpaste doesn’t need to do that, but it sells more when it does. Shampoo doesn’t have to lather to clean effectively, but they add stuff to make suds, because it sells more. Habits are powerful, because they create neurological cravings. Sometimes the brain reacts like it has gotten the reward already from only seeing the cue like Pavlov’s dogs. Cravings make it easier to form new habits. The Golden Rule of Habit Change
You Can’t Extinguish a Bad Habit. You Can Only Change it.
Unfortunately, once you’ve formed a habit, you’re stuck with it. The cue will always trigger the routine and the reward will always reinforce the cue. The cue and reward will never change, but what can change is the routine. If you’re craving a cigarette, putting a carrot into your mouth instead will change the routine. The problem is identifying what the cues are. Once you do that, you can put in place alternative routines. The Habits of Successful Organizations
So for companies, pregnant women are gold mines.
This section was like a business book, where it talked about how different organizations achieved success. Alcoa, Michael Phelps, Starbucks, gay rights, Outkast, Rhode Island Hospital, Target, and the London Underground were examples of fixing habits. The book goes over the infamous case of Target predicting pregnancy and sending coupons. Successful organizations create and manipulate important habits that make things run automatically. One can also think about the habits of an organization being the culture. Culture is such an ill-defined thing. Establishing the right habits sounds more concrete. Starbucks LATTE Starbucks as a method that they use in their training for handling unhappy customers. This places a routine in place when they see the cues.
- Listen to the customer
- Acknowledge their complaint
- Take action by solving the problem
- Thank them
- Explain why the problem occurred
The Habits ofSocieties
And once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom—and the responsibility—to remake them. Once you understand that habits can be rebuilt, the power of habit becomes easier to grasp, and the only option left is to get to work.
This part of the book references a study by Mark Granovetter that says “weak ties” are more important than close connections for finding a job. This is why LinkedIn (LNKD) has value and what Reid Hoffman emphasizes in his book. A lot of books and people cite the same studies over and over again, but how often do people repeat the studies? Also, how often does the conclusion of the study gets stretched? If all the studies are done on a bunch of college students, can you really extrapolate that out. The Power of Habit Once you know a habit exists, you can change it. That’s how the 12 step program of AA works. The appendix has a framework for reshaping habits.
- Identify the routine
- Experiment with rewards
- Isolate the cue
- Have a plan