Books For Your Mind: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Sunday, November 30, 2014

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Charles Duhigg describes how habits are developed in The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business . Positive habits create benefit. If groups or corporations develop habits to work around unresolved conflicts the results can be deadly as in an increase in surgery and doctor errors and emergency management.

Strictly defined areas of job responsibility and poor training slowed the response to the Kings Cross subway fire in England on November, 18 1987. A match dropped under an escalator, slow response in investigating the source of the fire and a flash explosion resulted in the deaths of 31 people and injuries to 100 people. Unwritten rules kept employees from stepping out of their narrowly defined roles making them reticent about contacting anyone outside their specific department.

A toxic work environment between surgeons and nurses in a Rhode Island hospital made it difficult for nurses to bring up patient safety concerns to physicians. Nurses developed informal coding systems on charts to alert other nurses about tyrannical physicians. As a result of the unequal truce a series of several brain surgeries on the wrong side of peoples heads or other body parts occurred in less than a year. The resignation of the chief neurosurgeon and staff training specifically empowering employees to bring up problems finally turned the hospital around.

At Alcoa, Paul O'Neil turned the company around by focusing on a culture of safety. Previous failure to address safety concerns resulted in unscheduled plant shut downs and worker injuries. The change in this keystone behavior resulted in an number of other positive changes in the company with an increase in corporate profits.

Professional athletes benefit from focusing on specific behavioral clues and specific training routines. Tony Dungy taught his players to focus on a few simple cues to allow his players to be successful in football. Ultimate success only occurred after the players rallied around the coach after the death of his son.

The best success comes specifically identifying behaviors to change and changing the definition of a person or a groups character giving them a large sense of purpose or mission. Student's classroom behavior improves more when they develop a group identity. We are people who care about keeping the classroom clean, as opposed to specific constant direction on how to cleanup and why taking care of the environment is a good thing.