Hacker News Books

"Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard" got my attention. Even if it's from 2010, I still find it valuable. I bought it and now it's just me and my kindle :D

Thank you for your book recommendations.

I recently finished reading "Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard". One of the key points is that emotional motivation is crucial to successfully effectuate lasting changes. Maybe it would be more appropriate to say "remember to sell emotional benefits, not features"?

Interesting book that highlights frameworks to undergo different types of change.

Switch, How to change things when change is hard - Chip Heath & Dan Heath

For us nerds who want to effect change, and who are convinced data should be all you need, the book "Switch:
How to Change Things When Change Is Hard" by Chip and Dan Heath is a highly recommended read. It'll tell you all about the story, or as they call it: the elephant.

Excellent post and advice. The Self 1 / Self 2 comparison reminded me of the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. They discuss both a rider and elephant, the intellectual and emotional sides of the self. The metaphor is useful in that it shows how effective motivating or controlling that self 2/elephant can be.

I like two books by Dan and Chip Heath called (1) Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (good summary here : http://www.veganoutreach.org/advocacy/switch .html ) and (2) Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (good summary here: http://www.engineerguy.com/white-papers/made-to-stick.htm ).

Category 1:

- Simple Heuristics That Make Use Smart by Gigerenzer, et al. (http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Heuristics-That-Make-Smart/dp/0...). I have heard good things about this book but have not read it yet.

Category 2:

- Think Twice by Mauboussin (http://www.amazon.com/Think-Twice-Harnessing-Power-Counterin...)

- Influence by Cialdini (http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Busine...)

Category 3:

- You already mentioned Michalko, but his other book, Thinkertoys, is also very good (http://www.amazon.com/Thinkertoys-Handbook-Creative-Thinking...)

Category 5:

- Switch by the Heath brothers is excellent (http://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385...)

This might sound like a cop-out response, but I'm reading Switch by ChipDan Heath and I think it'd help you out. It's a new perspective on getting change to stick. One idea I really liked is "focusing on the bright spots" - figuring out what's working about the people who are performing much better than the others, and figuring out how to make this happen for the underperformers. For example, maybe you could ask the overachievers exactly what they're doing to manage their time, and compare that with the others.

It sounds like the underachievers want to be good employees, but you have to figure out how to get them in that direction.

Here are some more favorites (they may not qualify as the best books ever, but great books with original and useful ideas):

- Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson

- The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home by Dan Ariely

- Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath, Dan Heath

Switch is a very reasonable book about affecting organizational change, but I wouldn't include it in a list of must-reads for entrepreneurs. Oddly, I might well advocate the Heath brothers other book, Made to Stick, as it gives a framework for effective communication which is something that can benefit many entrepreneurs.

Although some of these are good reads, I would not go so far as to say programmers should read them. More and more as the time from idea to launch gets shorter, the talent does not lie so much in the deep language knowledge but the ability to elaborate on ideas and to foster benefical conversations across disciplines.

Books like Switch and Made to Stick now go first on my "new coders should read this book" list, and I dont expect that trend to stop.

Habits > forced tasks. Cultivate good habits wherever possible.

As for building up will power, I've found that distance running is an excellent way to hone your determination. Distance running is essentially the act of pushing yourself when you want to quit.

There are plenty of books on the subject if you'd like to study up on it more. Thinking Fast and Slow, Drive, Switch are all good books on the subject that immediately come to mind.

I think writing down your objectives and results you'd like to achieve are good. Writing them down is itself a form of positive thinking and self-help; they're "just" words, and there's no limit to what you can write.

And then review your progress at some velocity that makes sense (weekly for some, monthly for others, quarterly or thereabouts for the rest) to see if you're on track, if your objectives have changed, etc.

But the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath kind of opened my eyes to the danger of "SMART goals" / self-motivation. They talk about the "rider" (your rational, critical inner voice) and the "elephant" (your emotional id-like creature) and how you have to get both working, and OKRs and the like satisfy the rider but don't reach the elephant.

They recommend for example drawing up a "concept poster" or postcard (similar to Amazon's "future newsletter" touting the success of a proposed initiative) to really get alignment on what will get you excited to do the good things you want - health, wealth, family, community, planet, whatever - without having to prescribe it to a chart or metric.

There is a way to develop internal motivation - in my opinion it is one part the realisation that you want to be motivated and the other part putting in the hard yards to build habits.
For the first part I always refer to the concept of the elephant driver as a reminder.

"NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt uses a lovely analogy to explain both: the emotional side is the elephant, the rational side is the rider. The rider of the elephant looks like he or she is in charge, but when there’s a disagreement between the elephant and the rider, the elephant usually wins.

Chip and Dan Heath's superb book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, builds on this analogy and talks about directing the rider (rational brain: responsible for planning and direction, but can get paralyzed overthinking things) and motivating the elephant (emotional brain: prefers quick gratification over long term, but gets things done). Numerous experiments show that the rider can get exhausted trying to motivate the elephant and needs time to recover. This is why, if you’re trying to eat healthily while on the road, you tend to make bad choices at the end of a long day and opt for that extra glass of beer."

For the second part use mobile apps/smart watch to help you build habits. Being an unashamed apple user I rely on streaks to be my habit builder but there are many similar applicatons out there. Gamify your own life. Because at the end of the day life is a game. And if you want to get to the next level you have to play it.

This is great advice for overcoming procrastination and I use it daily. It has significantly improved the way that I work. I think I learned of the trick from GTD, or possibly Pragmatic Thinking and Learning. A TODO list by itself isn't helpful for me -- in fact, in can increase my procrastination by seeing a giant list of tasks because it's just so overwhelming.

What has worked is coupling the task with the next immediate action. Depending on the level of procrastination, this next immediate action does not have to be a grand vision. It is often as simplistic as "open the lid to your laptop", then, "open a text editor", then "think of the file you need to edit", then "type hello world three times" (just to get me to start writing __something__). Passing that initial hurdle usually gets me to the desired state of flow.

Similarly, I now have the following written at the top of my TODO list at all times: "Direct the Rider. Motivate the Elephant. Shape the Path." This psychology comes from Switch by Dan Heath and Chip Heath, and it's hugely impacted my outlook on work, especially as a researcher.

Here are some books that are a mix of psychology and economics that I think are especially suited for HN:

Behavioral Economics:

  Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely
  Nudge - Richard Thaler
  Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard - Chip and Dan Heath

Economics:

  The Black Swan: Impact of the Highly Improbable - Nassim Taleb
  Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Taleb
  Drunkard's Walk - Leonard Mlodinow

Psychology:

  Opening Skinner's Box - Lauren Slater

Management:

  The Education of a Coach - David Halberstam

"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini

This explains so much of human behavior, but I hesitate to recommend it to people because it is so easily weaponized. To borrow from Harry Potter, it's the closest thing I've seen to a book of charm spells, but was written as a defense against the dark arts. Better everyone read it rather than just the marketers.

What I really love about this book is how much of politics it has explained for me, including the downfall of the USSR and the American civil rights movements, but also newer events like Schwarzenegger's poltiical career.

If you like this, I'd also recommend:

"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman
"Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely
"The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg

All are in a similar vein. For more focused book on human behavior, I recommend first time team leads/managers read:

"Switch" by Dan and Chip Heath

A solid guide to changing organizational behavior.

Lifted from one of my old blog posts:

- Pros and Cons: when I have too many answers, I try to make it objective by drawing up the pros and cons and seeing where that takes me.

- Simplify: like a lot of developers, I can be prone to over-analyse when I am stuck on an issue for a while. So I remind myself to try simplifying the problem. Often by dropping a layer of flexibility the problem is a lot easier to solve. If I really need the flexibility, I can add it later when I have greater understanding.

- Take a Break: sometimes I’m just trying too hard, and need to step back. I work from home, so a short walk outside is a welcome break. Actually getting away from the computer relaxes the grey matter. The vitamin D doesn’t hurt either.

- Explain the Problem: very often I find that while I’m explaining the problem, I see it in a different way. If not, the input of another person usually throws a different perspective on the issue. If there’s nobody to bother immediately, just writing down an explanation can help.

- Switch Gears: this works when I’m getting frustrated by a lack of progress. By switching to a small, unrelated task, I can Get Something Done and develop some new momentum. This also serves as a break from the original problem.

- Write Some Tests: I don’t practice TDD all the time, but when I’m stuck trying to understand how things work, writing some tests first can be very illuminating. Having tests in place also gives gratifying feedback as I finally start to crack the underlying problem. I find this works best for really tough technical issues, where good test coverage is even more important than normal.

- Write Some Code: if I have a partial solution, even if I know it is ugly or inadequate, sometimes I’ll just plow ahead anyway. Actually working through a throwaway implementation is better than standing still, as it turns up all the little details. I’m happy to throw that code away since I know the alternative was not getting anywhere.

First, I recommend reading Dale Carnegie and Switch for tackling cultural issues with diplomacy. You're going to need this at every company.

How is DevOps? Is there room for improvement or learning there?

If you are going to switch companies because you see no way to fix things, how did you interview those teams to ensure they don't have similar problems?

Here are several books I've found extremely useful. Ranked by how important I view them.

1. Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman. If you're going to read one, read this. A lot of theory undergirding how people think. Decision making by people will make a lot more sense after this.

2. Influence - Robert Cialdani. Less theory and more pragmatic advice on how to influence people.

3. Drive - Daniel Pink, Switch - Chip Heath, Made to Stick - Chip Heath, Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely. Books on specific sub-categories. More pop-psych. Information density is less, but easier to read.

4. Poor Charlie's Almanac - Charlie Munger. Best known as Warren Buffett's partner, this book is a collection of his speeches, letters, etc... You get an idea of how he thinks but, but you have to dig through the repetitive ramble to get it. Think of it as Charlie observing a lot of the prior principles but putting it into a real life/business context.

Actually, this is a fine lesson in persuasion, something that Chip and Dan Heath point out in Switch and Made to Stick; that is, reasoning that is highly concrete and visual is far more convincing and impactful than appeal to models, forecasts, spreadsheets, and schematics. I think Jobs here could have simply demanded rounded rectangles or appealed to some vague need for geometric completeness in the product, but imagine how powerful it must have been to take a walk outside and actually see how reality presented rounded rectangles at every turn, and how truly crippling the program would feel with this observation in mind if it didn't ship with the feature. The lesson is to reach beyond the world of formal logic and into the visceral world of sight and touch, where the real "aha" and gut judgments reside.

Here's another example, cited in the design and creation of the Palm Pilot:

"Jeff Hawkins, the team leader, wanted the Palm Pilot to be simple. It would handle only four things: calendars, contacts, memos, and task lists, but it would do them well. Hawkins fought feature creep by carrying around a wooden block the size of the Palm. Hawkins would pull out the wooden block to "take notes" during a meeting or "check his calendar" in the hallway. When someone would suggest another feature, Hawkins would pull out the wooden block and ask them where it would fit. Hawkins knew that the core idea of his project needed to be elegance and simplicity. In sharing this core idea, Hawkins and his team used what was, in essence, a visual proverb. The block of wood became a visual reminder to do a few things and do them well."

taken from http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0702/feature_ideas...