BRINGING CHANGE WITH EASE 1

Bringing Change with Ease: Inspiring Your Emotional

Semran Zulfiqar

[Institutional Affiliation(s)]

GMGT2010

A02

Dr. Rakesh Mittoo

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Bringing Change with Ease: Inspiring Your Emotional Mind

In the chapter “Find the Feeling” taken from their book Switch: How to Change Things

When Change is Hard, Chip Heath and Dan Heath states that change can be brought in any

surrounding through stimulating your emotional and analytical mind.

The writer illustrates the involvement of the emotion in bringing changes in the

workplace by using the case of Robyn Waters. Waters increased the sales of Target only by

providing a few demonstrations to the merchants which inspired them to design the store. She

used M&Ms and the recent apple products launched in various colours in these demonstrations to

motivate the merchants to introduce more colour in the store. Waters did not use any numbers or

data to bring the change in the organization, but rather arouse the emotions of the merchants

towards trends and colours.

Furthermore, C. Heath and D. Heath use the symbols of the Elephant and the Rider to

explain the changes brought in Target through moving the emotions of the people in the

organization. Elephant represents the emotional mind, whereas the Rider is the analytical mind.

The writer implies that in order to bring a change in normal situation stimulating the Rider might

help, however, to bring a drastic change it is essential to motivate the Elephant. People change

their behaviour when they observe and feel the need for change. Waters motivated her colleagues

to feel a sense of creativity and competitiveness.

Moreover, the writers propose to bring a change in young cancer patients through

stimulating the emotions of the teenagers through analysis of Omidyar’s introduction of a game

called Re-Mission. The game includes Roxxi, a teen that fights the cancer in the bloodstream.

The game makes an emotional connection by giving the teenager a hope that they can defeat the

cancer and take back control of their life with the means of chemotherapy as a gun. The game
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involves the teenager to feel confident which cannot be achieved through a lecture or

presentation.

Additionally, C. Heath & D. Heath assess how to search for the feeling and what is the

appropriate emotion to bring a change. In the case of the young cancer patients, Omidyar uses

the emotion of authority of their own lives to bring change. They further indicate that change is

observed often when fear is involved in the situation. The crisis is essential to bring change in

any organization as crisis helps persuade people that they are in danger unless they bring a

change in their lives. Moreover, corporate world uses a phrase Burning Platform, which refers to

frightening their workers to make differences. This forces the employees to alter institutional

behaviours and resolve issues that are caused by those behaviours. Consequently, it is evident

that fear encourages change in any institution for short-term.

However, it is important to stimulate a person with positive feelings rather than negative

feelings like fear to bring a long-term change. The writers point out that negative feelings limit

our thought process, whereas positive feelings expand our thought. This expanding of thoughts

motivates people to be more adventurous, ambitious, creative and helps them face real-life issue

which cannot be solved by negative feelings. Further, the writer highlights the way Robyn

Waters used the same positive emotion to bring a change at Target. They state that she made

people more creative and upbeat.

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References

Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2011). Find the Feeling. In Switch: How to Change Things when

Change is Hard (pp.101-123). Toronto: Random House Business.