Vanens magt : hvorfor gør vi, som vi gør, og hvordan… (2012)

I found this book fascinating. A very readable book about the influence of habits on the individual level, organizational level, and on society as a while. This book is filled with great real world examples to help illustrate what we know about habits, how you can use this knowledge for improvement, and how this knowledge is being used on you everyday. Some of the material on how influencing habits is used in marketing to predict when you are "vulnerable" to marketing, knowing what you want, and how to get you to want something new were great even if a bit disconcerting. The author's main point throughout this book is that understanding how habits work contain a key to influencing behavior, both your own and those of others, on a personal and professional level.
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Content Summary:
The Power of Habit is divided into three parts: 1) Habits of Individuals, 2) Habits of Successful Organizations, and 3) Habits of Societies.

The main objective of the book is to explore the science of habit formation. Duhigg begins with the story Eugene Pauly (E.P.) who lost the ability to remember things. His brain was frozen in time. And yet he was able to form new habits - and therefore revolutionizing the understanding of neurology for habit formation. In short, we have a habit loop: first we experience a trigger or cue (time, place, previous action, person, or feeling), which leads us to practice a routine. After the routine we receive a reward. Think for instance about getting money from the ATM, or eating a donut, or scrolling facebook after feeling bored.

In chapter 2 Duhigg explores the process of creating cravings by telling the stories of 1) Claude Hopkins stumbling upon creating the craving of brushing one's teeth and starting a billion dollar industry, 2) Proctor and Gamble's process of marketing Febreeze, and 3) Julio the monkey who loves juice. In short, if you create a craving in someone else, they experience the positive reward endorphins in the brain before one completes the routine. The anticipation of the reward makes us want it more. Think of gamblers, smokers, drug addicts or McDonald's french fries, email, text message chimes, feeling good after you exercise.

Chapter 3 explains the golden rule of habit change - basically, you can never extinguish bad habits, only change the routine for something new. Here, he interwove the coaching genius of Tony Dungy, the genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous, and Mandy the nail biter. To change habits, we must identify the cue that sets you off - seeing it is half the battle. Second if you can keep the same reward and change to a new routine, viola, a new habit is formed. Think for instance of an alcoholic, whose cue is feeling bored. Instead of drinking, they attend an AA meeting, and receive the same reward - stimulation - afterward. However, there was one extra point - having a belief you can do it. In AA groups, members turn to God or a higher power as fight addiction together. For Dungy's football team, tragedy pulled them together. He says, "Belief is essential, and it grows out of a communal experience, even if that is... two people (93)."

Part Two
Chapter 4: Paul O'Neill, Michael Phelps, and gay rights activism - video tapes, small wins, and keystone habits. When we ask, "Are some habits better than others?" the answer is undoubtedly yes - they are called keystone habits. "Watch the video tape" is what Phelps' coach would tell him before sleeping. It was a mental visualization of the perfect race, replaying the habits of jumping off the blocks and swimming perfectly. "Small wins" are how keystone habits create widespread change. "Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage." In other words, keystone habits create a cascade of improvement. "Keystone habits create structures that help other habits to flourish. (119)"

Chapter 5: Starbucks, delayed gratification, willpower and healing from major surgery.
"Starbucks... has been able in teaching employees the type of life skills that schools, families, and communities have failed to provide. (130)" Their focus is training the habit of willpower - it is "the single most important keystone habit for individual success. (131)" Willpower is often grown from delayed gratification. However, willpower comes and goes; sometimes discipline is easy, other times, it isn't. Why? Basically because willpower is a muscle. It gets tired. Other important notes: in setting goals, write out your plans. Be specific on time and place. Anticipate how you will respond to set-backs, and formulate your ideal response to that set-back.

Chapter 6: Rhode Island Hospital, The London Underground, NASA's Challenger explosion. Sometimes habits forms haphazardly, through accident. When this is the case, our routines and truces allow work to get done, but can create toxic or dangerous environments. "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Crisis provides the opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."

Chapter 7: When companies predict and manipulate habits - Target, radio DJs/song writers, and new meat products. Read this article by the author. It's a summary plus some more on this idea. Basically he describes the maniacal ways corporations hack our brains to create habits and manipulate us into buying junk we don't need. New parents are the holy grail of consumers because everything is in flux. So if companies can hook new parents, they'll make billions. "Someday soon, say predictive analytics experts, it will be possible for companies to know our tastes and predict our habits better than we know ourselves. (212)"

... will finish summary and review later... ( )

Reading this in 2020 made me very late at joining the party and perhaps come in with my expectations set too high because of that.

I was happy enough with the Cue - Routine - Reward schema and found many of the illustrative stories entertaining to read, but in the end, I think I was put off too much by the author obviously not being a researcher himself and making some broad assumptions in matching the stories with the science. The further I progressed through the chapters, the less I wanted to hold up my habit of never leaving a book half-read.

In the end, I do think I got one or two useful insights for myself and the organisations I work in, so three stars it is. ( )

There are a lot of things we do mechanically. Do you remember locking the door this morning? Putting on your sock? Or did those things just happen while you were thinking of other things? It turns out that we have a part of the brain that can execute very complex actions without involving the normal reasoning and memory sections of the brain. The author calls those actions "habits".

Habits frees our brain and allows it to do a lot of planning instead of working on the problem how to move your leg to not fall down in the next step you take, but what is surprising is how high level a habit can be. It's also obvious that they are not easy to change as proven by all the unwanted bad habits there are.

Habits also form companies and organizations, though they are often called unwritten routines in those places. Such routines are often the lubrication that makes something happen, something work, but they can also be poisonous and require changes, as shown by examples in the book.

The book is full real world examples, individual persons, companies like Alcoa, Starbucks, organizations like the London Underground and churches that work as proof that there is something in the idea of habits.

By describing how habits work and how they can be changed the author gives a good base towards modifying habits, hard though it might be, both for yourself and others. Or maybe just to understand why people do what they do as an interested observer.

The book is excellent. It contains a section about how habits and routines helped the black freedom movement in the 60s that I think is slightly weak and far-fetched but it doesn't make the rest less awesome.

Read this book if you want to change a bad habit. Read it if you want to know how organizations can change. Read it if you can't understand why someone fails to quit smoking. Read it if you want to know more about the human brain.

(I hesitated between four or five stars but ended up with five considering how useful this might be for someone. No guarantees since everyone is different.) ( )

A few useful studies referenced but the rest of the book is abound with examples of how people with extrinsic motivation pursue their dreams (read: greed). The Willpower Instinct is so much better in every aspect. ( )