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Jun 25, 2012danielestes rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Early on while listening to this audiobook, I was ready to eject the disc and forget the whole thing. The content was shaping up to be just another business book on how to maximize profits. Take the story of Claude C. Hopkins for example. He was an American businessman and advertising pioneer who applied the science of habits towards helping clients sell products. Active in the early 20th century, Mr. Hopkins is credited with promoting daily teeth brushing by showing that doing so would remove a film that forms naturally on the teeth. Never mind that brushing was overkill (swishing water in your mouth will do the job), people nevertheless bought into the new habit, and millions of dollars were made. Ahh, advertising. In spite of celebrating the likes of Claude C. Hopkins, I kept listening. After a while I got the impression of a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on. For the most part, this book wants to be a statistical how-to manual for reforming individuals and businesses, but underneath all the rationality lurks a dark side. It's one thing to bite your nails and wish you could stop, but it's another thing entirely to wield the power of habit to manipulate others. More on this in a moment. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg breaks down the structure of a habit into three parts: cue, action and reward. He goes on to show how it's overwhelmingly easier to alter a habit rather than cease doing it entirely. For the bad habits, one need only change the destructive part of the habit, the action, and keep the other parts intact. This works provided an appropriate substitute is found. The most influential parts for me were the sections on small winds and weak ties. Small winds are like a controlled butterfly effect -- small changes leveraged in the present so that bigger changes can be enacted later on. Weak ties relate to the relational bonds between people. There are family and friends and there are complete strangers, and somewhere in between are the weak ties. A surprisingly strong connection, these are the people you may know of, but not very well. Or you may not know them at all even though they belong to your community, church, etc. Movements are born and political campaigns are won using these weak ties. The section on corporate retailers (Target being the given example) takes us to more uncomfortable territory. Here they mine consumer buying data to predict a customer's future buying needs. Hardly innocuous coupon advertising; this is big brother stuff, and to the book's credit, it admits the same thing. Profits are up! But so are intrusions of privacy! (Jekyll and Hyde.) We all know this is going on, but to what extent? The last section ventures into the territory of habit versus free will with biting examples of gambling addiction and committing involuntary manslaughter... while asleep! This isn't your feel good biz org manual anymore. It's this dichotomy that seals the deal for The Power of Habit being one of the most important reads this year.