RSPA INSPIRE 2015 Preview: Author Chip Heath Will Present Sessions On Change, Decision Making
Chip Heath is the featured speaker for INSPIRE 2015, the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) event for thought leaders in retail technology, January 25-28, 2015, at the Grand Wailea Resort & Convention Center, Maui, HI.
Heath is the co-author (with his brother Dan Heath) of Decisive: How to Make Better Decisions in Life and Work (2013), Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard (2010), and Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (2007). A professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, his course, How to Make Ideas Stick, explores whether the principles of “naturally sticky ideas” can make messages more effective. The course has been taught to hundreds of people including managers, nonprofit leaders, product designers, and venture capitalists.
One of Heath’s sessions at INSPIRE 2015 will focus on the dynamics of change: how you can align the analytical side and the emotional side of your brain to make change effectively. The topic of a second session is decision making: examining flaws and biases that result in less-than-optimal decisions and learning routines and procedures — many that take less than five minutes — that improve the chances of success.
In an exclusive interview with Jim Roddy, Business Solutions president and RSPA board chairman, Heath explains he is participating in INSPIRE 2015, in part, because of his interest in the retail IT solutions provider industry. Following are excerpts from that interview.
Roddy: What do you find most intriguing about this group?
Heath: Given your historical roots and people, I would have predicted that you would have disappeared as an industry 10 years ago. I think there is some core competency that you’re providing that I wouldn't have thought about as an outsider.
I wonder if you all think about it as insiders. That the reason you’ve resisted the waves of technology changes — you know, driving you out of business — the reason you have resisted the vendors trying to come in and market directly to your customers, the reason that you’re still persisting in the world of iPads, is because you are offering a quality of service, responsiveness, and tailoring that is really important.
I was just fascinated by this industry. And given that you are in the midst of going through a lot of changes, and, with margins that have shrunk from 70 percent to 35 percent, a big transition. But you’ve succeeded — I think very well up until now — and the question is, how do you succeed going forward?
Roddy: Many RSPA members are family-owned businesses, and you’ve worked with your brother on some successful projects. So, from your experience what are they keys to family members working well together?
Heath: I’m not sure we have any advice on that. We’re ten years apart in age, and so we have rediscovered each other as adults. I think when I talk to people who say, “I couldn’t work with my sibling,” they are always much closer in age than Dan and I are. We don’t know how to punch each other’s buttons as well as people who grew up two or three years apart.
Mom only had to do an intervention with us once. It was our first book, and at one point we were getting stressed because I was getting further and further ahead on the outlines than he was in writing his segments. My tension was building, and we were kind of at odds with each other. My mother pointed out that we have two different styles — and by the way, Dan is the kind of person who would start the night before, and he would go in and ace his exam and his grades would be higher than yours. And as soon as she labeled it, both of us relaxed. So I think sometimes having an outside perspective of the ability to label a pattern of behavior or a difference was really useful to us.
Roddy: Many RSPA members have technical backgrounds, and they get into the business because they are good at building IT solutions. With your books, you really have a foundational theme that employees aren’t just machines — you really have to take into account their emotions and their feelings. But there are a lot of business owners where it is “company first, get the job done first, let’s hit the numbers.” What initial steps do those business leaders have to take, if they don’t naturally incline toward understanding people’s feelings, to eliminate that blind spot?
Heath: I think the fundamental problem that business owners run into is what economists call the “curse of knowledge.” When you are an expert, it is hard for you to imagine somebody that doesn’t have your expertise — it just seems obvious to you. If you have ever talked to a doctor or a lawyer about their field, and you don't have that background, you’re on the other side of this complex, abstract, jargon-filled description of what is going on.
Technical business owners are in the same position. One of the simplest things that they can do to connect with their employees is just to explain the “why.” You will be more about connecting the dots that they don’t have connected in their minds already because they don't have your technical background and your expertise, and they will perform better and understand more of the emotion and the reasons for doing what they are doing.
Roddy: I just had a conversation along these lines, and the person was saying, but, “I can't slow down to do that.” What is your reaction to somebody who says that?
Heath: I think it’s the pay now or pay later principle. It’s hard to slow down, but you’re either going to take the time upfront to do things more completely, or you are going to suffer in the long run. People are going to make mistakes if they don’t have the whole picture or don’t understand the implications or importance of what you are asking them to do.
Very often, good entrepreneurs will have somebody else in the room that is explicitly designated to play the role of slowing them down. It is a chief of staff, vice president of marketing, or chief sales person that has been asked by the entrepreneur, “If I get ahead of myself, slow me down.” I think that is a useful practice.
Roddy: If you were going to recommend books to a small business owner — like many of the folks who are going to be at the INSPIRE conference and that read Business Solutions magazine — what are some of the books outside of the ones you and your brother have written that you would recommend that they get their hands on to help them become a better business — and a better leader?
Heath: I recommend two. One is by Robert Chialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. And it is the single best description of the kind of toolkit and psychology for persuading and influencing people. You’re constantly trying to influence and persuade your customers, your employees, and your contractors. It’s just a brilliant, easy-to-read, fun book that will dramatically expand your toolkit in that situation.
And then another one, targeted towards first time entrepreneurs who are starting a business from scratch, but that might be useful when you are contemplating changes in your business. It’s called Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model, by John Mullins and Randy Komisar. They do a great job of talking about when something is not working, you need to make a change and test your way into a different model for your business.
INSPIRE 2015, the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) conference for thought leaders in retail technology, will be held January 25-28, 2015, at the Grand Wailea Resort & Convention Center, Maui, HI. For more information, go to http://www.gorspa.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3342.