I had the privilege of hearing Dan Heath speak this fall at the CESA Conference in Denver. Dan referred to both Upstream and Reset in his message. He is a gifted speaker and writer that challenges the listener/reader to thoughtfully consider the need for a decision, the ramifications for a decision, and how a better decision could be made earlier to yield even more impactful results.
I highlighted several things while reading and have posted those notes below…
- “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” – Paul Batalden p. xi
- What was getting in the way of their ability to do good, quick work? p. xi
- The curse of a bad set of habits is that all the unnecessary things you’re doing actually come to seem necessary. p. xii
- Leverage Points are interventions where a little bit of effort yields disproportionate returns. Of the universe of things you could do to improve a situation, the Leverage Points are the things you should do. p. xvii
- Finding Leverage Points:
- Go and see the work
- Consider the goal of the goal
- Study the bright spots
- Target the constraint
- Map the system p. xix
- How to Restack the Resources:
- Start with a burst
- Recycle waste
- Do less AND more
- Tap motivation
- Let people drive
- Accelerate learning p. xx
- Progress principle: “Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work.” -Amabile and Kramer survey, p. xxi
- Shadow a Student challenge p. 5
- Glaring problems are sometimes the legacy of past solutions-improvisations and workarounds. p. 10
- Get out of the “medium of guesses” and into the medium of reality. When we go and see the work, we stop debating ideas and start discovering them. p. 11
- There are unmistakable areas for improvement that we may never see and brilliant ideas for change that we’ll never unlock unless we go and see the work. p. 18
- Before you strain yourself to budge a boulder, it’s worth asking: Are you targeting the right boulder? p. 27
- We can get so fixated on a goal that we miss the bigger picture. p. 27
- “Miracle Question”
- Imagine that in the middle of the night tonight, as you are sleeping, a miracle happens…the problem you are stressed about has been solved. Poof! Gone. But the miracle happened when you were sleeping, so when you first wake up, you have no way of knowing it happened. What are the first things you notice, as you start your day, that reveal to you the miracle happened? p. 30
- Averages are great for monitoring but terrible for diagnosis. p. 43
- The more you start to tune into What do I appreciate? What do I admire? What do I respect? the easier it becomes. p. 72
- The key move in mapping the system is to ascend above the silos: the individual units or departments within a larger organization. p. 85
- Only with the systems-level view can you hope to unlock an improvement. p. 87
- The second crucial component of mapping the system-in addition to spanning silos-is challenging assumptions. p. 89
- Our first method of Restacking Resources, the imperative to start with a burst, involves an intense period of work with single-minded focus on a goal. p. 103
- Time confetti p. 105
- Task switching is one of those phenomena that have almost no redeeming features. Research shows that it makes us slower. Less effective. More prone to errors. More stressed. p. 106
- “Early in your pursuit of your goal, look backwards at what you have achieved; toward the end, look forward.” -Miguel Brendl, a professional of marketing at the University of Basel p. 112
- Waste is anything that doesn’t add value to your work in the customer’s eyes. p. 120
- STOP/START/LESS/MORE quadrants p. 146
- If the central question of change is How can you do something different and better?, there are really only two answers: 1. by adding more resources; or 2. by using your resources differently p. 151
- To motivate people, we’ve got to pay attention to their desires. Their interests. Their hopes. And that requires empathy. p. 158
- The right information in the right moment is the ultimate navigational aid. p. 207
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