-
Access Our
Most Anticipated
Books of 2025!
Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
How to Change Anyone's Mind
by Jonah Berger
Book Reviewed by:From the author of New York Times bestsellers Contagious and Invisible Influence comes a revolutionary approach to changing anyone's mind.
Everyone has something they want to change. Marketers want to change their customers' minds and leaders want to change organizations. Start-ups want to change industries and nonprofits want to change the world. But change is hard. Often, we persuade and pressure and push, but nothing moves. Could there be a better way?
This book takes a different approach. Successful change agents know it's not about pushing harder, or providing more information, it's about being a catalyst. Catalysts remove roadblocks and reduce the barriers to change. Instead of asking, "How could I change someone's mind?" they ask a different question: "Why haven't they changed already? What's stopping them?"
The Catalyst identifies the key barriers to change and how to mitigate them. You'll learn how catalysts change minds in the toughest of situations: how hostage negotiators get people to come out with their hands up and how marketers get new products to catch on, how leaders transform organizational culture and how activists ignite social movements, how substance abuse counselors get addicts to realize they have a problem, and how political canvassers change deeply rooted political beliefs.
This book is designed for anyone who wants to catalyze change. It provides a powerful way of thinking and a range of techniques that can lead to extraordinary results. Whether you're trying to change one person, transform an organization, or shift the way an entire industry does business, this book will teach you how to become a catalyst.
CASE STUDY
How to Change the Boss's Mind
To see easing uncertainty in action, it helps to visit a place where even the best new ideas are often stymied by the barriers to change. And that is the office.
* * *
The new project seemed doomed. As Jacek Nowak walked out of the meeting, his colleagues' voices kept ringing in his ears. "Why does this matter?" one said. "This is a waste of time," barked another. Even if they did all the work to implement the program, there was no guarantee that customers would care. That clients would actually appreciate the effort they went through. Things were generally going well, so why change?
Jacek had worked in banking for more than a decade. He started in customer service, supporting administrative processes in a bank branch, and worked his way up from there. He had conducted workshops, coordinated training programs, and helped shape recruitment processes. Eventually, rather than training new hires himself, he was responsible for managing a team of ...
The Catalyst suffers from the fact that it was written by a business professor, not a science journalist. It is lively and full of anecdotes, but lacks the depth of research and interviews that Gladwell typically brings to a book. Scholarly rigor aside, it's a book that will stick with you. Its concepts are difficult to shake and continually pertinent in everyday life, and it will likely enlighten how you approach arguments and discussions in a positive way...continued
Full Review
(956 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by Ian Muehlenhaus).
Setting people on a path to change is difficult. And when you're talking about millions of people, it often takes decades to see a mass evolution in behavior. Sometimes, however, a cataclysmic event will act as a catalyst that forces society as a whole to step off the precipice. Such events (e.g., the Great Depression, World War II, Chernobyl) dramatically shift people's frame of thought to such an extent that change is inevitable. In essence, cataclysmic events remove the five hurdles that prevent change, according to Jonah Berger: reactance, endowment, distance, uncertainty, and lack of corroborating evidence.
The current COVID-19 pandemic is cataclysmic. It will be the defining event of many of our lifetimes—at least, we can ...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked The Catalyst, try these:
by Robert P. Crease
Published 2019
A fascinating look at key thinkers throughout history who have shaped public perception of science and the role of authority.
by Maria Konnikova
Published 2017
An intriguing investigation into what makes a con artist, and why we continue to be duped by them.
The Seven O'Clock Club
by Amelia Ireland
Four strangers join an experimental treatment to heal broken hearts in Amelia Ireland's heartfelt debut novel.
One Death at a Time
by Abbi Waxman
A cranky ex-actress and her Gen Z sobriety sponsor team up to solve a murder that could send her back to prison in this dazzling mystery.
Happy Land
by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel about a family's secret ties to a vanished American Kingdom.
The Fairbanks Four
by Brian Patrick O’Donoghue
One murder, four guilty convictions, and a community determined to find justice.
.gif)
If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!