Chip and Dan Heath, professors, researchers, authors, entrepreneurs, and contributors to Fast Company magazine, have recently released a second book called Switch that claims to help folks manage or initiate change in their lives, businesses, etc. Dan recorded a video about the book for a group of VA Senior Executives to be played during last year’s Senior Management Conference, and his speech is available via VA’s Training Management System (TMS), but no one can find it there because the system’s search engine is about as useful as the following procedure:
1. Set up a manual typewriter next to a cactus in the desert
2. Type the question “what is Switch”
3. Swing the carriage return
4. Stare at the cactus
(but that’s another post)
Dan’s video boils down the message in the book which is essentially: people don’t actually resist change, they resist ambiguity, vagary, lack of direction. Dan points out that folks regularly go willingly toward some of the most massive changes a person can experience by simply breaking them down into manageable next steps. We voluntarily join the military, get married, have kids. Those are some pretty massive changes and humans seem to embrace them, not run from them.
He tells that story to explain this one: we like to think change is hard because we’re all schizophrenic. We have a rational side that fully understands why we shouldn’t spend so much time blogging or Facebooking, why we should drop 10 pounds, or why we should get up early tomorrow. Humans also have an emotional side that ignores the rational side and tells us things like one more drink before last call won’t hurt, or we deserve that donut, or hitting snooze one more time is the right decision. The Heath brothers describe this situation (actually they cite the psychologist who described it) as a rational human rider on the back of an emotional elephant. In a battle, the elephant will obviously win. So, the Heath brothers explain, any call for, or attempt to change anything must come with a rational appeal for the rider and an emotional appeal for the elephant. The rider must break down what it wants the elephant to do into easily manageable key steps and then provide the motivation to make those steps appealing to the elephant. Read the book, or, if by some miracle you can find it in TMS, watch the videos. They’re way better at explaining it than I am.
I told you that story to tell you this one: I was in New Orleans last week for the program in which I played that Switch video for a small group of VHA employees in a leadership training program. The hotel where I stayed, gorgeous though it was, had the strangest elevator control system I’ve ever encountered. Before I go on to describe it I should emphasize that I’m one of the folks who don’t need to read Switch in order to be convinced that humans embrace change. I’ve always enjoyed change. I get bored easily. I’d much rather be involved with creating or implementing or revising the new than with maintaining old. It’s just the way I’m wired. I tell you this so you’ll better understand, and perhaps better be able to help with my dilemma.
Back to the elevator control system. I vaguely recall as I checked in to this hotel, the clerk mentioning that I had to go up two floors (via escalators) to the main elevators in order to get to the guest rooms. Like most big city hotels, the first few floors were conference space, public areas, bars, restaurants, Starbucks, and FedEx store. The clerk also said something about swiping my room keycard in order to use the elevator. That seemed odd from a main floor. As a regular traveler, I belong to several of the major chain’s “preferred customer” groups and so I assumed she referred to those floors or areas reserved for card carrying preferred customers, like a top floor lounge, or the floor with just suites or something like that. I was too busy trying to remember her directions for how to even get up to the elevators to think much more about how my key card might be necessary to operate them. It was a good concern to have cuz it turns out I could have walked to another hotel (with my luggage) in less time than it took to get to these damned elevators.
As I approached them, I realized I should have paid more attention to what she said about how to operate them. Unlike every elevator I’ve ever been in, this bank of four cars had a touch screen on the wall between each pair of cars right where you normally find the simple “up/down” buttons you usually associate with elevator operation. I watched as another guest swiped a key card under the touch screen and walked into the car that opened behind us. My past experience with elevators told me to just follow her rather than fish through pockets for my keycard, and so I dragged my roller suitcase into her car, smiled politely, and then turned to press the button for the 7th floor.
“First day here?” she said from behind me as I began to realize the mistake I’d made. This elevator had no buttons inside it save for the alarm bell, and door open/close buttons.
“You’ll have to ride with me to 15, get out, and swipe your card again to get to your floor. Watch the touchscreen to see which car will take you to 7.”
Her instructions seemed about as clear as the ones I’d already ignored at the front desk – they in no way meshed with my four decades of elevator riding experience - but I smiled and thanked her and then rode quietly to 15 with her. I was silently debating whether I would actually get off at 15 until it dawned on me that staying in an elevator with no buttons on the inside was not a useful activity, so when we arrived at 15, I followed her out. I dug my keycard out of my pocket and swiped it under the touch screen. A keypad similar to the one on my iPhone appeared with the “3” and the “7” “keys” highlighted and flashing. I was a tad confused, but I intuitively tapped the “7” and the screen changed to instructions that said something like “take car A to the 7th floor.” And right about then, the door I’d just exited – car A as it turned out – opened. I stepped in and was whisked back down to the 7th floor.
I felt fairly confident with my success. I had passed the first lesson even if, you might argue, I had failed on my first try ending up on the 15th floor. I was now on floor 7 and could now go back to a more familiar process: searching for an indication of which of the four hallways I should follow to find room 725. I pulled my suitcase along while scanning the walls ahead of me and had far less difficulty finding my room than I had controlling the elevators. But the entire time I walked to my room, entered it, hung up my clothes, drank a glass of water, and headed back out to meet with our conference hosts in the building next door, my thoughts were on that elevator control experience.
Was this touchscreen thing that automatically offered me options a better system than the ones I was used to? It didn’t seem like it. It seemed overly complicated, but did I only think that because it was so new and different from well-established prior experience? More importantly, would I be able to work the system to get myself to the second floor – a floor I previously only set foot on between escalators on my way to the guest room elevators on the third floor – in order to meet with my host? I was about to find out. The elevator bank on the 7th floor was rapidly approaching. I had my keycard out and was ready to scan, but I paused to observe for a moment before I jumped right back into this new game. There were two sets of four elevators. Cars A-D were on the far end of the crossing hallway, and cars E-H; on the end nearest the hallway to my room. I had stopped at the E-H touch pad.
I swiped my card and a message on the touchscreen offered the iPhone-looking keypad again, this time with the “3” highlighted, but right below the keypad grid was another box that said, “lower floors.” I tapped it. At that point a new, less complicated grid popped up that offered “2,” “lobby,” and ”upper floors.” I tapped “2.” The screen then flashed “take car A to the 2nd floor.” I headed over from the E-F bank to the A-D bank, and as you can probably guess by now, got to car A just as the doors were closing. I swiped my keycard again, calling up the increasingly familiar iPhone keypad with the “3” highlighted again and the “lower floors” box below the grid. (Apparently, everyone from every upper floor rides to three and then hikes or escalates to 1 or 2??) I tapped the “lower floors” button again, selected “2” again and read “take car B to the 2nd floor.” I glanced up at the two cars I was facing: A & C. I turned around in time to see the doors to car B closing. (did I mention I had an ear infection, and couldn’t hear the doors opening - or jets taking off, or small arms fire - since my plane landed at Louis Armstrong Airport?) I swiped my card again. Tapped “lower floors” again. Tapped “2” again, and braced myself to launch at the first open door. The screen read “take car B to the 2nd floor.”
I tried that once! I thought, loudly.
This time I was ready though, and I managed to enter car B as the doors were closing. Out of habit, I still looked for buttons to push as the car descended to the 2nd floor. I got out, located the skybridge to the connected federal building next door, and made my way over to my host’s office building’s second floor lobby. I passed a bank of elevators marked “Levels 1-4,” a security desk where a friendly guard told me to have a good afternoon, another bank of elevators marked “Levels 5-9,” and finally, just as I was beginning to wonder what problems folks in New Orleans must have had with just plain old elevators in the past, a bank of elevators marked “Levels 9-15.” To my great relief, the elevators to floors 9-15 were operated by the old standard “up arrow/down arrow” buttons. I pushed the up arrow button and climbed on the first car that opened up. Inside, I found the standard panel of buttons (and in answer to the newly forming question in my head, I could actually choose any floor from 1 through 15 in spite of the signage that forced me to walk all the way past two other banks of perfectly good elevators to get to this one. I guessed that the others would have provided the same selection of floors no matter what the signs said!)
I arrived at floor 10, and in typical government fashion, saw absolutely no signage that would confirm nor deny that I was in the right place. To my left was an opening to a hallway. To my right was a set of decorative glass doors with an empty reception desk behind them bearing a Department of Veterans Affairs seal, but no further hierarchical identification indicating it was in the fact the Human Resources and Recruiting Office headquarters. (there are actually a LOT of Department of Veterans Affairs offices)
I walked through the glass doors until I found someone who instantly recognized me as someone who didn’t really belong. I introduced myself, explained why I was intruding, who I was looking for, and discovered I was in fact in the right place. The meeting (and the entire trip) went well from that point on (except for the cabin pressurization/depressurization effects on my ears on the flight home) but the issue of the hotel elevator controls either nagged or intrigued me, and continues to do so.
Each trip I made to and from my room reminded me that I had yet to decide whether or not this change was an improvement. The elevator touch pad was definitely a cool, Star Trek-like, high tech, futuristic kind of toy, and its inconspicuous, brushed stainless steel frame surrounding the glowing blue screen fit nicely with the newly redecorated hotel interior. There was no doubt that the hardware involved was sexy. These touchpads were sleek, slim, cool looking.
There is also no doubt that they worked, once a new user got the hang of them. No doubt that the inside of the elevator was “cleaner,” sleeker looking without all those buttons cluttering it up. No doubt there are fewer moving parts without a button for each floor plus the buttons outside, etc. I can certainly come up with a list of positive things to say about this new elevator GUI, if I may. But the question remains, is it better. If I could become used to it, does it make my elevator experience better than it was in the past?
I’m not sure I’m ready to make that Switch.
So, my dilemma: Do I suspect this new system is not better only because it is so new? Will I grow to love it once it becomes second nature? Or is it sufficiently overly complex and just the latest failure in a line of attempts to replace what is actually a solid existing system that will require more time and effort (and something WAY better than this) to replace it? And how do you ever know?
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