In the past couple of days, I keep hearing this concept in my instructional material. I first heard it as the main subject of Darren Daily's Tuesday piece that I actually listened to yesterday. Then, later at night, I came across it again in my reading. I recently began reading the book: "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business" by Charles Duhigg. I have been looking forward to reading this book for a while and I can already tell this will provide a great learning opportunity for me.
In the book, Charles Duhigg begins with a story about a woman who was able to change a series of "bad habits" to "good habits" and was in turn able to change the course of her life. Interestingly, she only focused in on one "bad habit" and that was to quit smoking--her keystone habit. By making this one small change in her life, she was able to create a ripple effect that caused her to replace a set of bad habits like not exercising and complaining with good ones like running marathons and being thankful.
In the world of business, both Duhigg and Darren Hardy point out the work of Paul o'Neill. He was a radical CEO of Alcoa, a manufacturing company that made aluminum. In his first term as the chief executive operator, he announced that he will solely focus on making Alcoa the safest company to work for. Although all investors and consultants where aghast at his remark and promise and even pulled out their money from the company, within a year, Alcoa did increase its safety in that "lost work days" due to injury per 100 workers dropped from 1.86 to 0.125! Along with that, the profits at Alcoa hit a record high!
Business Insider correspondent, Drake Baer also wrote about this phenomenon that Duhigg emphasizes in his book: "Focusing on that one critical metric, or what Duhigg refers to as 'keystone habit,' created a change that rippled through the whole whole culture. Duhigg says the focus on worker safety led to an examination of an inefficient manufacturing process -- one that made for suboptimal aluminum and danger for workers."
I've already started the thinking process and discussion with my husband about what our "keystone habit" could be and how it can ripple through our lives and the changes it can make in it. Right now I am in the phase of "which one will effect the other? : Will I work out more if I eat less or will I eat less if I work out more?" Perhaps its something even more fundamental than that. Already, I feel like by adopting this one habit: of writing everyday, it has created a ripple effect of leading me to turn off technology after dinner (by around 8p), reading for half an hour before bed, preparing my meals beforehand (especially bulk cooking), tracking my performance and striving to put in more hours of concentrated work per day.
Maybe the ripple is already taking place...
In the book, Charles Duhigg begins with a story about a woman who was able to change a series of "bad habits" to "good habits" and was in turn able to change the course of her life. Interestingly, she only focused in on one "bad habit" and that was to quit smoking--her keystone habit. By making this one small change in her life, she was able to create a ripple effect that caused her to replace a set of bad habits like not exercising and complaining with good ones like running marathons and being thankful.
In the world of business, both Duhigg and Darren Hardy point out the work of Paul o'Neill. He was a radical CEO of Alcoa, a manufacturing company that made aluminum. In his first term as the chief executive operator, he announced that he will solely focus on making Alcoa the safest company to work for. Although all investors and consultants where aghast at his remark and promise and even pulled out their money from the company, within a year, Alcoa did increase its safety in that "lost work days" due to injury per 100 workers dropped from 1.86 to 0.125! Along with that, the profits at Alcoa hit a record high!
Business Insider correspondent, Drake Baer also wrote about this phenomenon that Duhigg emphasizes in his book: "Focusing on that one critical metric, or what Duhigg refers to as 'keystone habit,' created a change that rippled through the whole whole culture. Duhigg says the focus on worker safety led to an examination of an inefficient manufacturing process -- one that made for suboptimal aluminum and danger for workers."
I've already started the thinking process and discussion with my husband about what our "keystone habit" could be and how it can ripple through our lives and the changes it can make in it. Right now I am in the phase of "which one will effect the other? : Will I work out more if I eat less or will I eat less if I work out more?" Perhaps its something even more fundamental than that. Already, I feel like by adopting this one habit: of writing everyday, it has created a ripple effect of leading me to turn off technology after dinner (by around 8p), reading for half an hour before bed, preparing my meals beforehand (especially bulk cooking), tracking my performance and striving to put in more hours of concentrated work per day.
Maybe the ripple is already taking place...
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