The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

This fascinating book is divided into three parts - habits within individuals, habits of organizations, and habits of societies.  Drawing on academic research, interviews, and anecdotes, this book focuses on how we stop making conscious choices as behaviors become automatic, why those habits form, and identifying patterns of a habit so they can be reshaped.

In one section Duhigg discusses willpower. A group of people enrolled in an academic study program, and while participant's learning skills did improve, researchers found that people also smoked fewer cigarettes, drank less alcohol, and ate less junk food.  What they found was that as willpower muscles strengthened overall, good habits in one area spilled over into other parts of their lives. Once you learn to go to the gym, or eat a salad, you are changing how you think. Your brain becomes practices at resisting temptations and focusing on your goals.

This is why having kids participate in activities such as music and sports is so important - when you learn to practice the piano for an hour, you build up this self-discipline, and small child who habitually practices the piano each day becomes a teenager who can start their homework on time.

Companies such as Starbucks - many of their employees at the entry-level position with no prior work experience - have built training problems to build up the self-discipline their employees may not have learned when they were younger.  Among other things they focus on giving employees a sense of authority - asking them to solve problems rather than handing them solutions.  By instilling in their employees this greater agency in their roles, the staff turnover has decreased and customer satisfaction has increased.

A selling point of this book is how to uncover your own habits in order to change them, but I was interested in this area more broadly - to understand why habits form, and how to use this information to design new products or strategies that fit within existing habits of your future users. I didn't anticipate learning how companies leverage (manipulate?) this. I won't look at Target the same way again.