The Power of Habit summary

The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg, is a book about why we do what we do every day, and how to change it. Duhigg was a business reporter at The New York Times when he wrote it. His central claim is simple: a huge part of what you do each day is not a decision at all. It's a habit. And once you understand how a habit is built, you can change it, both in yourself and in a company.

The book mixes brain science, advertising and business: a man who lost his memory but kept his habits, rats in a maze, a toothpaste campaign, Febreze, Starbucks, and its best example, a new boss at Alcoa, one of the biggest aluminum companies in the world, who talked to investors about worker safety instead of money.

This is an independent written summary of the main ideas, in our own words, based on the Road MBA episode. We're not affiliated with the author or publisher, and nothing replaces reading the book.

Key ideas

1. Habits run even when you're not paying attention

In the 1990s, a virus damaged Eugene Pauly's brain and he could no longer form new memories. Yet in the middle of a conversation he could get up, walk to the bathroom, use it, wash his hands and come back to his chair. He didn't remember the layout. His habits did. The lesson: habits live in a different place from your conscious choices, and they keep running on their own.

2. Habits don't disappear, they wait

Rats learned a maze to reach a reward. At first their brains worked hard the whole way. Once the route became a habit, the brain went quiet in the middle and was busy mainly at the start and the end. When the reward was taken away, the habit faded. When it came back, the old pattern returned almost at once.

3. The habit loop: cue, routine, reward

Duhigg describes every habit as a loop with three parts. Repeat it enough times and it runs by itself.

• The cue: something that tells your brain to switch to automatic mode, such as a time of day, a place, a feeling, a person or the thing you just did.
• The routine: the behavior itself, which can be physical, mental or emotional.
• The reward: something your brain likes, which tells it this loop is worth remembering.

4. Craving is what really powers a habit

By Duhigg's account, very few Americans brushed their teeth about a hundred years ago. Then an advertising man, Claude Hopkins, took on a toothpaste called Pepsodent. He gave people a cue they could feel any time: the slightly filmy coating on their teeth. The real secret was the reward, a cool, tingling feeling. People came to expect the tingle, and without it their mouth didn't feel clean. Over time, cue and reward get tied together, and you start wanting the reward the moment you see the cue. That wanting is the craving.

5. A product needs a cue people actually notice

When Febreze, a spray that removes bad smells from fabric, first came out, it didn't sell. People who live with bad smells stop noticing them, so there was no cue. The company gave it a pleasant scent and sold it as the final touch after cleaning a room, a reward that says the job is done, latched on to a habit people already had. By the time the book came out, Duhigg says, Febreze was earning more than a billion dollars a year.

6. The golden rule of habit change

You can't simply delete a habit. The cue still shows up and the craving is still there. So keep the cue, keep the reward, and change only the routine in the middle. If stress at four in the afternoon sends you to the snack machine, ask what you're really after. Maybe it's a break, or someone to talk to. Then give yourself that reward a better way, at the same time, after the same cue.

7. Belief and other people help the change stick

People who truly believe they can change are much more likely to keep going when things get hard. Other people matter too. Duhigg points to Alcoholics Anonymous, where meetings give members a new routine for the same cues, and a group that makes it easier to believe change is possible.

8. Turn willpower into a habit

Research suggested that willpower works like a muscle: it tires with heavy use and grows stronger with training. Starbucks wanted calm, friendly service even with a rude customer and a long line, so it gave staff a plan for hard moments, a simple sequence they could practice: listen to the customer, acknowledge the complaint, take action, thank them, and explain why it happened. They rehearsed it until, under pressure, they didn't need to decide.

9. Keystone habits pull others along

Some habits matter more than others because they start a chain. In personal life, when one habit changes, like regular exercise, other good habits often follow.

The Alcoa story

In October 1987, Paul O'Neill, Alcoa's new boss, met its investors, who wanted to hear about profits. He told them his goal was zero injuries. One investor later told Duhigg he called his clients and told them to sell the stock right away, and that it was the worst advice he ever gave. To cut injuries, O'Neill set one rule: whenever someone got hurt, the head of that unit had to report it to him within twenty four hours, with a plan to make sure it never happened again. That forced managers and workers to find problems on the production line and fix them fast, which also made the plants run better. Duhigg reports that by the time O'Neill retired, the company's yearly profit was five times higher than when he started. As Duhigg tells it, O'Neill said you can't order people to change, so he chose one thing and let it spread.

How to use it at work

• Pick one work habit you want to change and, the next time it happens, write down what set it off, what you did and what you were really looking for.
• Keep the cue and the reward, and test one new routine in the middle.
• When a product or process isn't being used, look for the missing cue, or attach it to something people already do.
• For stressful moments, like an angry customer, agree on a short step by step plan and rehearse it as a team.
• Choose one keystone habit for your team, such as reporting every problem within a set time with a fix, and let it spread.
• Tell people you believe they can change, and give them a group that practices the new routine together.

The one idea to keep: every habit is a loop of cue, routine and reward, powered by a craving. You can't just delete a habit, but you can keep the cue and the reward, swap the routine, and pick one keystone habit that pulls the others along.