The Bright Spot

Margaret Moore - Staff Writer
March 9, 2010
Filed under Features

Help now, change now, fix now, save now; is all that possible? Sure, one can help by flying all over the world trying to meet with people and speak about the issue, but that does not necessarily fix the problem. Rather than trying to fix the vast problems of the world, the copying of success has been proved to be the most effective. This strategy functions by focusing on the positive happenings in the situation and replicating it, causing additional success.
“There is a gameplan that can yield movement on even the toughest issues. And it starts with locating a bright spot–a ray of hope,” said Dan anc Chip Heath.
The word effort means a vigorous or determined attempt. The world is constantly putting forth effort to help and change the starving, homeless, tortured, miserable people living on this earth.
Jerry Sternin was faced with a challenge of how to change things when change is hard, arduous, and heavy. Sternin is a man who has worked for the world’s poor for the past few decades with his wife. He and his family flew to Vietnam to make an effort to change the malnutrition of the country. As Sternin examined the complicated problem, it appeared to him that there were many solutions, but the powerful conclusions he wanted were nearly impossible to produce. He was given six months to make a change in Vietnam, by the foreign minister if his Save the Children international organization, or he was to go home immediately.
Sternin traveled to a local village and called all the mothers to a small meeting. ‘“Did you find any very, very poor kids who are bigger and healthier than the typical child?”’ said Sternin to the ladies. They all replied ‘“Co, Co, Co!”’ which means ‘“Yes, Yes, Yes!”’ Sternin arrived in the village of two healthy boys, and he examined that they were fed four times a day, instead of two big meals a day. The mothers of those boys also put extra protein in the rice such as sweet potatoes and crawfish so that they would be more filled after the meal.
Sternin considered this as a bright spot and figured out that in order to help supplement the meal malnourishment in Vietnam, he needed to duplicate this bright spot. That is exactly what he did, and the program reached 2.2 million Vietnamese people in 265 villages. By the end of his six months, 65% of the kids were better nourished.
Sternin could have taken the course by panicking, over-thinking, and planning a huge project, but he decided otherwise. Instead he easily discovered the bright spot and he quickly cloned it creating a greater outcome than imagined.
The different route that Sternin took sparked an idea in brothers Dan and Chip Heath’s minds. Dan and Chip Heath are known for their idea of “How to make things stick.” Their minds feed on finding the different, more effective ways to make ideas, concepts, and propositions cling to the mind.
The Heaths explain in their book, Switch, that every human has a united mind made up of the rational mind, and the emotional mind. The emotional side is the Romanticism that flows through you. It creates the feeling of pleasure, pain, and natural tendency. The rational side of you is what makes you think, reflect, and analyze.
“Our emotional side is an Elephant and our rational side is its Rider. Perched atop the Elephant, the Rider holds the reins and seems to be the leader. But the Rider’s control is precarious because the Rider is so small relative to the Elephant. Anytime the six-ton Elephant and the Rider disagree, the Rider is going to lose, He is completely overmatched,” said Jonathan Haidt in his book called The Happiness Hypotheses. Haidt also states that if you want to change things, you’ve got to appeal to both the elephant and the rider. This metaphor is used in his book to explain that when people try to make drastic changes, their automatic behaviors take over. This creates a job for the Rider, which includes careful supervision.
“The bigger the change you’re suggesting, the more it will sap people’s self-control,” said Haidt.
As one’s mind constantly tells them that they are to fix, “here and now,” the Heaths explain that it is near impossible to fix big problems. They advise change, a change that is completed by reproducing success.
“We need to switch from archaeological problem solving to bright-spot evangelizing,” said Chip and Dan Heath.