The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact Hardcover – October 3, 2017

If you happen to be buying gifts for family and co-workers today, I can make it easy for you. Buy a dozen copies of “The Power of Moments.”Here’s the big idea: “A defining moment is a short experience that is both memorable and meaningful.” And…oh, my—are we in short supply of significant moments in our boring staff meetings, workplaces, churches, schools, and homes. You can change that!Buy this book for:YOUR STAFF. Here’s an idea: bring popsicles to your next staff meeting and play the audio from the first chapter, “Defining Moments,” and ask the team why the Magic Castle Hotel in Los Angeles does this:“Let’s start with a cherry-red phone mounted to a wall near the pool. You pick it up and someone answers, ‘Hello, Popsicle Hotline.’ You place an order, and minutes later, a staffer wearing white gloves delivers your cherry, orange, or grape Popsicles to you at poolside. On a silver tray. For free.”What will your staff learn? “What the Magic Castle has figured out is that, to please customers, you need not obsess over every detail. Customers will forgive small swimming pools and underwhelming room décor, as long as some moments are magical. The surprise about great service experiences is that they are mostly forgettable and occasionally remarkable.” (p. 9)YOUR FAVORITE CHARITIES. If I could wave a magic wand, I’d ask every relief and development organization leader to read Chapter 5, “Trip Over the Truth,” about a methodology called Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS).The authors begin with a warning to readers: “The story ahead is full of disgusting images, and it also makes frequent use of the ‘s-word” for feces.” The researcher in this Bangladesh brilliant/brilliant epiphany “believes that it’s a mistake to soft-pedal the word using medical terms…or more kid-friendly terms. When he works in new countries, he makes sure to ask for the crude slang… He wants the word to shock.”The researcher’s ingenious approach to dramatically improved community health is the polar opposite of the way leaders, teachers, and preachers seek change. Instead of pulpits, podiums, and lecterns, Dr. Kamal Kar used observation, probing (shocking) questions, and demonstrations. Brilliant! (p. 97)YOUR TEACHERS. In the chapter “Stretch for Insight,” the authors describe a study of 44 seventh-graders who wrote essays about a personal hero. Teachers marked up the essays and Group 1 students received generic feedback. Group 2 students received personalized “wise criticism.” Both groups could resubmit their essays in hopes of higher grades. You guessed it: almost 80 percent of Group 2 students resubmitted compared to about 40 percent of the first group. (p. 122)YOUR PASTOR. Whew. How do pastors inspire a congregation—weekend after weekend, 52 weeks a year? (Few do.) But creative teams can create extraordinary experiences along the way—by defying “the forgettable flatness of everyday work and life by creating a few precious moments.” (p. 265)And speaking of teaching, don’t skip the insights about a weeklong program, the Course Design Institute (CDI). “The dirty secret of higher education [and maybe seminaries] is that the faculty aren’t taught how to teach,” says Michael Palmer, a chemistry prof at the University of Virginia. So Palmer invites groups of 25 to 30 profs, per course, to meet the ugly truth in the mirror.It begins with an interactive fill-in-the-blanks exercise, where each prof completes one sentence: an aspirational objective for students that will be realized three to five years later. Then each prof compares that aspiration with his or her course syllabus. Palmer asks, “How much of your current syllabus will advance your students toward the dreams you have for them?”You guessed it! Chip Heath and Dan Heath describe one prof’s head-slapper moment, after an awkward silence: “You look at your syllabus, and you go, ‘Zero.’” (p. 106)The book includes a link to a complete syllabus with “before” and “after” examples—showing how a professor changed the content, as a result of the weeklong course.You should also buy this book for:PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS. The dinner table question from Spanx founder Sara Blakely’s dad: “What did you guys fail at this week?” (p. 130)HR TEAM. On creating extraordinary moments on a team member’s first day on the job: “Imagine if you treated a first date like a new employee.” (p. 18)MARKETING STAFF. “One simple diagnostic to gauge whether you’ve transcended the ordinary is if people feel the need to pull out their cameras. If they take pictures, it must be a special occasion.” (p. 63)FUNDRAISERS AND OTHERS. On the topic of unheralded achievements in the chapter, “Thinking in Moments,” the authors ask: “We celebrate employees’ tenure with organizations, but what about their accomplishments? Isn’t a salesman’s 10 millionth dollar of revenue earned worth commemorating? Or what about a talented manager who has had 10 direct reports promoted?” (p. 36)And I’d add: And what about celebrating a single mom’s faithful $10-a-month donor gifts when her total giving reaches the $500 or $1,000 milestone? That’s a moment to celebrate! Plus, don’t miss the creative way one organization sends personalized thank you notes to donors. (p. 151)BOARD MEMBERS. Recently, I played the book’s audio of “Clinic 1: The Missed Moments of Retail Banking” to my fellow board members at Christian Community Credit Union. The question, “Could banks learn to ‘think in moments’?” Convicting—but very, very applicable to all organizations.I could go on—but you get my drift. This book changed—changed!—my thinking in so many ways. You’ll appreciate the powerful and poignant stories. Example: how a priest gathered a widow’s friends together (five years after her husband had died) for a therapeutic wedding vows ceremony—but in the past tense. “Were you faithful?” The result: she was finally ready to date again.You’ll underline the “whirlwind reviews” for each of the four major sections (Elevation, Insight, Pride, and Connection). You’ll be delighted by the bonus resources, like the “clinics,” the free app referenced, “36 Questions,” and why one company empowers employees to give away a certain number of free drinks and food items every week! (p. 73)The “Clinic 2” (p. 89) is a must-read about church boards. The question: “How do you refresh a meeting that’s grown rote?” One approach: “Break the script.”And finally, Chip Heath and Dan Heath warn: “Beware the soul-sucking force of reasonableness.” Example: “Couldn’t we just put the Popsicles in a cooler by the ice machine?” (LOL!)

Wow! There is something in here for everyone. Business, education, government, personal - quality content, thought provoking solutions. BUILD PEAK MOMENTS. "We all have a superpower we are not using" - so simple! Highly recommend.Updated 9/12/2019I highly recommend this book. It’s presently at the top of my list for 2019 reading. Chip & Dan Heath take you through some very basic concepts that are easily implemented. The stories they share are relatable and real. I’ve listened to a number of interviews with Dan Heath where he shares some of the same information and two recurring themes I find incredibly powerful are:1 – Creating moments is like a superpower we all have that we are not using right now2 – Beware the soul-sucking force of reasonablenessThe Magic Castle Hotel story is incredibly thought provoking. This place has reviews through the roof and has won numerous prestigious awards. It’s an old 1950s apartment complex and there is nothing amazing about the physical plant. The experiences however, are AMAZING. Magicians walking around, FREE snacks (and not airline size – think full sized supermarket bags), a phone by the pool where kids can call and get popsicles delivered to them by a white-gloved server on a silver platter, and much more.After you are fully amazed by the experiences at The Magic Castle Hotel – the Heath brothers get you thinking about typical discussions around the conference room that go like this: (this is all in the book – these are my words & memories from reading – a few of the scenarios I thrown in my own “voice of reason” scenarios – the Ideas are realities at The Magic Castle Hotel)Idea: “Hey we could have magicians walking around performing magic tricks for the kids”Voice of Reason: “Yeah that would be nice, but what if guest attendance was low and there weren’t any kids around – we’d be paying them to do nothing. What if one of these magicians upset a kid? Anyway, kids don’t like magicians any more – they want to see videos – we could save money by having a TV screen in the lobby that we call the ‘Magic TV’ and put some magic videos on it.”Idea: “Hey we could put a red phone outside by the pool and whenever someone picked it up a person would answer and take their order for a popsicle and then we could have someone in a butler suit with white gloves come deliver it to them poolside on a silver platter.”Voice of Reason: “Great idea, but how would we staff that? What if we were busy and nobody answered the phone and a kid was upset? Aren’t popsicles choking hazards? Butler suits are cool, but then we are asking our employees to do something different and keep up with a whole new uniform standard. How about we just put a cooler out by the pool with a sign above it that says “FREE Popsicles.”Idea: “Hey we could have a snack list for kids and whatever they wanted at anytime they could get for FREE, and it wouldn’t just be a small snack – it would be a legit sized bag of whatever they wanted.”Voice of Reason: “I like that idea, but think how much money we could save if we did smaller portions – also that would be healthier for the kids. Actually now that we’re thinking about it, should we be giving away free food? – what about liabilities? What if a child ate something and had an allergic reaction? What if the snack they wanted wasn’t on the list and they got upset.”It’s comical when you look at these powerful moments from the reverse point of view. We’ve all been in meetings where someone is hell-bent on defending the status-quo; or comes up with multiple alibis for failure. STOP THE INSANITY! The biggest brands, the truly trademark companies, the ones making the $$, getting the reviews, the ones that have the raving fans – they have crossed over the reasonableness boundary and are thinking outside the box, breaking the script, and making the ordinary extraordinary.Thank you Chip & Dan Heath!