BOOK REVIEW

Charles Duhigg: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Doin Life and Business

Random House, New York, 2012, 371 pp

S. E. James

Published online: 14 August 2012

� Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Charles Duhigg has written an intelligent and fascinating

book that is sure to peak the interest of anyone who has

ever had a bad habit. The Power of Habit: Why We Do

What We Do In Life and Business goes far beyond how

habits affect us in our personal lives and provides insight

into how individuals and companies as diverse as sports

figures to corporations succeed or fail, based on nothing

more than habits.

The book contains nine chapters, divided into three

parts. Part 1 looks at the habits of individuals, Part 2 at the

habits of successful organizations and Part 3 at the habits of

societies. The appendix is a helpful guide to using the ideas

presented in the book.

Chapter 1 focuses on the story of a man named Eugene

who was stricken with viral encephalitis and the extensive

work of a memory scientist, Larry Squire, whose research

included understanding the subconscious mechanisms that

impact our many choices each day, choices that seem to be

the product of thoughts but are actually influenced by urges

that we don’t even recognize. Squire had been fortunate

enough to work with a group of doctors that studied Henry

Molaison, perhaps one of the most famous patients in

medical history. H. M., as he was known throughout his

life, had suffered from seizure disorders since the age of

seven, and in desperation had agreed to brain surgery in

1953 at the age of 27. From then until his death in 2008,

H. M. had no memory of anything that occurred after the

surgery, but retained the memories from before the surgery.

Squire’s studies of Eugene showed similarities to H. M.’s

case, and he began conducting experiments focused on the

formation of patterns within the deepest parts of the brain,

including the basal ganglia. Internalizing patterns and

acting on them, it seems, comes from the part of the brain

that requires very little intelligent thought. Actions that we

perform ‘‘without even thinking’’ about them, from as

simple as brushing our teeth to as complex as backing out

of the driveway and entering the flow of traffic become

routine thanks to our basal ganglia. Scientists say that this

is because the brain is constantly searching for pathways of

least resistance. This is the nature of the habit loop, a three-

step loop consisting of a trigger, a routine, and a reward.

When habits emerge, our brains actually stop participating

in decision-making. Scary thought, isn’t it? This explains

why we develop the habit of opening the freezer and

reaching for the carton of ice cream after dinner, and before

we know it, we are doing it every night despite our

increasing weight. Experiments on rats have shown that

when habits have been intentionally instilled by using cues

and rewards, the rats will continue to eat food that has been

poisoned. They just can’t stop themselves.

After reading this chapter, I was very intrigued with the

concept of the habit loop and the possibility of creating

new habits, which is addressed in Chapter 2. Beginning

with the story of Claude C. Hopkins, a successful adver-

tising executive, and ending with the remarkable story of

Febreze, this chapter delves deeper into the habit loop to

explore how new behaviors are created within a customer

base. Hopkins’ success in the early 1900s in convincing

consumers to purchase oatmeal, tires, toothpaste, carpet

sweepers and the lowly can of pork and beans hinged on

creating a craving which fuels the habit loop. He was an

expert at creating triggers that would justify the product’s

use. For example, when very few Americans were brushing

their teeth (around the time of World War I), Hopkins took

on the challenge of creating advertising for Pepsodent. His

S. E. James (&)

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tactics included identifying a cue—running the tongue over

the teeth to feel a ‘‘film’’—and promising a reward—

remove the film and have a dazzling smile. Soon people

began to crave the feeling of having freshly cleaned teeth

without the ‘‘dinghy’’ layer of film and Pepsodent became a

household name. In the same way, once advertising exec-

utives began marketing Febreze, the odor eliminator, as a

‘‘fresh scent’’ being the finishing touch to a clean house,

sales increased. Without the scent, the house somehow

didn’t seem as clean, and housework wasn’t as enjoyable

without the reward Febreze provided.

In Chapter 3, Duhigg explains the inner workings of the

brain when anticipating a reward. There are neurological

changes in the brain throughout the stages of the habit loop

that are so powerful that unsatisfied cravings caused anger

and depression among test subjects. Duhigg effectively

weaves the science of habits with the stories of everyday

products in a way that can easily be understood.

Chapter 4 effectively presents two parallel stories, the

career of Tony Dungy and the principles of 12-step groups.

I was familiar with AA but I am not a sports fan, and had

never heard of Tony Dungy. I was reading this book aloud

to my husband, sister, and teenaged nephews and niece as

we made our way north from Georgia to Maryland (an 11-h

drive). My husband likes me to read to him while he drives

and I prefer to read than drive so it’s a match made in

heaven. My sister is an elementary school teacher and the

teenagers are, well, teenagers, and everyone knew who

Tony Dungy was except me! For those of you who are as

uninformed as I was, Tony Dungy is a former football

coach best known for coaching the Indianapolis Colts from

2002 to 2008, and leading them to a Super Bowl by

defeating the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI. He also is

a respected lecturer on the motivation circuit. Dungy’s

philosophy of coaching was that by instilling the correct

habits in his players, they would begin to react automati-

cally, be faster, and win. Using the same cue, providing the

same reward, and changing the routine is the ‘‘golden rule’’

of habit change. These same ideas are behind one of the

largest, wide-scale, habit change based organization’s

success—Alcoholics Anonymous.

Alcoholism is an addiction, not a habit, and it has not

only physical but psychological and genetic roots, but AA

and related programs do not ‘‘cure’’ the addiction, rather

they address the habits around the use of alcohol and other

addictive substances and behaviors. Just as Tony Dungy’s

coaching focused on cues and rewards, AA recognizes the

triggers and payoffs that are associated with addictive

behaviors and replaces the old routines with new, positive

ones. In addition to this, both Dungy and AA realize the

need for individuals and/or groups to have a belief that

change is possible. The chapter concludes with a great lead

into the next part of the book by presenting the evidence

that success in changing is easier when a group is com-

mitted to change.

Part 2 begins with a chapter on which habits matter

most. These are known as keystone habits. The organiza-

tion that Duhigg uses as an example of this is Alcoa, the

Aluminum Company of America. He interposes Alcoa’s

story with the tale of Michael Phelps, an Olympic swim-

mer. When Paul O’Neill took the helm of Alcoa in 1987,

the company was floundering. Investors were dismayed

when O’Neill addressed safety as the top priority of the

company, instead of profits and costs. The method to

O’Neill’s seeming madness was to attack one habit that

applied to everyone in the business—a keystone habit—

and eventually, other changes would follow. Small wins

can cause widespread shifts within a company or within an

individual’s life. In my own experience, a small ‘‘win’’,

cultivating a daily habit of meditation, started a chain

reaction that eventually led to better eating and sleeping

habits, and a new found commitment to my business

endeavors.

Within Alcoa, the death of a factory worker spurred

O’Neill to call an emergency meeting and ultimately take

personal responsibility for the accident, demonstrating his

commitment to a safety policy which included instituting an

open door policy for any employee, regardless of status, to

call him on his personal line anytime safety issues were

identified. In addition, O’Neill developed a way to relay

safety reports in real time, using a network of computers and

becoming one of the first worldwide corporate email sys-

tems. When a top executive failed to report safety issues that

led to several illnesses, he was immediately fired, sending the

message within the company that no matter the level of one’s

position, lack of integrity would not be tolerated. Focusing

on one keystone habit—safety—ultimately led to a shift in

the company’s culture where new values became engrained.

This chapter also chronicles Michael Phelps’ success,

focusing on his coach’s philosophy of instilling the habit of

mentally playing a videotape of successful races prior to each

event.

Chapter 5 is all about coffee and willpower, Starbucks

and success. It was interesting to read about how Starbucks

has become successful due in large part to their excellent

training in customer service. Apparently this corporation

saw a great need in training employees to react appropri-

ately to inflections, or points of pressure in which an

employee may respond to a customer or coworker inap-

propriately due to a lack of alternative responses. To pre-

vent this from happening, Starbucks produced a workbook,

which outlined plans for each and every scenario that might

occur in the workplace. These scenarios are role played

until the employee develops the habit of applying the

routine without having to think about it. Since reading this

book, I have become more aware of the customer service

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that I receive at Starbucks! The chapter also discusses how

developing the habit of writing down goals on a daily basis

increases the possibility of meeting those goals. Again,

Duhigg does an excellent job in presenting the information

and in bringing the two stories together.

The power of crisis is addressed in Chapter 6. This

chapter reveals the life threatening problems that can arise

in organizations that have developed bad habits by using

two real life examples, a hospital where doctors were

making significant errors in the operating room due to a

hostile work environment where hospital staff looked the

other way, and the London Underground’s lack of unified

safety policies, which led to 31 deaths in a 1987 fire. These

stories show that a company’s culture and habits can create

a dysfunctional and dangerous work environment that

seems ‘‘normal’’ from the outside and even to the indi-

viduals within the company.

Chapter 7 is an interesting look into how statisticians are

used to predict and manipulate the habits of customers,

using Target’s data driven marketing as an example. Did

you ever wonder how you end up getting certain coupons

from a store, either in a mailing or from the receipts that

the cash register prints? Target links each purchase to

individualized demographic profiles in order to mathe-

matically mind read without the customers’ awareness.

General analysis of purchasing habits aids in product

placement, advertising, and discounts, but stores such as

Target have gone a step further in using information

gleaned from past purchases to determine things like

upcoming pregnancies, and have also developed ways to

market to these newly pregnant shoppers without making

them feel that their privacy has been invaded. The chapter

describes the psychological factors behind how marketing

and advertising works, not only for stores, but also in many

other areas. It was fascinating and a bit scary to read about

how easily we are being manipulated every day!

Part 3 addresses the habits of societies. In Chapter 8,

Duhigg uses several examples ranging from Rick Warren’s

successful venture with ‘‘A Purpose Driven Life’’ and

subsequently the mega-church of Saddleback to Rosa Parks

and the Montgomery bus boycott. Although I grew up in

the 60s, I was not fully aware of the details of the civil

rights movement and I found the accounts in this chapter to

be very enlightening, especially when viewed within the

context of the power of habits. Chapter 8 discusses the

neurology of our free will and begs the question as to

whether we are responsible for our habits, describing sev-

eral instances of crimes that were committed under unusual

circumstances such as sleepwalking and grieving.

Overall, this book gave me a lot of food for thought. I

continued to be impressed by the way that Charles Duhigg

could present so much information in such a fascinating

narrative. The book kept me entertained and curious, and

gave me insight into not only my own habits, but also those

of other people, agencies and organizations that I have

been involved with. At its conclusion, I was determined to

overcome my bad habits and develop new ones, and to take

what I learned into my professional life as well.

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