Page 260 - The Power to Change Anything

Change the Environment 249

But big Vegas hotels nowadays are competing as big hotels,
so they ignore Friedman’s advice and make massive, un-
friendly casinos. Consequently, many modern hotels barely
break even on their gambling (blasphemous in years past) and
rely on entertainment, room costs, and restaurants to make
money. Nevertheless, the principle is still the same. If you fol-
low the guru’s advice and make gambling more pleasant (that
is, easy) by making it cozy and friendly, you’ll make money
hand over fist. But then again, maybe that’s just too easy.

MAKE IT UNAVOIDABLE

Making use of things to enable behavior works best when you
can alter the physical world in a way that eliminates human
choice entirely. You don’t merely make good behavior desir-
able, you make it inevitable. This is where structure, process,
and procedures come into play, and, once again, the corporate
world leads the way. Engineers, tiring of reminding employees
not to stick their fingers in certain machines, build in mechan-
ical features that prevent people from putting their hands at
risk. Pilots follow lockstep procedures and rigid checklists that
require them to double- and triple-check their takeoff and land-
ing procedures.
When it comes to the fast-food industry, we’ve hardwired
tasks that used to call for talent, and that often used to put cus-
tomer satisfaction and profits at risk. For example, when it
comes to taking an order, employees can simply push picture
buttons, and of course, nobody has to know how to make
change because the register does it automatically. It’s all been
routinized. When it comes to taking an order and making
change, it’s not only easy to do the right thing, it’s now almost
impossible to do the wrong thing.
However, when it comes to the profound and complex
social problems we’ve been addressing, we’re not as good at
hardwiring successes through the manipulation of the physical