In physics, inertia is an object's resistance to a change in its state (per Newton, an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest tends to stay at rest). Business inertia is similar, though some employees will grouse about being called "objects." If employees are saving, they'll tend to keep saving. If they're serving customers well, they'll tend to keep doing it. The discipline of nudging gets people going in the right direction. Once the momentum picks up, people are hard to stop.
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Dan Heath and Chip Heath are the best-selling authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.
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Recent Comments | 15 Total
April 19, 2008 at 11:22pm by Ray Gardner
In basic economic terms, we're simply speaking of incentives here. People don't have much incentive to save because they've been the children of the most affluent society the world has ever known.
No Great Depression has touched them, unemployment is routinely in the neighborhood of what is generally considered full employment (even in today's "scary" economy). Why save? the average citizen asks. As far as they're concerned, the sun comes up, the light switch never fails, and there's a paycheck coming next week.
Election year push-polls designed to wring out every bit of worry from the average Joe might say that people are worried, but our savings rate proves otherwise.
The kind of paternalism that these authors are advocating however runs contrary to the free market that has enabled Joe Sixpack to feel so secure in the first place. I've not read the book, but I do know of Sunstein's basic ideology and it is not market orientated so I'm going out on a limb and assuming a certain amount of government intervention will be required in their view.
May 4, 2008 at 7:19pm by Craig Iskowitz
It seems as thought here is an error in the statistics or an error in editing. During the three-and-a-half-year study of the Save More Tomorrow program, the article said that employees that were left to their own devices (the control group) saved about 6%. Fine. 6% is the benchmark. So, if the employees enrolled in the program wound up saving 13%, that would be slightly more than double the control group's savings rate. Not triple the rate. Where did the 4% number come from anyway?
May 5, 2008 at 9:15pm by Jay Tatum
I find myself challenged to comprehend the conclusions left behind in this article. Conversely, 70% of Americans are saving for the future and I think that is a pretty good start. Remember, the words of Ed Friedman who once said, "The unmotivated are notoriously invulernable to insight."
One could spend a great deal of time trying to motivate others who are unmotivated to save for tomorrow and one would be no further ahead than when one started. So I guess my question is who has the time to motivate that 30% of Americans to do what they apparently are not motivated to do? Sounds terribly ambitious and a complete waste of time and resources. Afterall, we will always have the poor, according to Jesus.
May 5, 2008 at 9:17pm by Jay Tatum
I find myself challenged to comprehend the conclusions left behind in this article. Conversely, 70% of Americans are saving for the future and I think that is a pretty good start. Remember, the words of Ed Friedman who once said, "The unmotivated are notoriously invulernable to insight."
One could spend a great deal of time trying to motivate others who are unmotivated to save for tomorrow and one would be no further ahead than when one started. So I guess my question is who has the time to motivate that 30% of Americans to do what they apparently are not motivated to do? Sounds terribly ambitious and a complete waste of time and resources. Afterall, we will always have the poor, according to Jesus.
September 30, 2009 at 5:08pm by Pat Jewett
It is a shame that people do not save for their retirement on their own. I think we are a spoiled nation and expect the government to bail us out. Heck, look at the debate in Washington now. People are basically asking for free Health insurance or Citizen insurance. We will become a socialist country at some point if the trend continues.