The AI Switch Framework Change Coach skill for Claude

Switch offers three angles for exploring a change: direction, motivation and environment. They are questions to investigate together, not an exhaustive explanation of resistance or proof that a change fails after three weeks. The skill keeps all three in view without diagnosing people from a short request.

This skill is written for anyone who needs to get something moving without having authority over it, or who has the authority and still no result: business owners pivoting their company, leaders who need to change culture, teams stuck in old patterns, and people who want to change a personal habit. Together with the rest of the skill library, we make it available for free from our AI and automation service, with no account and no sales email afterwards.

The file asks for context before advice. It covers five topics and uses information already supplied instead of repeating questions. Three months is an illustrative horizon; the actual deadline is agreed with the user. The prompt does not guarantee the quality or outcome of an AI response.

Explore whether direction is clear. The first track asks about observable behaviour, useful bright spots and a concrete destination. Ambiguity can make action harder, but it does not establish the cause of a person’s delay. Script the Critical Moves turns an abstract aim into a proposed behaviour that can be discussed and tested.

Explore motivation alongside the plan. Feelings, energy and identity may matter, but tiredness or fear must not be assumed. The techniques invite a meaningful connection, a small first step and opportunities to learn. A first success within a week is something to assess, not a promised result.

Examine the environment. Physical or digital arrangements, routines and voluntary peer support may make a chosen behaviour easier. They do not guarantee success, and reliance on willpower does not by itself establish failure. Any dashboard, meeting or other cue should fit the actual situation.

The workflow considers Rider, Elephant and Path together. This is a coverage rule for designing a plan, not proof of why most organisations or changes fail. The analysis remains provisional and should make other constraints, missing facts and uncertainty visible.

In diff form, with lines pointing to the examples in the skill: what goes out and what comes back in its place.

The file credits the Rider and Elephant metaphor to Jonathan Haidt and describes the Heath brothers’ framework around the Rider, Elephant and Path. It invites investigation of direction, motivation and environment without claiming these explain almost all resistance or delay. The metaphor is not a diagnosis of a person.

Remarkably, it also states when it should not trigger, which is rare for an instruction file. Not when someone is already in the middle of execution and just needs tactical help. Not for a one-off decision. And not for a conflict in a specific conversation. For that last case, the file points to a negotiation technique, and in our library that's the Negotiator skill.

The method itself is fixed in three phases, in this exact order, because they reinforce one another. Phase 1 is outlining the situation with a maximum of five sharp questions: what change, as concretely as possible in behaviour; who needs to change; what's the current situation and what's already been tried; what does success look like in three months in visible behaviour; and what deadline you're working towards. Then comes a brief reflection, without judgement and without advice. Phase 2 is the three-track analysis shown above in FIG.02. Phase 3 is the 30-day plan.

The writing chapter has six rules: British English unless the user explicitly writes in another language; no lists of more than five items; explain jargon; avoid empty management language such as synergy and alignment; address the reader as you; and be direct without being bossy. The English download does not instruct the assistant to answer in Dutch.

At the end are the sources the skill is allowed to cite and the five things it never does. Those five refusals get their own figure further down this page, because they say more about the quality of the advice than the techniques themselves.

The main source is Switch itself. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, published in 2010 by Crown Business. The book isn't a theoretical work but a collection of cases where change did succeed, organised along the three tracks. That also explains the shape of the skill: not a model to fill in, but a series of questions that force you to come up with something concrete for each track.

The metaphor comes from Jonathan Haidt. The Happiness Hypothesis, published in 2006 by Basic Books, introduced the Rider on the Elephant as an image for the relationship between the rational and emotional parts of the mind. The skill explicitly credits the metaphor to Haidt rather than the Heath brothers, which is more accurate than what most summaries online say. The Heath brothers' addition is the Path: the environment as a third lever alongside reason and feeling.

The skill may cite the related titles, not parrot them. Four books are listed that you don't need to read but that it's allowed to mention: Made to Stick from 2007, Decisive from 2013 and The Power of Moments from 2017, all three by the Heath brothers, plus Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman from 2011. If you want to apply the first of those four directly, there's a separate Made to Stick Coach skill that makes messages sticky, which comes in handy precisely for the Elephant track.

Even without installing the skill, you can take apart any stuck change with these three questions: is the direction concrete enough, does anyone feel anything about it, and does the environment make the new behaviour easier than the old one. If you want to look at the same question through a different model, the Fogg Behaviour Model Coach skill splits behaviour into motivation, ability and trigger, and the Atomic Habits Coach skill works the Path track out into a system of habits.

After that, using it is simple: describe the change you want to make and answer the phase 1 questions honestly, including the question of what you've already tried. Those failed attempts are especially useful, because they may reveal constraints, assumptions or approaches worth revisiting. If you're new to this kind of file, read what Claude skills are NL first and then how to install Claude skills NL. If you want to write one yourself, for example for the changes that keep recurring in your organisation, writing a SKILL.md NL explains how to go about it.

The skill is just as clear about when not to use it, and there are three situations. The first: you're already in the middle of execution and just need tactical help. Then targeted help may be more appropriate than a full change plan. The second: it's a one-off decision. A choice between two options isn't a change project, the file points to WRAP Decision Maker. Another tool for examining a proposed plan is the Pre-mortem Analyst skill, which lets a plan fail in advance to see where it breaks. The third: it's a conflict in a specific conversation. For that, the file points to Negotiator. A different conversation tool available in the library is the Nonviolent Communication Coach skill.

The five intake topics help make the situation concrete: desired behaviour, people involved, current state and earlier attempts, observable success and timing. Questions are not meant to establish that a user is uncomfortable or deficient. Use known facts, clarify important gaps and agree a realistic horizon.

Switch is a structure for designing and testing change, not a guarantee or a measured increase in success rates for this prompt. It remains possible that the proposed direction is unsuitable or the team has valid objections. Intake and review should leave room to change the goal or stop an inappropriate intervention.

A change inside your business only helps if there's something to show for it on the outside. If the flow of new business is drying up, the real work isn't more urgency in the team but being found by the people looking for you. The free SEO scan shows in a few seconds where your site stands. If this kind of thinking works for you, take a look at what else is ready in the library of 100 free skills we make available with no account needed. And if you want to talk further about what else AI can do for your business, from individual skills to full automation, we're happy to do that in a conversation.