Influencer

The New Science of Leading Change

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Contents

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Leadership Is Influence

I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a longlist of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.

—David Sedaris

It wasn't the most harrowing research junket we had ever taken. Nothing likeearlier adventures in our influencer research to some of the more dangerousparts of the world. No threat of deadly parasites, no confrontation withaggressive panhandlers, no fear of being kidnapped, no wrangling with corruptpoliticians.

This time, our research had taken us to New York City to one of the Big Apple'sfinest restaurants where, as part of our demanding research regime, we'd betossing back scrumptious appetizers while chatting with a brilliantrestaurateur. (It was a tough job, but someone had to do it.) All of this wasbeing done as part of an ongoing project aimed at discovering how some ratherremarkable people routinely influence human behavior in a manner that is theenvy of all who know them.

The person we were visiting on this particular day was Danny Meyer. Danny hadearned the title of "influencer" by fostering a unique culture of customerservice. Every one of his restaurants had been in the top 40 of Zagat's ratingsof customer preference—practically since the day they first opened. Wesoon discovered that the reason behind his unparalleled success was his capacityto influence 1,500 ordinary employees to consistently create extraordinaryexperiences for their 100,000 daily guests. Actually, extraordinary is too smalla word.

For example, a woman frantically rushes through the entrance of Gramercy Tavern,one of Danny's exquisite establishments located in the Flatiron District ofManhattan. The potential diner is distraught because she has just left her pursein the taxi that dropped her off for lunch and then sped away into a sea ofyellow. The blood drains from the woman's face as she realizes that not onlywill she never see her purse again but she also has no way to pay for her meal.Or get back to work.

At this moment, Danny's culture of hospitality kicks into action. An employee(let's call him Carlo) notices the stranger's look of panic, learns of herproblem, and invites her to join her party—who are already seated andwaiting for her.

"Don't worry about paying," Carlo comforts the worried guest. "We'll settle upsome other time. For now, please enjoy yourself. In the meantime, what is yourmobile number?"

Surmising that the frantic customer likely left her cell phone in her purse,Carlo asks a colleague to repeatedly call the number. Thirty minutes later whenthe taxi driver finally hears the ring and answers the call, he's many milesnorth in the Bronx. Carlo then flashes the Batman signal onto the side of abuilding to summon the Caped Crusader ...

Okay, the Batman thing isn't true, ... but what Carlo does do is quite heroic. Hearranges to meet the taxi halfway between the two points, and he pays the driverfor his trouble, retrieves the purse, and presents it to the woman just as shefinishes her lunch. We're guessing she responded by promising to name herfirstborn child after the caring man who has been the very essence ofhospitality.

What makes this incident remarkable is not just that it took place at all butthat similar actions routinely occur in each of Danny's restaurants. AlthoughDanny draws from the same labor pool, works in the same industry, buys the sameingredients, and builds in the same neighborhoods as 20,000 other New Yorkrestaurateurs, he has found a way to differentiate himself from all of hiscompetitors—through influence. Members of Danny's staff behave markedlydifferently from your average restaurant employee, and this has not been theresult of some lucky accident. It's been the result of Danny's systematic andintentional actions aimed at influencing very specific behavior.

That's why we traveled to New York. We went to see what made Danny aninfluencer.

A COMMON THREAD

Now, let's be clear. This isn't a book about customer service. Likewise, when welater visit a woman in San Francisco who has helped tens of thousands of felonsturn their lives around, we won't be studying criminal psychology. And when welook at successful change efforts aimed at implementing Six Sigma, overcomingaddiction, eradicating a pandemic, improving patient safety, reducing violenceagainst women, improving employee engagement, and turning failing schoolsaround, our interest won't be in exploring these topics either.

What we will be doing is looking for the common thread that connects allsuccessful leaders—no matter the objective or the setting. We'll beexploring a common set of principles and skills that help create quick,profound, and lasting change. We call this ability to create changes in humanbehavior influence and the people who do it influencers. At the end of the day,what qualifies people to be called "leaders" is their capacity to influenceothers to change their behavior in order to achieve important results.

Now, as you hear the word "influence," you might think that we're referring tothe less impressive and more suspicious tool called "persuasion." We're not.

This book is not about solving problems or hitting new targets by applying theright combination of verbal tricks. If you're looking to reach rather modestgoals by stealthily exerting your will over others, this book is not for you.This book has much loftier and more enduring goals, requiring much strongertools. It explores how to achieve profoundly better results in everything fromthe nuclear family to nuclear power plants by changing human habits that can beextraordinarily difficult to alter. We'll examine in detail why people do whatthey do and what it takes to help them act differently. Our analysis will revealthat irrespective of whether you're stopping AIDS or starting a safety program,the key to success has little to do with pep talks, bribes, or sermons. Instead,success relies on the capacity to systematically create rapid, profound, andsustainable changes in a handful of key behaviors.

For example, let's say you work as a manager in a software development firmwhere dozens of software engineers write mountains of code every week. Theproducts are so complex that the overall design is divided among several teams.After years of your employees' bringing in projects late or riddled with bugs,you discover that the key to consistent high-quality performance is getting themto practice two vital behaviors: (1) admit when they have problems, and (2)immediately speak up when they won't meet a deadline. When your softwaredesigners do these two things consistently, products get completed correctly andon time. When they don't, they don't. This flash of leadership insight gives youhope that if only you can influence your people to practice these two behaviors,you'll turn the corner on achieving results.

The problem is, your people (being the normal humans that they are) are morewilling to donate a kidney than follow these two requests. Only fools admit tohaving problems. It is a naive person, indeed, who willingly says, "Hey,everyone, I'm in trouble!" You've posted signs, provided training, and evenoffered a special parking space to those who admit they're behind. No takers.

But there is an influencer out there who has found a way to help softwaredesigners to routinely speak up when they run into problems or call for aid whena deadline is at risk. This time we'll travel to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to meetwith Rich Sheridan, the co-owner of Menlo Innovations. His software designersmeet every single deadline—and they thoroughly love their work. How hasRich created this culture of both joy and accountability? By following preciselythe same principles of influence that Danny Meyer uses to generate lavishhospitality.

Throughout this book, we'll explore the details of Rich's, Danny's, and otherinfluencers' strategies for influencing human behavior. It takes over 200 pagesto share their knowledge and techniques. However, the short explanation for whythey're successful is that they see themselves not simply as owners, managers,or leaders but as full-time influencers. In fact, it's how they characterizethemselves. Talk with them and you'll soon learn that they think intentionallyabout their ability to help others act in unprecedentedly effective ways. Theythink about influencing behavior, talk about it, and practice it, and all ofthem have created remarkable changes in domains where failure has been thenorm—often for decades.

Now, unlike Rich or Danny, you probably don't work in a software developmentfirm or a restaurant, but you probably do face challenges you'd like toovercome, not to mention the many stretch goals you'd love to achieve. Perhapsyou'd like to help a troubled son who has just returned from his third drugrehab experience. Unfortunately, the program has failed twice before—andnothing has really changed since the last failure. This calls for influence. Ormaybe you want to assist your work group in moving from being decent in on-timedelivery to being best in class. Or perhaps you're working with a high schoolwith a horrible dropout rate, and you want to see the students not only make itthrough high school but also to graduate from college. You want the best.

A DEARTH OF INFLUENCE

Fortunately, there's good news in this call to learn more about influence.Learning how to motivate and enable others to change their actions may be themost important skill you'll ever acquire. It's not merely curiously engaging(and it is); it also sits at the center of what ails most of us. The lion'sshare of the problems that really bother us don't call for additionaltechnology, theory, philosophy, or data (we're up to our necks in that);instead, the problems call for the ability to change what people do. And when itcomes to this particular skill, demand far exceeds supply.

Given the versatility and importance of knowing how to get other people to actdifferently, you'd think that at every backyard barbecue or office party, youcould find someone who is an expert in influence. In fact, you'd think we'd beso consumed with the topic of influence that our children would collectinfluence trading cards, complete with pictures of world-class influencers. As aresult of all this study and passion, we would speak a unique language, carry afull array of models, and master a specialized set of skills for both enablingand encouraging others to change their behavior.

Of course, none of this is true. At best, we chip away at the edges ofinfluence—maybe we attend a seminar or two—but we don't routinelystudy the topic, and we are not good at helping others to change. Unlike DannyMeyer, Rich Sheridan, and the other influencers we'll soon meet, most of uscan't verbalize our personal theory of influence, we don't see ourselves asinfluencers, and we most certainly don't have a successful record.

For example, when was the last time you saw a change attempt conducted at yourplace of work yield anything more than the occasional t-shirt or mug emblazonedwith the name of the effort? If your answer is "never," you're in good company.Our review of the past 30 years of change literature reveals that fewer than onein eight workplace change efforts produces anything other than cynicism.

When it comes to creating changes in behavior, we're equally challenged at home.For instance, every year we spend millions on diets and lose little more thanour money. Fewer than 10 percent of us succeed when setting out to change ourexcessive spending, inadequate exercise, and other bad habits.

Communities fare no better. Two-thirds of the felons who are released from our"correctional" system return within three years—completelyuncorrected—while having earned an advanced degree in crime. Stopping thespread of AIDS and other diseases requires people to cooperate in order tosucceed; yet millions of individuals are infected every year because we humansare bad at cooperating, and we're not getting any better.

As a result of all of these failed influence efforts and unfulfilled dreams,most of us grow impatient. We ask: "Why aren't people doing what they should bedoing, and why can't I get them to change?" Eventually we settle on the strategyrecommended by essayist David Sedaris, who suggested: "I haven't got theslightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospectivecandidates just in case I should ever figure it out."

But there are influencers out there.

FINDING INFLUENCERS

Our visits with Danny Meyer and Rich Sheridan should give you a hint as to whatwe did to expand our understanding of how to influence human behavior. Westudied people who had succeeded where others had failed. Actually, we didn'tstart there. As most researchers do, we began by reading. Our research teampored over more than 17,000 articles and books to find scholars andpractitioners who have mastered various aspects of influence. From these weidentified those who had succeeded at influencing rapid, profound, andsustainable changes in ways that most of the world thinks are impossible. Next,we tracked down these rare individuals and closely examined their work.

For instance, we learned that Wiwat Rojanapithayakorn has saved over 5 millionThai citizens from contracting HIV/AIDS from a position of little to no power,by influencing the behavior of his 60 million fellow Thai citizens. That wascertainly worth examining. Dain Hancock, president of Lockheed MartinAeronautics, influenced remarkable behavior change across a cynical andresistant 13,000-person workforce, helping him land a $1 trillion contract.Ethna Reid routinely enters schools that are last in their district in readingcomprehension, and she propels them to the top—in less than a year. MarthaSwai has helped reduce spousal abuse across the entire nation of Tanzaniathrough the use of, of all things, a very influential radio program. Othernotable influencers have eradicated a disease, saved thousands from dying fromhospital errors, and turned convicted felons into productive citizens—toname but a few of their accomplishments.

So we tracked down these successful individuals and studied what theydid—once again, looking for commonalities. It takes the rest of this bookto explain what we learned from them, but we can offer some encouraging news.Influencers exist, and what they know and do is learnable. In fact, hundreds ofthousands of people have read what we learned from them, and they have appliedthe principles and skills to their own challenges, put the ideas to work ontheir own aspirations, and they have made remarkable progress. And so can you.

So it's time to roll up your sleeves and get started. Go get that list ofprospective change candidates you've been keeping for so long, and let's seewhat it takes to help them change.

CHAPTER 2

The Three Keys to Influence

I wanted the influence. In the end I wasn't very good at being a [university]president. I looked out of the window and thought that the man cutting the lawnactually seemed to have more control over what he was doing.

—Warren Bennis

So far we've claimed that influencers don't randomly succeed at creatingimpressive and lasting changes in human behavior. The good news is that if theydid rely on chance, we wouldn't have a clue how to replicate their efforts. Butthey don't rely on chance. Instead, they count on three keys tosuccess—keys that all influencers adhere to and that you can use to yourown benefit:

1. Focus and measure. Influencers are crystal clear about the result they aretrying to achieve and are zealous about measuring it.

2. Find vital behaviors. Influencers focus on high-leverage behaviors that driveresults. More specifically, they focus on the two or three vital actions thatproduce the greatest amount of change.

3. Engage all six sources of influence. Finally, influencers break from the packby overdetermining change. Where most of us apply a favorite influence tool ortwo to our important challenges, influencers identify all of the varied forcesthat are shaping the behavior they want to change and then get them working forrather than against them. And now for the really good news. According to ourresearch, by getting six different sources of influence to work in their favor,influencers increase their odds of success tenfold.

KEY 1. FOCUS AND MEASURE

To shine light on this first influence key, we'll fly to Atlanta, Georgia, wherewe'll meet with Dr. Donald Hopkins, a physician, the vice president ofhealthcare programs at the Carter Center—and a real influencer. Hopkinsoriginally attracted our attention because he has taken on one of the mostamazing influence challenges in history. His goal is to banish a horrendousdisease from the planet without finding a cure.

And just what is this daunting disease Dr. Hopkins is attacking? To answer thisquestion, take a look at a rather disgusting sample Hopkins keeps on his desk.If the enemy could stand, she would be three feet tall. But alas, she has noskeletal system. She's a worm. More specifically, she's a Guinea worm. Hopkinskeeps his sworn enemy in a jar of formaldehyde as a reminder of the challenge heand his team have decided to confront. Helping individuals who have contractedGuinea worm disease is an enormous challenge because once someone has it, itwill inevitably run its painful and ugly course through the host's body. Medicalscience offers no hope of relief. None. There are no medicines, surgeries, ormagical techniques. Once you have the worm, it will cause havoc every singletime. So Hopkins, in order to solve the seemingly intractable problem, became asocial scientist.

When Dr. Hopkins came on the scene, over 3 million people in 23,000 remotevillages in 20 countries were contracting Guinea worm disease every year. Thedisease begins when villagers get a little more in their drink of water thanthey bargained for. Hiding within the fetid ponds that many use as a watersource lie the Guinea worm larvae. Drink the water, ingest the larvae.

And then, it gets really ugly. The larvae soon hatch into worms that eventuallyburrow out of the body by whatever route they choose—through the muscleand skin on an arm, leg—well, you can imagine the other options. Thisjourney causes such enormous pain and suffering that the host eventually rushesto the nearest water source and plunges the emerging worm into the water to finda moment of relief. At this point, the dreaded worm ejects thousands of eggsinto the pond—guaranteeing next year's crop of Guinea worms—when theawful process begins again as it has for thousands of years.
(Continues...)Excerpted from Influencer by Joseph Grenny. Copyright © 2013 by VitalSmarts, LLC. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
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JOSEPH GRENNY, KERRY PATTERSON, DAVID MAXFIELD, RON McMILLAN, and AL SWITZLER are the leaders of VitalSmarts, an innovator in best practices training products and services that has taught millions of people worldwide and that has worked with more than 300 of the Fortune 500 companies. For more information, visit www.vitalsmarts.com.