You Can Be an Influencer – Part II
Do you ever feel like you can relate to the above quote when it comes to bringing about change, whether with others or just within yourself? You keep offering training programs to your employees, but don’t see the cultural change you want. You keep giving out consequences to your child, but the unwanted behavior continues. You want to lose weight, but you continually fall away from your eating plan.
We can all relate to the frustration of wanting to make change happen, but then not seeing results. We can all have our favorite methods of creating change. Maybe you have your favorite reward system or consequence. Maybe you operate by giving out threats. Maybe you prefer to create new rules to establish a behavior. None of these may be flawed methods. But, according to the book, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, what sets apart master influencers is that they use “a combination of strategies aimed at a handful of vital behaviors to solve profound and persistent problems.”
Often in life, we fall back on what we know. It is quick and easy. However, this is where we get stuck in doing the same thing over and over and not getting results.
A Big Picture Look at Change
When I get stuck, I often find it helpful to look at the situation from another perspective. Yes, this takes time. But if it will get me to the solution, then it is worth it. I end up saving time instead of wasting it.
In the previous article, we discussed the circles of control and compared them to a bicycle wheel. Research in psychology can be viewed in a similar picture. Using some of the research on master influencers, we can apply it to this perspective.
Individual Change
At the hub of the wheel, you have the individual person. When it comes to change, each person has their own motivation factors and abilities. According to psychologists Bandura and Mischel, people will not attempt to change a behavior unless they think it is worth it and they believe they have the ability to do it. So when devising a plan to influence others, the two key factors to consider is how to make the change desirable (even when undesirable at the moment) and how to coach people to practice the behaviors so they know they can do it.
When trying to make undesirable behaviors desirable, we often rely upon rewards and consequences. This can be a powerful way to change behavior. However, research has shown a downfall to this method of influence. Once you remove the rewards and consequences, the desired behavior will stop. If you want long-term change, methods of intrinsic motivation must be applied. Rewards and consequences are only a step within influence. Long term change requires more steps in your influence plan.
The book, Influencer, states, “Actually, there are two very powerful and ethical ways of helping humans change their reaction to a previously neutral or noxious behavior: creating new experiences and creating new motives.” Psychologist Daniel Gilbert has shown that people are terrible at predicting what they like and dislike. University of Southern Indiana Business Professor, Kevin Celuch, states that research shows that only 10% of people’s happiness is based on external environment. Instead, 25% comes from relationships and 40-50% of happiness comes from your own self-understanding.
In a future article, we will discuss more about creating intrinsic motivation, but for now, think of how to encourage people to try new experiences and to learn more about themselves internally. As they take risks to try and engage more with discovering their passions, it is easier to engage their personal motivations.
Social Change
From the hub of the wheel are the spokes, which represents groups of people. Social psychology research has repeatedly shown the power of groups to influence behavior. At this level, you influence through the motivation caused by the group, such as peer pressure and use the strength of social support.
When devising a plan of influence, ask yourself who are the key influencers who drive the behaviors of the group? Just so you know, there is a difference between authority and power. Sometimes the person in a group with the Title (authority) is not always the person with the Power to influence.
Structural Change
Finally, the tire of the wheel represents the power of structure in influence. Once you set the target behaviors in motion for change, the environment must support the change. I often see this problem in organizations and teams. For example, the leaders want to enhance collaboration and team work, but the reward and performance evaluation systems promote the opposite by rewarding individual or department accomplishments rather than rewarding the team accomplishments.
Environment includes more than just processes and procedures, but also the physical setting and tools that you use. For example, if you are trying to lose weight, but end up with a bag of candy in your grocery bag, the answer to changing your behavior may not be tearing yourself down with poor thoughts about your will power. Maybe instead, it is the choice to avoid physically going down the candy aisle at the store.
Summary
The field of psychology has a tremendous amount of research on understanding people. There are three levels of focus. One area of study is about the individual person, another area of study is the power of groups and finally the structural environment. When trying to determine a plan of influence don’t just fall back on your favorite methods. Take time to look at the bigger picture.
What methods do you use to influence change? How do you plan to look at the bigger picture with your own change effort? please feel free to share your ideas on the Imajine Unlimited Facebook page or email me.