5-Steps to Influencing People

EXPONENTIALLY GROW YOUR INFLUENCE SKILLS
 
OK - yesterday we started the ascent up the mountain of becoming a master influencer.  Today, let us roll up our sleeves, stretch out our legs and move onward and upward.
 
The main focus today - to find a way to cause understanding and belief in a new point of view and propel yourself and/or others into action!
 
“One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears — by listening to them!” 
- Dean Rusk
 
A NEW WAY OF THINKING ABOUT INFLUENCE
If you are like most people, you have learned to become better copers than influencers.  Even though you face several influence challenges in your life, you feel stumped, or unsure, or unable, or unwilling to wade into the deep end of conflict, confrontation, and generally sticky stuff.
 
Today, we provide you with the knowledge — and provide your answer to one of yesterday’s key questions:  Are you able?
 
First, an overview of the process to be a master influencer:
     >>>> 1) Discover the high-leverage vital behaviors
     >>>> 2) Identify the source of influence behind the behavior your are trying to change
     >>>> 3) Change the way you change minds
     >>>> 4) Design an influence strategy using individual/social/structural forces
     >>>> 5) Make the change inevitable
 
Now for more details on 1 and 2 (3, 4 and 5 tomorrow).
 
Discover the High-Leverage, Vital Behaviors:  Before the masters of influence develop a strategy of how to change/influence someone, they first carefully identify the specific behaviors they want to change.  The objective here is to identify and then give special attention to a handful of high-leverage behaviors - thus the “Vital Behaviors” label.  Sound like a daunting challenge right off the bat, just do four simple things:
     1. Ask, in order to improve the existing situation, what must people actually do?
     2. Assess the best - what are the key behaviors of those getting the best results
     3. Look for positive deviance - go into the center of the family, organization, or community
that you want to change; discover and study settings where the targeted problem should exist but doesn’t; identify the unique behaviors of the group that succeeds.
     4. Look for recovery behaviors - when someone that normally does the right things right, gets off-track, but self corrects and gets back on-track, find out what they did that likely caused them to get off-track, and more importantly what did they do to get back on-track.
 
Here is an example - Dr. Ethna Reid from Salt Lake City studied 20 years of data from a public school district’s reading tests of 1st grade students that was proving to be unbelievably accurate in predicting how well students would succeed throughout their school career.  After much effort, Dr. Reid found there were certain teachers whose students consistently performed much better than the average projections, and other teachers whose students dramatically performed much lower than the average projections.
 
The key difference, you ask?  The teachers with the students performing better than average - were performing 2 vital behaviors that the other teachers were not.  First, they rewarded positive performance by their students far more frequently than their counterparts, and secondly, they rapidly alternated between teaching and questioning or otherwise testing.
 
Not to get off track from our influence message,
did you grasp the significance of that last paragraph??? 
 
Of all the differences that could and did exist between top teachers and the rest, only two vital behaviors really accounted for the gap in performance of their students! 
 
Not a teacher yourself, so what’s the relevant point to me, you might be saying — oh really, what aspect of your life doesn’t require you to teach.  Do you lead, show the way, or otherwise instruct anyone in any area how to do something - your kids, your spouse, your co-workers, your friends, your neighbors, your church, your volunteer group?  Doesn’t all influence involve some aspect of teaching?
 
Identify the Source(s) of Influence Behind the Behavior you are Trying to Change:  Behind each vital behavior you’ll find at work — one or more (out of twelve) different sources of influence that fall into three categories:
     > Category 1: Personal
(Sources of Influence: a. Contrast; b. Reciprocation; and c. Commitment & Consistency; and d. Scarcity)
 
     > Category 2: Social
(Sources of Influence: a. Social Proof; b. Liking; c. Authority; and d. Recognition)
 
     > Category 3: Structural
(Sources of Influence: a. Rank; b. Rewards; c. Accountability; and d. Environment)
 
*** Wish there was room to expound on these, but alas, I only asked for 7 minutes of your time, 3 times per week.
 
“Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”  - Walter Lippmann
DAILY PRAYER 
“… let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin.  Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Heb 4:14-16
 
Father, when we are working to change ourselves or influencing and helping others to change, we are most definitely in time of need.  Thank you for your instructive and inspiring Word.  In Jesus name, Amen.
    
Getting tired of the climb up the influence mountain?  Take a break, enjoy the view, but don’t give up, the summit is near!
 
Grace and peace multiplied to you,