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Performance Management

Published November 2007

The Art and Science of Influence

Joseph Grenny

It's tiresomely predictable, the seven-year glitch. Every five to seven years, after another management fad has swept across the corporate world, the report cards start rolling in, documenting the horrendous disappointment of executives' pet programs. Too often, mortality rates clock in between 60 percent and 90 percent.

VitalSmarts research shows the root cause of many failures in the business world is not a lack of good intent but a lack of influence. In Six Sigma, for example, who can argue with the goals of eliminating waste, improving quality and focusing on increasing value? Even the methods are battle-tested and inarguably useful.

Where Do the Wheels Come Off?

The point of failure is that leaders are ineffective at influencing new behavior. For example, after six years and millions of dollars in resources, one CEO declared failure on a Six Sigma/lean effort.

When asked why he was giving up, he said, "I'm tired of trying to teach old dogs new tricks. I haven't figured out how to make Six Sigma part of our culture, and it's too expensive to keep trying."

Leaders' inability to influence the behavior of their people, to engage their hearts, minds and hands, is at the root of the majority of corporate disappointments. And we've become so accustomed to influence failures, we've stopped searching for methods to succeed.

In Search of Influencers

Thankfully, it isn't necessary to cope with and complain about failure — it is possible to influence almost any behavior with surprisingly predictable success.

A quiet community of practitioners around the world uses powerful influence principles on problems that range from curbing national AIDS epidemics to turning around criminals and eliminating medical errors.

All are solved by influencing profoundly entrenched behaviors in a rapid, sustainable and effective way. And upon meeting these influence geniuses, it is no surprise their success can be attributed to the same set of principles each time. When applied to corporate change, these three principles also can bring about profound results:

•    Find the vital behaviors.
•    Change how you change minds.
•    Make change inevitable.

Find Vital Behaviors

You can gain traction against even complex, global problems by influencing vital behaviors. Master influencer Dr. Mimi Silbert helped more than 16,000 hardened criminals turn their lives around at The Delancey Street Foundation by encouraging residents to confront one another's bad behavior.

Dr. Wiwat Rojanapithayakorn reduced new AIDS cases in Thailand by more than 90 percent by ensuring 100 percent condom use from sex workers.

Howard Markman found that how couples behave when they argue can predict with 90 percent accuracy which couples will stay together and be happy and which will get divorced.