Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything. McGraw-Hill, 2007.
Referenced in:
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
This is a popular text on how to motivate others to change. It is not a step-by-step process, but still contains good wisdom for change in church settings. Here are some of the best takes.
What does not work: Persuasive talk and reward/punishment.
What does work: Study the problems to identify the behaviors most important to the change. These are vital behaviors, and they can only be discovered through careful research.
Optimize the Six Sources of Influence:
- Personal Motivation: Make the Undesirable Desirable – Help people obtain satisfaction from the right behavior or displeasure from the wrong behavior.
- Personal Ability: Surpass Your Limits – Make sure people have the ability to activate the change through continuous coaching and training.
- Social Motivation: Harness Peer Pressure – Find respected leaders others will follow and equip them to lead others in the change.
- Social Ability: Find Strength in Numbers – People change better when teamed with others who are mutually responsible for everyone’s success.
- Structural Motivation: Design Rewards and Demand Accountability – The best rewards are those experienced simply by living the change
- Structural Ability: Change the Environment – The external environment must incorporate what helps to faciliate the change and minimize what is extraneous to the change.
Publisher’s Description
An influencer motivates others to change. An influencer replaces bad behaviors with powerful new skills. An influencer makes things happen.
This is what it takes to be an influencer.
Whether you’re a CEO, a parent, or merely a person who wants to make a difference, you probably wish you had more influence with the people in your life. But most of us stop trying to make change happen because we believe it is too difficult, if not impossible. We develop complicated coping strategies when we should be learning the tools and techniques of the world’s most influential people.
But this is about to change. From the bestselling authors who taught the world how to have Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations comes Influencer, a thought-provoking book that combines the remarkable insights of behavioral scientists and business leaders with the astonishing stories of high-powered influencers from all walks of life. You’ll be taught each and every step of the influence process – including robust strategies for making change inevitable in your personal life, your business, and your world. You’ll learn how to:
- Identify a handful of high-leverage behaviors that lead to rapid and profound change.
- Apply strategies for changing both thoughts and actions.
- Marshall six sources of influence to make change inevitable.
Influencer takes you on a fascinating journey from San Francisco to Thailand where you’ll see how seemingly “insignificant” people are making incredibly significant improvements in solving problems others would think impossible. You’ll learn how savvy folks make change not only achievable and sustainable, but inevitable. You’ll discover why some managers have increased productivity repeatedly and significantly-while others have failed miserably.
No matter who you are, or what you do, you’ll never learn a more valuable or important set of principles and skills. Once you tap into the power of influence, you can reach out and help others work smarter, grow faster, live, look, and feel better, even save lives. The sky is the limit…for an Influencer.
Are you an Influencer?
“You don’t have to be a manager to realize that no one likes being told what to do. Yet lectures are still the main way we try to get people to change their behavior. Fortunately, social learning academics have been studying alternatives for decades. Patterson and his fellow consultants have now collected their findings in this engaging, example-rich book. The key message is hardly new, but it has gotten more sophisticated: Managers need to get out of the way and facilitate, not manage, the process of change for employees. They can do this by offering vicarious experiences, restructured environments, peer pressure, and frequent tests-all geared so that people embrace the change as authentic to them, not imposed by an outsider. Missing are only success stories of organizations that persuaded managers to drop their controlling habits and choose to be mere facilitators.” – John T. Landry, Harvard Business Review
About the Authors
Kerry Patterson has authored award-winning training programs and led multiple long-term change efforts. He received the prestigious 2004 BYU Marriott School of Management Dyer Award for outstanding contribution in organizational behavior. He did doctoral work in organizational behavior at Stanford University.
Joseph Grenny is an acclaimed keynote speaker and consultant who has designed and implemented major corporate change initiatives for the past 20 years. He is also a cofounder of Unitus, a nonprofit organization that helps the world’s poor achieve economic self-reliance.
David Maxfield is a leading researcher and frequent conference speaker on topics ranging from dialogue skills to performance improvement. He did doctoral work in psychology at Stanford University, where he studied personality theory and interpersonal-skill development.
Ron McMillan is a sought-after speaker and consultant. He cofounded the Covey Leadership Center, where he served as vice president of research and development. He has worked with leaders ranging from first-level managers to corporate executives on topics such as leadership and team development.
Al Switzler is a renowned consultant and speaker who has directed training and management initiatives with dozens of Fortune 500 companies worldwide. He is on the faculty of the Executive Development Center at the University of Michigan.
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