Chapter 9. Influence patterns
This chapter covers
- Using influence patterns to track trends
- How to assert managerial authority
A big part of the frustration team leaders experience is rooted in a feeling of helplessness. You believe in doing the right things, but you can’t seem to get the people around you to change their behavior.
What about using my authority
Using your authority is usually the path of last resort, unless you’re in survival mode. Then, wielding authority is the second-best choice, after having people intrinsically motivated to change their behavior.
When you’re in the learning and self-organization phases, telling people what to do is an ineffective way to teach. Helping them find their own path that results in a win for everyone is a more effective way to teach new skills.
I’ll borrow some choice vocabulary from a great book called Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler (McGraw-Hill, 2007). The book details a powerful technique to help you discover what you can do to change the behavior of others.
When I teach this technique in my workshops, I remind students that the most important thing to do before they start this exercise is to find a demonstrable physical behavior they would like to change. Examples might include these:
- Team member X is always late to the stand-up meeting.
- X never asks for help when he’s stuck on a task.
- X doesn’t participate in any offer to pair-program.
- X doesn’t write unit tests.
Now, here are some bad examples:
- X thinks he knows things better than everyone else. (You can’t assume you know what a person thinks or feels, and this isn’t a physical behavior.)
- X always argues. (Be more specific. When we meet on Y, X argues more than Z minutes.)
- X doesn’t like to work on this project. (This isn’t a behavior you can target for change.)
What do you do if you want to influence someone to change a core behavior (such as those just detailed)?
The book identifies six influence forces that are involved with change.
|
Category |
Forces |
|---|---|
| Personal | Personal ability Personal motivation |
| Social | Social ability Social motivation |
| Environmental | Environmental ability Environmental motivation |
We’re likely to think of only the first two forces (personal ability and personal motivation) when we try to understand why a person isn’t on board with the rest of the team. Because our profession requires us to think as logically as possible, we tend to think that if we explain a subject or a reason, then others will immediately adopt our point of view. We’re stumped when that doesn’t happen.
“I sent him on a two-day unit-testing course and explained all the benefits of unit testing. He’s obviously lazy or doesn’t care about the project.”
This is what happens when we run out of options to consider: we start looking at dark crevices in our mind and putting words in people’s mouths without asking for their opinion. Many times, we play this “I know what he’ll say” game because we’re afraid to talk face to face with that person about an issue.
This can happen subconsciously, but it’s hard to deny this does happen to many of us. Remember, it’s your job to do all the hard stuff, including gently confronting people and talking with them about serious issues. This has to be done in a personal setting (a one-on-one meeting), but it must be done.
Let’s walk through each of the influence forces.
Now that you have the basic list of forces, let’s see how you can use them in real life.
An imaginary example, using an influence force checklist
Here’s an example of an imaginary checklist about someone resisting TDD (keep in mind that this differs for each person in each organization).
|
Force |
Description |
|---|---|
| Personal ability | Yes. They took a three-day TDD course with Roy Osherove. |
| Personal motivation | I spoke with them, and they like doing TDD. |
| Social ability | No problem. |
| Social motivation | As much as possible. |
| Environmental ability | * We don’t have a budget for a build machine |
| Environmental motivation | * When we try to spend time unit testing, our managers tell us we’re wasting time. If we ship early even with low quality, we get a bonus. |
I put asterisks next to the items in the right column that require work. Here I’ve identified two issues that need to be resolved. Solving only the build machine budget problem will not change the behavior. We have to do two things. First, we have to get a build machine. Second, we need to convince our managers to stop giving bonuses to people who ship quickly with poor quality.
For the behavior to change, you must change all the factors in play. If you change only one of them, the behavior won’t change.
A note about privacy: Never discuss private matters publicly. Talk in a one-on-one setting, because it can be hurtful for people to be confronted or asked a personal question in public.
Next up
I hope this short chapter helps you figure out what underlies problem behaviors. Next, I’ll present a manifesto for line managers.
Summary
- Influence patterns help you understand why you meet resistance when trying to make changes. Why is someone’s behavior not changing?
- Think of it as a checklist to go through when trying to brainstorm what the possible issues might be, and as a guide on how to take action that promotes change.
- Remember that all factors need to be solved for a behavior to change. It only takes one factor to keep the old behavior, even if you’ve solved two others.