Part
2
Engage Six Sources

Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being?

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let’s say that you’ve identified some important result you want to achieve. You’ve developed an appropriate way to measure progress. And you’ve even found vital behaviors that will produce tremendous progress—if you can get people to do them. And that’s the third key to influence: figuring out how to get everyone to actually do the vital behaviors.

As we saw in Chapter 1, the difference between influencers and the rest of us is that whereas most of us run helterskelter from one influence tactic to another, influencers take a more thorough and thoughtful approach. They overdetermine change. They systematically identify how six unique sources of influence are promoting the wrong behavior, and they carefully develop ways to reverse that influence. They marshal a critical mass of all six sources of influence to support change. And when they do, change becomes virtually inevitable.

Most of us have our favorite influence methods—just pass a law, just threaten a consequence, or just offer a training program. The problem with sticking to our favorite methods is not that the methods are flawed per se; it’s that they are far too simplistic. It’s akin to hiking the Himalayas with only a bag lunch. There’s nothing wrong with Gatorade and a granola bar, but you’ll probably need a lot more. Bringing a simple solution to a complex behavioral challenge almost never works.

Nevertheless, people bet on single-source influence strategies all the time. For instance, ask leaders how they’re planning to change their employees from being clock-punchers to quality zealots, and they’ll point to their new training program—the same one that they’re convinced drove General Electric’s stock through the stratosphere in the 1990s. The training content might provide a start, but when it comes to creating a culture of quality, it’ll take a great deal more than a course. Ask politicians what they’re doing to fight crime, and they’ll tell you that they’re working hard to secure harsher sentences for felony convictions. Also not enough to have much of an impact. Ask community leaders what steps they’re taking to stem the growing plight of childhood obesity, and they’ll sing the praises of their latest pet project—removing candy machines from schools.

And let’s be honest. How many of us haven’t yearned for a quick fix for our own problems? A powerful phrase for holding people accountable, a magical marriage solution, a two-hour course that will change your work culture from a short-to a long-term orientation.

The simplicity of this hope is alluring. But a quick fix rarely works. If the behavior you’re trying to change is supported by only one source of influence, changing that one might be sufficient to improve results. However, when you’re facing longstanding, highly resistant habits, you’re typically up against many—if not all six—sources of influence. So think about it: if six sources are driving a bad habit and you address only one, what do you predict will happen? If you answer, “Nothing,” you’re right. The problem is not a mystery. It’s math. Five sources are usually stronger than one. And as you learn to think in terms of the six sources of influence, you’ll learn to solve your math problems.

MASTER SIX SOURCES OF INFLUENCE

We shared an example of how two educators used the six-source model. Now let’s take a look into how the model actually works. Virtually all forces that have an impact on human behavior work on only two basic drivers of behavior. Not thousands. Just two. At the end of the day a person asks, “Can I do what’s required?” and, “Will it be worth it?” The first question simply asks, “Am I able?” The second, “Am I motivated?” Consequently, no matter the number of forces that affect human action—from managing peer pressure in a junior high school to making citizens aware of the cost of illiteracy in a barrio to offering a class on anger management in Beverly Hills—all these strategies work in one of two ways. They either motivate or enable a vital behavior. Some do both.

Motivation and ability make up the first two domains of our model.

We further subdivide these two domains into personal, social, and structural sources. These three sources of influence reflect separate and highly developed literatures: psychology, social psychology, and organization theory. By exploring all three, we ensure that we draw our strategies from the known repertoire of influence techniques.

Let’s quickly look at the range of influence sources effective influencers draw upon. Don’t worry if they aren’t crystal clear at this point. Over the next six chapters, we explain the various sources in detail. In fact, you’re likely to see how many of them account for improvements you’ve made in your own life. But for now, you’ll know how to consciously draw upon this robust set of sources any time you need to.

At the personal level, influencers work on connecting vital behaviors to intrinsic motives as well as building personal ability to actually do each behavior through deliberate practice. At the group level, savvy folks draw on the enormous power of social influence to both motivate and enable the new behaviors. At the structural level, they take advantage of methods that most people rarely use. They attach appropriate incentives or sanctions to motivate people to pick up the vital behaviors. And finally, they go to pains to ensure that things—systems, processes, reporting structures, visual cues, work layouts, tools, supplies, machinery, and so forth—support the vital behaviors. With this model at the ready, influencers know exactly which forces to bring into play in order to overdetermine their chances of success.

Pictorially, we can display these six sources of influence in the following model:

To better understand how each of these six sources operates, let’s go to a village in Nigeria where we show up with visions of annihilating the nasty Guinea worm. We know that villagers are only three vital behaviors away from eradicating the worm. First, people must filter their water. How hard can that be? Second, should someone still become infected, he or she must not make contact with the public water supply until the infection has run its course. Just stay away from the water. And third, if a neighbor is not filtering water or becomes infected, the villagers must confront him or her.

Since we know the three behaviors that will eradicate the Guinea worm disease, it sounds as if our influence project won’t be particularly complicated. However, before we start giving heartfelt speeches and handing out four-color pamphlets, let’s see how each of the six sources of influence affects this actual project.

Source 1. Personal Motivation

When the Guinea worm is exiting a victim’s body, the pain is absolutely excruciating. Since victims can’t merely yank the worm out of their arm or leg without the worm breaking then simply emerging elsewhere—or worse, causing a horrific infection, they’re forced to wind the parasite around a stick and slowly edge it out over a couple of weeks—or even a couple of months.

There’s only one source of relief during this prolonged ordeal, and that’s for victims to soak their painful sores in water. That means that individuals are personally motivated to do exactly the opposite of one of the vital behaviors: “Stay away from the water.” If you don’t deal with personal motivation, your influence plan will fail.

Source 2. Personal Ability

Naïve change agents assume that motivation is enough. For example, if Dr. Hopkins simply tells villagers how much pain and agony filtering their water will help them avoid, they will no doubt change, right? Wrong. Hopkins tells us, “Filtering is a skill. There are more ways to get it wrong than get it right.” When they take the steps to filter the water, they carelessly allow the unfiltered water to splash here and there, which infects the filtered water supply and continues the infestation. Or they transfer filtered water into a pot that’s still moist with unfiltered water. They’ll need training to enhance their personal ability.

Source 3. Social Motivation

Next, when you sit down with the locals to teach them how to eliminate the Guinea worm disease, nobody is going to pay very much attention to your advice. You’re an outsider and as such you simply can’t be trusted. You may be in good with the chief, but there are three tribes in the village, two of which resent the chief and will resist anything you offer because he’s behind it. Unless circumstances change, you will have a serious problem with social motivation.

Source 4. Social Ability

People within an individual community will have to assist each other if they hope to succeed. When it comes to an outbreak, nobody can make it on his or her own. If ever there were a circumstance in which the expression “It takes a village” applies, this is it. For example, if someone comes down with the Guinea worm disease, others may have to fetch water for him or her. And when it comes to filtering, locals often have to buddy up in order to have enough pots to both fetch and filter water. If locals don’t enlist the help of others, you’ll be missing the key factor of social ability.

Source 5. Structural Motivation

Given the villagers’ current financial circumstances (living hand-to-mouth), individuals who become infected can’t afford to stay away from work. This forces them to labor in and around the water supply. Quite simply, to put food on the table, they’ll need to fetch water for both their crops and livestock.

This means that the formal reward system is at odds with the three vital behaviors. Infected people earn money only if they work near the water source. If you don’t deal with this incentive conflict, victims will be compelled to serve their families at the expense of the entire village. Try to move forward without addressing structural motivation, and your influence won’t reach far.

Source 6. Structural Ability

Last, locals don’t have all the tools they need to filter the water or to care for their wounds in a way that keeps them away from the community water source. Worse still, the layout of the village makes access to the public water supply so easy and natural that it’s enormously tempting for victims to merely plunge their aching arm or leg into the water—at the peril of everyone else. If you don’t work on this last source of influence, structural ability, you’re also likely to fail.

MAKE USE OF ALL SIX SOURCES

Now that we’ve explored how all six sources of influence came into play with the Guinea worm project, it’s easy to see why influencers take pains to address each source when going head-to-head with a profound and persistent problem. Leave out one source, and you’re likely to diminish your chances for success. As of this writing, there are only a few dozen Guinea worm cases left in the world. This remarkable feat was accomplished because Hopkins and his team have helped villagers learn to engage all six sources of influence in order to foster the three vital behaviors. It’s astounding when you think that a few intrepid influencers have been able to engage tens of millions in order to eradicate a disease for which there is no cure. The Guinea worm’s defeat will not have come through medical science but rather through social science.

Throughout the remainder of this book—to demonstrate how the six sources can be applied in combination—we explore what Dr. Hopkins and a host of other influencers have done with each of these influence tools to create rapid, profound, and sustainable behavior change. For example, we’ll apply the six sources to achieving influence in changing harmful social norms, lowering school dropout rates, and improving workplace safety. We’ll ask you to pick a challenge of your own and read each of the six chapters with that problem in mind. Then fashion your own six-source influence strategy. Do it correctly, and like Dr. Hopkins and dozens of other successful influencers, you’ll solve problems that have had you and others stumped for years.