If you've ever tried to establish a new habit, you know that it can be a considerable challenge. It might be losing weight, kicking a smoking habit, starting an exercise routine, cleaning up clutter in your house, or changing your morning routine so your kids get to school without everyone tearing their hair out.

You start with optimism and a burst of energy – it seems so simple! But gyms are full in January and empty by March for a reason – it is hard to make a habit “stick.” There's no lack of suggestions that might help – do it for at least 21 days, pair up with someone for support, do things in small increments rather than thinking change has to happen all at once, modify your environment so you're not triggered in the same way… and on and on. You might need to do one or all of these things to be successful.

We said in Chapter 1 that “doing differently” when it comes to collaborative networks needed to become a way of life, a set of new habits. These habits – the ways in which you use the skills we've described in this book – are no different than the resolutions we make in January. They seem simple, and in fact they are. But, simple is not the same thing as easy. You need to find ways to make the habits stick to be successful over the long term. There are three specific kinds of activities that will make these new habits of collaboration more likely to be permanent. These activities are also habits – it's like getting into the habit of setting your alarm clock earlier, so that you can get into the habit of making it to the gym in the morning.

Before getting specific about what's involved in this skill, we need to return to the idea of shared leadership. While there is no top or bottom to a network, effective networks do have strong cores, agile leaders who provide guidance. Agile leaders take the initiative to be responsible for the health of the network itself. One person can take the lead, and the role can rotate over time, but to return to a theme we've discussed earlier: if it's vaguely assumed that the network will thrive on its own, it won't. Agile leaders help the new network that is established in a collaboration to become more resilient and to grow over time.

NUDGING

The first way agile leaders maintain the momentum of a network is to nudge everyone to move ideas into action and complete their tasks. In nudging, we are acknowledging the reality that most people will not do what needs to be done all of the time without this kind of reinforcement. We all need an extra push (at least some of the time) to get us to do our part in the new collaborative venture.

When we nudge, we are really doing two things: most obviously, we are ensuring that a particular task is completed. Less obvious but more important is the second function of nudging: we are establishing positive norms for the group. A norm can be thought of as an unwritten rule of behavior that is unnatural. For example, we learn in school that we raise our hand to speak. We aren't born knowing that we need to do that – but very quickly, it becomes second nature and we can't imagine behaving in any other way. It is “normal.”

How can we nudge in such a way that a project moves forward, and beyond that so that the group becomes more effective? There are two approaches:

First, there is proactive nudging. By proactive, we mean that you explicitly urge each person to complete their assignment. You check in with others in the group by phone or in person, or – increasingly – use email or texting to encourage people to fulfill their commitments.

You'll want to think carefully about the people you are trying to nudge and what approach might work for each of them – what is effective for one person may not work for another. Those of us who are parents of more than one child have learned this the hard way: a particular kind of nudge to one child may result in the desired behavior, but may make another dig their heels in and refuse to budge. You'll have to observe and adjust as you learn what works.

Since much of our communication is now through email or text, it's worth considering how we might effectively “digitally nudge.” There is some interesting research behind this idea. In Inside the Nudge Unit, author David Halpern discusses how the right kind of digital nudges can increase the chances of influencing someone's behavior. For instance, in programs to encourage job seekers to attend job fairs, sending a standard, generic text message resulted in about 1 in 10 people turning up. Adding the recipient's name at the beginning of the text increased the proportion turning up at a fair by five percentage points to 15%. If the advisor also added their own name? The number turning up rose even further, to 18%. And if the advisor instead wrote: “I've booked you a place… Good luck!” the proportion turning up rose to an impressive 27%, a nearly threefold increase from the original response. UCLA Researcher Shlomo Ben‐Artzi suggests that pointing to and celebrating the behavior of others who are exhibiting the actions or habits you want others to emulate can influence behaviors even more. For instance, if an entire neighborhood is being challenged to beautify their yards, sending a photo or video of one of the spruced‐up yards with a message like “Check out the Crespos' beautiful yard!” can make the nudge even stronger.

There's also more subtle nudging. This moves us into the realm of behavioral economics, a field for which Richard Thaler won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2017; beyond his theoretical contributions to the field, Thaler has written a number of books to help noneconomists understand the important underlying principles. The key concept behind behavioral economics is that environments encourage particular choices. Finding a way to change the environment so that the desired behavior “just happens” can be much easier than having to work in a proactive fashion. The classic example (which Thaler had an indirect hand in) is the challenge of getting Vanguard employees to save for their retirement. The traditional approach is to provide new employees with information about 401(k) plans, and a way to sign up to participate. This method usually results in about 40% of the employees taking part. However, a new 2006 law gave employers another option: rather than providing employees with a form to sign up, they could require that employees opt out if they didn't want to participate by sign a form to that effect. The change seems subtle – a few words on the materials for new employees – until you consider the results. More than 90% of the employees in the Vanguard study chose to participate.

Until now, we've focused primarily on nudging as a mechanism to get individuals to act. But let's step back and think about the group as a whole. Beyond the specifics of whether a particular task is accomplished, what you are aiming for is building an environment in which the group members know they can trust one another. As we said in Chapter 2, trust is built when we align our words with our actions. The micro‐commitments people make to one another are the words – the nudge helps ensure that the circle is closed. As these fulfilled micro‐commitments accumulate, the group trust increases. It's as if you are constructing a rope. If you look carefully at a rope, you'll see that the strands are twisted together. This has a practical function in terms of being able to handle the rope more easily. But beyond that, the twist ensures that tension is distributed evenly along the rope, and no individual strand is supporting too much of the load. This is important because the stronger the rope, the heavier the object it can pull. A group with a high level of trust has the capacity – the resiliency – to take on big challenges.

There is another kind of trust being built as well – it is the trust that the group has in you to keep them on track. You may feel as if you are being intrusive, or “bugging” people, and sometimes a person's reaction (“would you just leave me alone?”) may reinforce this fear. Look at your role differently: what the members of your group are most afraid of is that they are wasting their time. All of us have been members of groups that failed to fulfill their purpose not because the approach was wrong, but because the effort was incomplete. Things just fell apart. If you were one of the people who did step up, but others did not, you may have felt that others took advantage of your goodwill and integrity. With nudging, you are doing something different. You are keeping the momentum going. You are keeping people aligned and energized. There may still be someone who doesn't do what they said they will do, but the other people in the group will feel protected – there is someone looking out for them.

CONNECTING

Another habit of agile leaders that strengthens a network is to connect new people and other networks to it. While increased trust binds the strands of a rope together, you can also increase the ability of the rope to lift a heavy object by adding more strands. In connecting, you intentionally seek to grow the network. As we saw when we discussed the structure of a network in Chapter 1, networks have porous boundaries. Connecting is taking an active role in helping people move across that boundary to be more tightly connected to your network.

Each addition to the network brings new resources and assets that might be instrumental in the group's future work. In some cases you'll be aware of a particular need – for a physical asset like a meeting space, for example. Other times you're not exactly sure what someone can contribute but it seems like they should be connected to your network so that if the right moment arises, there's already the start of a relationship. Ed is especially expert at forging connections like this by “closing the triangle” (he learned this clever and simple way to build networks from his colleague Valdis Krebs, a gifted consultant in the field of social networks; Valdis was the creator of the iPhone network “map” we shared in Chapter 1). Ed identifies someone inside his network who has a common interest with a person he's just met, and sends an email like the following:

Terri, meet Joe. I'm introducing you to one another because I think you might have some common interests and could benefit from meeting.

Terri is part of our group on regional competitiveness. She's one of the vice presidents at the Chamber of Commerce and has a lot of experience working with overseas companies considering a presence in the metro area.

I met Joe last week at a conference. Joe has just moved here with Acme Inc., which is starting to consider growing its activity in Latin America and is interested in learning more about the business culture there.

I think the two of you would have an interesting conversation about your mutual interests and experience. I'll leave it to you to connect further.

We talked about group size in Chapter 2, and the prospect of growing your network may mean that at some point you start to bump up against the upper limit for a high‐functioning group. When this happens, you will probably need to divide into two groups to pursue different projects. Other members of the network will need to step up as agile leaders as well, and they may need your assistance in doing so.

In training others to become more effective collaborators, the metaphor of teaching a child to ride a bike may be helpful. First, the child needs to see someone else successfully riding – maybe they are in the child seat attached to the back of your bike. Then, they give it a try; there may be training wheels at first, but soon the wheels are off and you're hanging on to the seat running alongside. Finally, you don't need to hang on any more, and while they may be a bit shaky at first (and angry that you let go!), they're quickly zipping around the neighborhood.

In the same way, help others build their skills by first explaining what you're doing as you're doing it, then having them practice with you nearby, and then letting them lead on their own. Just as they were for you, these new ways of working together may feel a bit frightening at first, but new leaders will gain confidence with experience.

While we're talking about connecting, it's also worth mentioning “disconnecting.” The porous boundaries go both ways – sometimes a person who's been close to the hub of your network someone with whom you've worked closely, needs to step away. Perhaps their job responsibilities have changed, they're moving to a different part of the country, or they've welcomed a child into their family. Or, perhaps they've realized that they don't really want to be part of a group in which they're expected to participate actively (or as a person in one of our workshops said recently, “I didn't realize you wanted me to actually do something!”). Saying good‐bye is also part of nurturing networks.

PROMOTING

The third habit to cultivate is that of promoting. Unless your group is engaged in classified espionage, you want to publicize your successes. This helps attract more people to your network that you might not have had access to otherwise. Promotion is particularly important if yours is the kind of group that doesn't have much in the way of access to financial resources. People with money make decisions about where to invest it based in part on their calculation of risk – and the best predictor of low risk is a track record of achievement. Even if your successes are small, they communicate that you're a good investment prospect.

How you promote your work can vary wildly. It could be everything from an intentional but informal conversation with a decision maker in the company cafeteria to an all‐out social media blitz. We can't tell you what makes sense for your group, and there are plenty of books out there on promotion, marketing, and social media that are better resources. However, everyone in your group should be prepared to explain what you're doing in what's sometimes called an “elevator pitch” – a clear description in less than two minutes (the average time for a ride in an elevator).

Nudging, connecting, and promoting are all ways agile leaders ensure that efforts don't wither on the vine. They are habits to build, and like every new habit, they take time and consistent attention, and some may come easier than others. They are the skills that turn a group's good idea into real impact for a company, community, or organization.

PUTTING THE SKILL TO WORK: THE AGILE LEADER AS CHIEF DOING OFFICER

In our work, we often call the person who takes on nudging, connecting, and promoting the “Chief Doing Officer” or CDO. If we had to sum up the CDO's job in one phrase, it would be “helping a group grow into new habits.”

There isn't a specific experience or title or degree that is a prerequisite for being a CDO—we've seen people from all walks of life do it very successfully—but their one personal trait that is critical is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to be aware of one's own and others' emotions, and to use that information to choose the correct behaviors in a particular situation. In our context, it is important because a such a large part of the CDO role is persuading others.

Like other kinds of intelligence, emotional intelligence is largely something that people have as a result of their genetics, temperament, and/or early upbringing – you can't really change it to any large degree, although knowing your limitations will help you know when to ask for help. Unfortunately, the people with the lowest levels of emotional intelligence are also the least self‐aware about it. One “red flag” is that you find people frequently offended by something you say or do, yet you think they're overreacting. If this is the case, or if you're just not sure about your own emotional intelligence, you might need to ask a trusted peer for some honest feedback. If your emotional intelligence is low, you may need to ask someone else in your group to take on at least some of the functions we describe in this chapter.

First things first: it's important to let a group know in advance you'll be nudging. Make sure people understand that your nudging isn't a criticism of anyone, but rather a way to help the group achieve what they all want.

Considering the concepts of behavioral economics may lead you to some creative nudging approaches. How could you establish environmental cues that help people behave in the ways you need them to – or, as Richard Thaler terms it, how could you be mindful of the “choice architecture?” A few approaches that we have seen include:

• Setting up a shared folder in which each person deposits some sort of “report” on what they've done;
• Using a shared document as a checklist. Use it in a positive fashion – perhaps there's a line for each person to complete about the results of their work. Do not make it punitive, such as a list of people who have not done their part;
• Using “reply all” (carefully) to spread the word when someone has completed their work or discovered something interesting;
• Organizing a “field trip” to see a successful region, organization, or team in action. You don't need to spell out the lessons; just exposure to what is effective speaks loudly and helps groups set higher expectations for themselves.

Cultivate the habit of inviting new people into your work. Each one will bring their assets with them and these may open up new opportunities. Tell people about what you're doing and invite them in. Everyone is busy, but there is almost nothing more attractive than a group that is getting things done. Ask your fellow group members to do the same kind of connecting – regularly ask one another, “Is there anyone else that we think might want to join us, who would bring new resources that we need?” Look especially to the boundary spanners in your group – those people who are in multiple networks. Boundary spanners usually are spanners precisely because they enjoy making connections between people. They're matchmakers (professionally speaking) by temperament.

When you or another group member issues an invitation, make sure the person understands that they're going to be expected to be full participants – it's not an advisory committee that exists only on paper. They'll be making micro‐commitments along with everyone else.

Agile leaders understand that their leadership doesn't end when a meeting is over. They build relationships with people within the group so that they can encourage them to live up to the micro‐commitments they've made. They also nurture relationships with people that aren't in the group – spreading the word about the good work underway and looking for ways to connect them to the network in some way. They are both active participants in and cheerleaders for the groups they lead.