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A review by erikars
Influencer : The Power to Change Anything by Kerry Patterson
4.0
This book presented a great model and made great use of a small number of case studies explored in depth. What keeps it from being 5-stars is primarily that many of the chapters felt overly repetitive. I almost forgave that and gave an extra star because the chapter summaries are so great — but not quite.
Influence is not a matter of personality or charisma. Rather, influence is achieved by systematically applying techniques to motivate change. Before you can apply, you need to know what change you want to achieve. Thus, the first step of the influence process is to identify the results you want and how you could measure those results.
Next, you need to find vital behaviors. These are the high-leverage activities that, if changed, can make a significant difference in the desired outcomes Both words are important here. These must be behaviors, not outcomes. E.g., when losing weight, "Consume fewer calories than you expend" sounds like a behavior but it is actually the outcome. Behaviors are more specific: "Use a smaller plate" is a behavior. Second, these behaviors must be vital: they must be the ones that actually drive the desired outcome. Vital behaviors can be discovered by looking at cases of positive deviance: looking to see where outcomes are unexpectedly good and seeing what they do differently than the average and bad cases. Once a vital behavior is hypothesized, it should be tested.
After identifying a vital behavior, you can start to influence. Effective influence needs to address two key questions: "Is this worth it?" (motivation) and "Can I do it?" (ability). Each of these can be influenced at a personal, social, and structural level. The bulk of the book is going through each of the six types of influence resulting from this model in detail. The brief summary (from the diagram they use throughout the book):
Personal motivation: Make the undesirable desirable. I.e., change intrinsic motivations.
Personal ability: Surpass your limits. I.e., training and practice.
Social motivation: Harness peer pressure. I.e., utilize the influence of well-respected, well-connected individuals and social norms.
Social ability: Find strength in numbers. I.e., use the social capital of a group to pool skills and resources.
Structural motivation: Design rewards and demand accountability. I.e., how to carefully supplement intrinsic and social motivation with extrinsic motivators.
Structural ability: Change the environment. I.e., change the powerful (and often unobserved) cues that influence behavior.
The book contains much more detail, as well as concrete illustrations of the principles in practice. It is worth the read. (And, I suspect, will be harder to put in practice than to read about.)
Influence is not a matter of personality or charisma. Rather, influence is achieved by systematically applying techniques to motivate change. Before you can apply, you need to know what change you want to achieve. Thus, the first step of the influence process is to identify the results you want and how you could measure those results.
Next, you need to find vital behaviors. These are the high-leverage activities that, if changed, can make a significant difference in the desired outcomes Both words are important here. These must be behaviors, not outcomes. E.g., when losing weight, "Consume fewer calories than you expend" sounds like a behavior but it is actually the outcome. Behaviors are more specific: "Use a smaller plate" is a behavior. Second, these behaviors must be vital: they must be the ones that actually drive the desired outcome. Vital behaviors can be discovered by looking at cases of positive deviance: looking to see where outcomes are unexpectedly good and seeing what they do differently than the average and bad cases. Once a vital behavior is hypothesized, it should be tested.
After identifying a vital behavior, you can start to influence. Effective influence needs to address two key questions: "Is this worth it?" (motivation) and "Can I do it?" (ability). Each of these can be influenced at a personal, social, and structural level. The bulk of the book is going through each of the six types of influence resulting from this model in detail. The brief summary (from the diagram they use throughout the book):
Personal motivation: Make the undesirable desirable. I.e., change intrinsic motivations.
Personal ability: Surpass your limits. I.e., training and practice.
Social motivation: Harness peer pressure. I.e., utilize the influence of well-respected, well-connected individuals and social norms.
Social ability: Find strength in numbers. I.e., use the social capital of a group to pool skills and resources.
Structural motivation: Design rewards and demand accountability. I.e., how to carefully supplement intrinsic and social motivation with extrinsic motivators.
Structural ability: Change the environment. I.e., change the powerful (and often unobserved) cues that influence behavior.
The book contains much more detail, as well as concrete illustrations of the principles in practice. It is worth the read. (And, I suspect, will be harder to put in practice than to read about.)