ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Maxfield is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything.

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Dear Readers,

I created a firestorm with my response to last week’s question about the crucial conversations world leaders are having about climate change. Like most people, I obviously have my own views on global warming. However, I didn’t intend to write a political column and I am sorry it came out that way. I got more than 40 negative responses on the blog and our editor received several as well. Ben Semadeni echoes many readers’ reactions when he says, “I was disgusted with this column . . . It illustrates that even the ‘experts’ totally botch the process.” But then he goes on to say, “I’d love to see you take another stab at this topic.”

I like Ben’s suggestion. However, rather than dig back into the climate change content, I’d like to use this column for its real purpose—to learn about dialogue. I’d like to apply the crucial conversations principles to last week’s column and its resulting controversy. My guess is that we all find ourselves in this unfortunate position from time to time. I hope my transparent application of these conversation tools will also rebuild my relationship with some of you with whom I may have lost faith.

1. Explore Others’ Paths. Our readers are a pretty gentle crew, so when they write, “you’ve lost credibility,” “you’ve used this forum as a soap box,” and “what unprofessional text!” I know people are deeply upset. I’ve seen and felt the heat of their sentiments and to understand what I’ve done to cause these feelings I need to backtrack to the facts behind these stories.

Backtrack to Facts. Most of the letters I received focus on an assumption I made and never actually acknowledged. I now clearly see this oversight. In my response, I called four statements about climate change that leaders from the BASIC nations had agreed to as “facts.” While the leaders in their agreement also called them “facts,” they are better characterized as “conclusions.” Not only did I label these conclusions as “facts,” I also applauded their agreement because I felt it represented “progress in their dialogue.”

Here’s the rub. Many readers disagree with these “facts” and don’t see “progress” in this direction as a good thing. When I described these as “facts” and as “progress,” it caused these readers to question my credibility and motives. They saw this as an unfair use of the opportunity this forum provides me.

2. Start With Heart. I need to look inside myself and decide what my goals are.

Work on me first. My honest, first reaction to the criticisms was frustration because I felt most comments didn’t deal with what I saw as the topic I’d addressed. Instead of focusing on Copenhagen and the dialogue and disagreements between world leaders, readers focused on disagreements they have with world leaders. That wasn’t my topic.

However, I see now that this reaction on my part was a way of bypassing people’s legitimate frustration with my use of this column.

Focus on what I really want. I need to ask what I really want. As far as this forum is concerned, what I really want is for people to discuss dialogue and influence skills in a way that advances our shared understanding. And I want to be fair and honest in my author role. I really don’t care about advancing or exchanging facts about any political agenda. In the article, I included an undiscussed assumption that many readers saw as a political position, and that was not my intention.

3. Restore Mutual Respect and Mutual Purpose. This is where actions speak louder than words. I care deeply about this forum, so let me begin.

Mutual Respect. I’ve violated mutual respect in two ways. I’ve disrespected some of you by stating a position in a way that came across as underhanded; and I’ve shared an opinion that some of you see as naïve or misguided. I want to apologize to you and clarify my intent.

I’ll try to “practice what we preach” by using a contrasting statement. I didn’t mean to be underhanded. I did try to answer the question posed by one of our readers. Here is what happened. The way the original question was posed (”what dialogue should world leaders have?”) and the way the leaders in Copenhagen framed their agreement (”we’ve agreed on these facts”) created a blind spot that I didn’t see.

I was narrowly focused on the Copenhagen dialogue and failed to remember the broader dispute. As a result, it didn’t occur to me that readers who disagree with global warming would be offended. It was never my intent to either persuade others to accept global warming or to offend readers who don’t accept global warming. I’m sorry I was insensitive to your views.

Mutual Purpose. I see our purpose as building and sharing dialogue skills. We’re not a forum for presenting political views. I will redouble my efforts to avoid doing so. At the same time, we’d like to be able to examine topical political dialogue. We think social and current issues are rich turf for crucial conversations. It would be a shame to put them totally off limits.

I hope you will see this week’s column as more consistent with our community’s purpose. I’ve tried to share how I am applying our dialogue principles to my dilemma. I did not want this to simply be an apology because that would be misusing its purpose as well. Rather, I wanted to demonstrate that I care about what we teach by showing how it helped me through a tough week.

Thanks,
David

David Maxfield Crucial Conversations

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Maxfield is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything.

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Dear Crucial Skills,
I followed the climate change summit in Copenhagen last December and found it very frustrating to watch world leaders unable to agree on actions they must take to protect the ecological health of our planet. The meetings quickly disintegrated into a discussion about the individual wealth of their own nations.

What crucial conversation would help leaders agree to a plan to preserve the planet’s health—even though this will be at some economic expense to all?

Frustrated with World Leaders

Dear Frustrated,

This is a great and timely question. Resolving climate change will require leaders to address some very sensitive conversations. And as citizens, we can help. When we take an interest and speak up, it encourages our leaders to speak up as well.

Crucial conversations require dialogue. Climate change has been mired in silence and violence for many years. The good news about the Climate Summit in Copenhagen was that more than 130 world leaders came together. Heads of state from five opinion-leader nations (U.S., China, India, Brazil, and South Africa) met for seven hours and negotiated an agreement that forms a framework for a 2010 world summit in Mexico City. The decision-makers are at the table, and dialogue has begun.

It helps to Start with Facts. Another major advance world leaders made at Copenhagen was to agree on a set of facts related to climate change. These facts establish the common ground needed to build solutions. A few of the most significant of these facts are:

• Increases in global temperatures must be limited to 2 degrees Celsius.
• Some countries will be especially hurt by climate change and other countries must support them.
• Deep cuts in global emissions of CO2 will be required.
• Developed countries and developing countries will need to follow different paths.

World leaders must now find Mutual Purpose. This gets to the heart of your question. Nations and their leaders look to their national interests, which are often in conflict—at least in the short term. Climate change is a global issue that requires a broader, more long-term view. Remember the question we ask in Crucial Conversations: “What do you really want—for yourself, for others, and for the relationship?” This is the question leaders must ask.

Here are a few crucial conversations where national interests may be in conflict—and mutual purpose must be found. Our leaders would do well to bring these crucial issues to the table:

1. Developed countries, especially the U.S., use the most carbon per person. Developed countries benefit if carbon is capped at the national level, not the per person level. Developing countries, like India and China, use far less carbon per person, but they will soon use the most at the national level. They benefit if carbon is capped at the per person level.

2. Developed countries have proposed a cap-and-trade strategy. This strategy benefits developed countries because it favors rich over poor. Developing countries are hurt by this approach.

3. Developed countries have an obligation to resettle refugees. Island and low-lying countries—places like Bangladesh and Vietnam—will lose large portions of their land mass, producing tens of millions of climate refugees. What obligation do developed countries have to resettle these refugees?

4. Developed countries have benefited the most from carbon use over the last 100 years—and have been responsible for the greatest amount of carbon-related damage. Does this mean they should be held accountable for the damage already caused and pick up a greater share of the repair and resettlement bill?

Soon we must Move to Action. Have you ever been part of a team that got bogged down because the facts were never complete and the options never ideal? When it comes to climate change, we will never have all the facts or a painless solution. But we will have to act anyway. We can’t afford to let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

In Crucial Conversations, we recommend to decide how you will decide. Some climate change decisions may involve consensus targets, but most are likely to be consultative or independent. We can’t let the desire for consensus prevent us from taking action either independently or with small groups of other opinion-leader nations.

Finally, when a problem is profound, persistent, and resistant, its solution will require more than a crucial conversation. It will require a full-fledged Influencer strategy. Next week, I will apply our Influencer model to your question.

Best,
David

David Maxfield Crucial Conversations

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Maxfield is coauthor of the New York Times bestseller, Influencer.

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Dear Crucial Skills,

At our organization, we expect our employees to be ready to care for patients at the start of their shift. But I have several employees who are far in the disciplinary path because they consistently “clock-in” a minute or two late. Of course, they would have been on time if “the water main hadn’t broken,” or they “hadn’t been stuck behind a school bus.” These employees feel the policy is punitive, unfair, and intolerant; and they have the empathy of the early arrivers. Help!

Needing Discipline

First, let me congratulate you for confronting the problem early and consistently, so that the late arrivers are already “far in the disciplinary path.” The most common mistake we make is to let these kinds of problems slide, and as a result, give our tacit permission for bad behavior. Here are a few tips for confronting your late arrivers:

1. Make sure the rule is clear. If you inherited this problem and your predecessor gave his/her tacit permission to let people come in late, you will want to give “fair warning” before beginning to enforce the policy. You will want to talk to the team, and specifically to the late arrivers, to explain the policy and to let them know that you will be enforcing it.

2. Have the crucial confrontation. You usually don’t notice the first time an employee comes in late, you notice when it’s become a pattern. The key is to have the conversation as soon as you realize someone is consistently coming in late. Describe the gap between what you expect and what you’ve observed, and probe for the cause of the problem.

Problems are caused by motivation (the person doesn’t share your priority) or ability (the person is unable or has difficulty complying) or a combination of both. If your employee doesn’t share your priority for arriving on time (motivation), explain the natural consequences for his or her patients, peers, and unit. If necessary, explain the imposed consequences involved in your organization’s disciplinary path.

If the person is having difficulty arriving on time (ability), ask for his or her ideas for making it happen. Encourage the employee to develop a plan that will work for him or her. But don’t allow ability blocks to become excuses. The person needs a plan that results in on-time arrival.

Often, the person will end up with both short-term and long-term plans. The long-term plan might be to get his or her car repaired; the short-term plan might be to get a ride with his or her spouse. By the end of this crucial confrontation, the person should explicitly agree on who will do what by when. Take care that you don’t transfer the burden to your back. People need to develop a viable solution that they buy into. And they need to understand that, if their solution doesn’t work, consequences will be imposed.

3. Impose the consequences. It sounds as if you have arrived at this step. If you don’t think you had a full and frank crucial confrontation, then feel free to have it now. However, if you have already had the crucial confrontation, the latecomers have already agreed on a plan, and they have failed to live up to their agreements, it’s time to impose consequences.

Take care to involve the right people in your up chain—your manager and HR—where appropriate. Try to avoid blindsiding anyone.

Before you meet with an employee, take some time to get your head and your heart right. Ask yourself what you really want—you want the person to be successful somewhere, but you can’t continue the costs to patients and your team. Then meet with the employee and explain the situation—you established a plan you both agreed to, and the employee has failed to live up to it—and the next step in the disciplinary process. Master your stories, and keep the dialogue professional. Create as much safety as possible, but understand that the employee is likely to be hurt or angry.

4. Dealing with others. When an employee is terminated, it’s normal for other employees to feel sympathy for that employee. It’s also normal for people to feel some fear about whether they will be next. You can’t share personnel information or feed the rumor mill. My guess is that, while many will have sympathy and empathy for the person, they will also feel relief that they won’t have to carry that person’s load any longer.

Best wishes for this next period. You should feel proud of yourself for stepping up to these tough conversations. Without your actions, problems like these would linger, festering in your team and undermining your ability to treat your patients.

Best,
David

David Maxfield Crucial Confrontations

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Maxfield is coauthor of the New York Times bestseller, Influencer.

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Dear Crucial Skills,

I am currently attempting to put the principles of Influencer to work, but I am struggling to find those vital behaviors that are more than hunches. I am looking for the vital behaviors that will lead to telemarketing sales and I’m wondering where I can go to find statistically supported, tried-and-tested vital behaviors for this outcome.

Searching for Research

 Dear Searching,

Your question is relevant to everyone—not just those involved in telemarketing sales—because few of us can ever find statistically supported, tried-and-tested vital behaviors that deal with our specific issues. Most of the time, we have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and do our own research. I’ll use your question to suggest some steps anyone can take to find and refine vital behaviors.

Here are the steps I follow: 1) begin with Google and Google Scholar to find tips and best practices; 2) create a process-flow chart that maps the temporal flow of the activity; 3) collect data on key points in the process; 4) use positive deviance—with myself and others; 5) set up an ongoing tracking system to analyze and adjust. Here’s what these steps look like:

1. Begin with Google and Google Scholar: I did some Google searches using the terms “telemarketing sales” and “best practices.” With these search terms, I mostly found marketing pitches for seminars. Google scholar was full of books and academic research that was not very interesting.

So I broadened my search and found a lot of useful tips by searching for the terms “telemarketing sales” and “tips.” These tips were a great place to start, but I was skeptical so I asked myself two questions: “How relevant are the tips to my exact situation?” and “How credible are they?” Most of the tips were somewhat relevant, but many had little credibility—other than sounding more or less plausible. Most came from commercial firms that are selling something and didn’t have any research data supporting them.

While internet research is a good place to start, be cautious with the information you find, and most importantly, never let a Google search be the end of your research. To find the most accurate behaviors, continue with the following steps.

2. Create a process-flow chart: Map a sales person’s day from beginning to end. What do these people do? Map the progression of a sales call. What is actually said and done? Try to capture a typical day and a typical call in five to seven steps.

In addition, it is helpful to map an “ideal process” based on what you know about the activity. For example, most sales calls include the following steps: Greeting, verification, questions, responses, information drops, and closes. Each of these steps is designed to move the customer further through the buying process—to bring them closer to a buying decision. Now you can compare what you actually do to the ideal activities you should perform.

3. Collect data: Next, begin collecting data. Of course you are most interested in the end results: number of sales and percentage of successful sales calls. However, also collect data on interim steps. Track “move forwards” on each step in the sales process you’ve mapped. Evaluate which step you excel in based on the data. Also look at the steps where you could use some improvement. Identify the exact steps or behaviors that need your particular attention.

4. Use positive deviance: If you have a sales team, the next thing to do is to look for the positive deviants: the salespeople who are markedly more successful than the rest. If you are on your own, look for the times when you’ve been the positive deviant. These are the specific calls, days, or weeks when you’ve been most successful. If possible, have the less successful salespeople observe and listen in on the most successful salespeople, and vice versa. Have the observers use the process-flow charts and the tips to guide their observations. Specifically, note the behaviors that set the positive deviants apart.

One of my favorite examples of this kind of positive deviance research comes from David Marsh and his team with the Save the Children Federation. They were working in refugee camps on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to reduce infant mortality. They’d mapped the birthing process from one week before the mother’s due date to one week after. Their team included physicians who had plenty of tips at hand. They identified the positive deviants—a few families who had never lost a child during childbirth—and trained families to observe each others’ practices. What did they find? The vital behaviors involved the father’s role. Successful fathers planned ahead for emergencies—they arranged to have a car and driver available—and they were present during the birth so they would know if an emergency was developing. These vital behaviors were quickly adopted across the camps, and as a result, they experienced a dramatic reduction in infant deaths.

5. Set up an ongoing tracking system: At this point, you’ve identified some behaviors that may or may not be vital. You acquired this list by finding researched best practices, examining a process-flow chart, measuring your results, and studying positive deviants. With this initial list in hand, you are ready to test your hypothesis.

Begin trying the two or three behaviors that seem most vital. Put all your efforts into these few behaviors. Set a goal to drive them through the roof. Meanwhile, continue to track your results—both the end and interim results. Don’t lose faith in the behaviors too quickly. Double or triple their use, and give them some time to work. Then analyze their impact, and make adjustments. Remember that the behaviors that are most vital to your success will change over time. For example, you may find that “making more calls” is the vital behavior that gets you the most traction early on. However, once you maximize your number of calls, a different behavior may be required to drive further improvement.

Good luck, and enjoy the process.
David

David Maxfield Influencer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Maxfield is coauthor of the New York Times bestseller, Influencer.

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Dear Crucial Skills,

I am a physician and I have to admit that, although I am respectful toward my patients, I have great difficulty when I am dealing with fellow physicians and nurses who, in my opinion, don’t seem to know basic skills to care for our patients.

My frustration with their ignorance often manifests itself not necessarily in the words I choose, but more in the way I voice my opinions and in the tone of my voice. I am dealing with people’s lives and am frequently pushed to go too fast. Often I am sleep deprived or emotionally exhausted. These things make it even harder to be as respectful as I would like to be with colleagues.

I totally understand that my lack of respect just makes the situation worse, but I don’t know how to deal with ignorance in people who I think should know better and who often have egos that prevent them from listening very well. Please help.

Dr. M

Dear Dr. M,

Thank you for writing such an open and revealing letter. It’s clear you’ve thought deeply about this concern, and your good intentions shine through. I see three elements to your situation:

1. Crucial Moments: In key situations, you are both emotionally exhausted as well as in the middle of a high-stakes medical issue.
2. Primed Stories: You’ve become especially sensitive to certain problems: caregivers who “should know better” or “have egos that prevent them from listening.”
3. Visible Actions: You show your frustration—not in your word choice, but in the way you voice your opinions and the tone of your voice.

I can imagine I might do the same. And yet, as you note, these lapses just make the situation worse.

You’re already motivated to maintain a respectful relationship and you already control your choice of words. However, you realize your frustrations are seeping through anyway and damaging relationships. What more can you do? Here are four tips you might try.

1. Identify the crucial moments. The more you can do to recognize when you’re in these moments, the more prepared you will be. Take a pen and paper and map out when, where, and with whom you are most likely to experience these crucial moments. Focus on the moments where you are most at risk of being disrespectful to others.

2. Apply the skill “master my stories.” It sounds as if, when you are emotionally exhausted, you are especially apt to use “villain stories“—to interpret others’ actions in a negative way. And when you judge others, the verdict shows on your face.

James Gross, the head of Stanford’s psychophysiology lab, is the leading researcher in a field called “emotional control.” According to Gross, we control our emotions in two very different ways. One way is to suppress them—we rage inside, but keep our faces calm. Gross explains that this approach results in immediate cardiovascular costs as well as a variety of long-term negative impacts. Living your life behind a mask is not good for you. In Crucial Conversations, we call this “going to silence.”

The second way we control our emotions is through reappraising the events that have made us angry and re-evaluating the situation. This second strategy is the “master my stories” approach we teach in Crucial Conversations. Gross says people who use this approach are more successful in controlling their emotions, as well as happier and healthier over the long term.

So, what do you do? Right now, while you’re calm and relaxed, ask yourself the following questions: “Do I really believe the people I get frustrated with ’should know better’ and ‘have egos that prevent them from listening’? Or are my stories symptoms of the pressure-filled moments and emotional exhaustion?”

If the problems are real, address them using your crucial conversations skills. But don’t wait until the crucial moment, when you are exhausted. Instead, select a time when you can have high-quality dialogue.

If you decide your stories have more to do with the pressure of the situation and your exhaustion, ask yourself how you would like to handle these frustrating moments. Assume the caregivers around you are reasonable, rational, and decent and that they are trying to do the right thing. Then ask yourself, “What can I do to help them help my patient?”

3. Prepare before the situation. It’s always harder to use these skills in the heat of the moment. So establish a rule for yourself and decide now what you will do and say when you find yourself in that situation. For example, if I’m in one of my crucial moments and feel intensely frustrated, I will say, “I know we both want what’s best for the patient. Let’s each share our perspective.” Create a rule, pick the words that will work for you, and write them down.

Establishing these if/then rules in advance is very powerful, especially when the moments you need them involve a lot of stress and competing demands. They work in two ways. First, they highlight the crucial moments, making it more likely you’ll recognize these moments when you’re in them. Second, they help you move from “consciously competent” to “unconsciously competent.” Instead of having to think about and make decisions in the moment, you act on the decisions you’ve made in advance. (Peter Gollwitzer at NYU has published several interesting studies showing how these rules work).

4. Enlist support. Ask your colleagues to help you recognize when you’re starting to go over the edge. An anesthesiologist I respect told his team, “In general, please call me by my first name, Jim. But if you think I’m becoming intimidating or not listening, then call me Dr. Smith. That will be our signal.” I like this cue because it’s subtle and respectful. Making this request is also a powerful way of convincing people that you really want to do what’s right.

I hope these ideas help. Let me know how it goes.

David

David Maxfield Crucial Conversations

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Maxfield is coauthor of the New York Times bestseller, Influencer.

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  Dear Crucial Skills,

My supervisor often gives me leadership responsibility for projects involving multiple departments. However, my position is not viewed as one of authority. As a result, I struggle to get results from others when I ask them to do something. When I present my lack of progress and ask for assistance, I’m told I need to stop blaming others for my lack of results. Since I have been trained to teach Crucial Conversations, my supervisor assumes I should be able to convince others to shift their priorities. Unfortunately, people outside of my department are not able to make my request their No. 1 priority, no matter how many Crucial Conversations skills I employ.

How do I get my supervisor to see that I need her support, without making her think I am blaming others? I am at the end of my rope!

Without Support

 Dear Without,

You are not alone. When I was teaching at Stanford’s Advanced Project Management Program this was the participants’ most frequent concern. You’re given lots of accountability, but no authority, and you’re expected to use your skills and charm to get it all done.

It doesn’t work that way, does it?

Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations focus on dialogue skills—the skills required to reach shared understanding and commitment. These skills would be all you needed if the lack of cooperation you were experiencing was the exception, not the rule. However, it sounds as if it’s the rule, and that tells me you need to change the rules. You need a structural solution—a solution that involves all six sources of influence.

The situation you describe calls for a project-management system, one that people buy into and have the skills to use. Then it requires holding people accountable to the system—not just to your individual projects.

I will walk through the influence model found in our book Influencer to help you solve this problem. The process starts with identifying measurable results you want to achieve; next, you identify a few key behaviors that, if changed, will bring about those results; and finally, you must outline strategies to accomplish your vital behaviors using six different sources of influence.

Measurable Results. Your goal is to ensure project schedules, budgets, and specs are met.

It sounds as if your projects have to compete with employees’ other tasks. That’s to be expected. The problem occurs when your projects never get a high enough priority, or when the priority gets bumped. Instead of focusing on your project, focus on the overall project-planning process. Your goal is to get people to commit to a fair process—one that meets their objectives as well as yours. Then your challenge is to help everyone stick to the process. Become a champion for the process, not just your project. This change will create greater Mutual Purpose.

Vital Behaviors. The vital behaviors you’ll want to focus on are:

1. Prioritizing all of your project’s tasks against people’s competing tasks.
2. Ensuring that people who complete the tasks have input into the project plan and sign up to deliver on realistic schedules, budgets, and specs.
3. Ensuring that when people have reason to believe they could miss a schedule, budget, or spec, they will immediately update the team on the problem.

The Six Sources of Influence. The sources of influence and specific strategies you’ll need to target are:

Source 1 - Personal Motivation: The people you rely on are feeling a lot of pain. Their plates are too full; they feel as if they have five bosses; and they’re constantly being blindsided with new unexpected demands. Instead of turning up the heat regarding your projects, get their buy-in to a more consistent process—one that has realistic priorities and plans.

Source 2 - Personal Ability: You and your colleagues may have to learn basic project-management principles. Look for resources that are already available within your firm. such as a project-management specialist. Once you have a project-management system in place, you’ll find your Crucial Conversations skills will become more powerful.

Sources 3 & 4 - Social Motivation & Ability: The most important social support you need is from your manager and the managers your resource people report to. They need to fully support a more robust project-management system. Ease their concerns that the priority-setting process may take more time and is less flexible by demonstrating how results are delivered far more reliably.

Source 5 - Structural Motivation: I bet the employees you count on are rewarded for achieving results within their own departments, and not for achieving your goals. Goals that require cross-functional teamwork are often shortchanged. Work with your manager and the resource managers to find ways to reward people for executing on their plans and for keeping to the project-planning process you’ve outlined. Even tiny changes to these reward systems will send a powerful message that managers are serious.

Source 6 - Structural Ability: This entire approach relies on implementing a project-management structure. Check to see if you already have one that’s gone dormant. Check to see if your organization has a Project Management Office that can help you re-invigorate your project structure. Here are some basic structural elements I’d want to see: a priority-setting process that involves the right stakeholders; a project planning process that results in realistic schedules, budgets, and specs; project status meetings that keep the projects on track; a measurement system that provides ongoing feedback on how well people are keeping to their project plans.

Report Back to your Manager. Meet with your manager and frame the larger issue. It isn’t just about executing your projects; it’s about executing any and all projects. Bring in whatever facts you can to back up your case. If you don’t have data on missed deadlines, budget overruns, and failures to meet specs, then bring in examples of the problems: for example, people have unclear priorities, priorities that constantly change, objectives that aren’t realistic, and no clear project plans to follow. Explain that solving this larger problem is the best way to solve your specific problem.

Best of luck in influencing your organization,
David

David Maxfield Influencer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Maxfield is coauthor of the New York Times bestseller, Influencer.

READ MORE

Dear Crucial Skills,

In reading Influencer, it’s clear the process starts with identifying the vital behaviors that drive the change you’re looking for. Having access to data that has pre-identified the correct vital behaviors for a given problem is of great use.

My challenge is to grow my sales very quickly. I am a one-man manufacturer’s rep organization that depends on full commission sales. I have a wealth of experience and have been successful working for others but this is my first entrepreneurial venture. The way I see it, there are vital behaviors I can influence on myself and the bigger challenge is changing vital behaviors of customers.

Any insight would be most appreciated.

Sincerely,
Entrepreneur

Dear Entrepreneur,

This is a great question. The Influencer approach asks you to invest everything in just a few behaviors and then employs influence strategies from the six sources of influence to improve these behaviors. Before I answer your question, I’ll review a few broad points.

What Makes a Behavior Vital?

There are many factors that can turn a behavior from “important” to “vital.” I’ll highlight three conditions:

Vital behaviors lead directly to results. An executive in Florida told me he knew the vital behavior for winning Dragon Boat races (a large outrigger canoe driven by 20 paddlers). When I asked about the behavior, he answered: “Paddling.” He explained that when racers debated about technique or strategy someone would inevitably shout, “Shut up and paddle!” and that’s when they’d win. Many vital behaviors are similarly obvious. They are the most direct route to the results you care about.

Vital behaviors break self-defeating patterns. Let’s look at the life cycle of the Guinea Worm. African villagers drink water infected with Guinea Worm larvae; the Guinea Worm hatch and grow inside them; after several months the worm emerges, causing excruciating pain; to lessen the pain, villagers soak their burning limbs in the water source and re-infect the water. A team from the Carter Center found the three vital behaviors that broke this self-defeating cycle: 1. Filter the water before drinking; 2. Don’t put infected limbs in the water source; and 3. Hold everyone accountable for these first two behaviors.

Vital behaviors cause many other positive behaviors to follow. Vital behaviors are often the most difficult to adopt. However, if you can get people to perform them, many other positive and easier behaviors follow. For example, when Mike Miller tried to build a culture of accountability at Sprint, he focused on just two vital behaviors: 1. Hold bosses accountable and 2. Hold peers accountable. He didn’t need to add “Hold subordinates accountable” because this behavior followed as a result of the vital behaviors.

How Do You Find the Vital Behaviors?

There are many strategies for finding and testing vital behaviors. Look for experts who have already identified and tested the behaviors. Look for positive deviants—people who are already succeeding at the behavior. Or, track your own successes and failures to determine what works for you.

Whatever the vital behaviors you choose, set a challenging goal and measure your improvement. In addition, track the results you care about. Analyze and adjust to fine tune the vital behaviors.

Answering the Question

I’ve used the “find the experts” method to identify vital behaviors related to your success as a manufacturers’ rep. Specifically, I searched the Internet for about an hour. I broke your task into two elements: 1) you are a first-time entrepreneur. There are behaviors that separate successful from less successful entrepreneurs. 2) You are a manufacturers’ rep—a unique job with unique behaviors.

Entrepreneurial Behaviors: I visited a credible site, Harvard Business Review, and entered the search terms: entrepreneur “manufacturers rep”.

One article popped up and it had a few nice rules of thumb:

• Use your own experience. 71% of entrepreneurs start ventures that solve problems the founders have grappled with personally.
• Take action quickly: Entrepreneurs don’t get bogged down in research or planning. They move quickly to action. They try simple and inexpensive solutions and adjust on the fly.
• It’s about hustle, not proprietary advantage. This isn’t always true, but it’s true for you. As a manufacturers’ rep you won’t have proprietary advantage, so your success depends largely on your hustle.

Though helpful, these points aren’t vital behaviors nor are they very specific to your job

Next, I went to Google Scholar and entered the search terms: “manufacturer’s rep” skills.

Most of the hits were academic articles that describe the economic reasons a manufacturing firm might choose to distribute its products through manufacturer’s reps. But I focused on a single article that seemed to point toward behaviors, The Independent Rep As A Source Of Competitive Advantage: An Actionable Scale For Rep Selection (Gruben and Coe, 2003). A few key points:

• Manufacturer’s reps are most commonly used to sell niche products that are simple and inexpensive within a fragmented marketplace. Often they sell commodities that are used in specialized applications.
• Suppliers contract with reps because of the reps’ extensive contacts and tight relationships with multiple customers. Commonly the customer has greater loyalty to the rep than to the supplier.
• A customer’s loyalty to their rep is not based on the products but the customer service. The article dissects the customer-service behaviors required of a manufacturers’ rep.

We are now getting close to vital behaviors. You need to: 1) Create a wide network of buyers; 2) Fill small-batch orders accurately and on a just-in-time basis, and 3) Provide excellent customer service.

Now if these are the three best practices, how have you grappled with them as a customer or employee? What are the problems you believe you can focus on solving? If it were me, here are the vital behaviors I would start with:

1. Build my network: Each week contact at least five viable potential customers for products I already represent.
2. Fill orders: Contact each of my customers at least once a week in a nonintrusive way to make sure I understand their current needs.
3. Customer service: Have face time with at least one important customer per week. Meet personally with each customer at least quarterly.

Summary

I researched the field; I read a few articles to find best practices; I examined myself to consider the obstacles and approaches I would take to act on the best practices; and finally, I would hustle to drive these behaviors through the roof, meanwhile tracking my sales to see if it’s working. I’d continue to analyze and adjust my vital behaviors, especially during the first few months, until I found what worked for me.

Best of luck,
David

David Maxfield Influencer