As I’ve begun my change journey and created a plan using the Change Anything model, the thing that has most impressed me has been how important it is to be a change scientist studying ourselves. Over the years, I’ve read books and attended many support groups that rely on the typical science to overcome sexual addictions. However, using the Change Anything model has really helped me figure out the ways in which I am different from the norm.

For example, people recommend those who struggle with sexual addiction should increase their time at the gym because it relieves tension. As I pondered my own crucial moments, I realized that for me, the gym creates crucial moments. There are a lot of beautiful people at the gym and watching those people not only fills me with a lot of sexual charge, but it also makes me feel depressed that I don’t look good. When I come home from the gym, I’m depressed and often binge eat. Next thing I know, I’m spending time on the computer indulging my addiction. I realized I needed to create vital behaviors to combat these moments such as making sure I don’t go home to an empty house after the gym. This was a breakthrough, because by standard addiction literature, the gym was supposed to help me, not create more temptation, right?

I’ve also been impressed at how much stronger this change plan is now that I’ve incorporated strategies in all six areas of influence. I feel like I’m really tackling my problem from all sides. In the past I’d set up structural barriers to avoid the problem and when I’d mess up, I’d blame my lack of personal motivation. I realize now that the barriers were nothing more than an extra challenge to jump over before diving into the behavior. This next week, I will write a journal entry visiting my default future and one describing the positive results I expect to achieve because of this change.

It was a little hard to come up with social influences as sexual addiction isn’t typically aired out in public in our society. But I’ve got a few friends who also struggle with these things and we’ve developed a google doc where we each report on our actions every day. I will also share my portion of this spreadsheet with my wife weekly (since it will be much more motivating to report to her than others who also slip up and are more forgiving). I also have a few acquaintances who would argue that the sexual behaviors I classify as harmful addictions are a wonderful part of life. I am not terribly close to any of these people, so I see no reason to remain their friend on social networking sites.

I’ve also set up structural rules to be more conscious of my internet habits. I’m going to try to log each time I get on my computer at home. I will write down my purpose for being on the computer and then report on how well I stuck to that purpose. It will be okay to have a purpose of browsing the internet as long as it is not at night and as long as there are other people around. Otherwise, browsing the internet will not be an acceptable reason to be on the computer.

These are just a few of the things I’ve learned as I’ve worked to create my change plan.

Meet the Change Anything Challengers, three people with common challenges who are looking to make big changes in 2011.

We met these changers when they shared their story with us in the Change Anything in 2011 Challenge. Each one has struggled for years to accomplish life goals, get the promotion they deserve, or feel healthy and beautiful. Motivated by their loved ones, career goals, and personal dreams, each has committed to share their journey of change with us.

Over the next three months they will apply the science of personal change from our new book, Change Anything, to their specific challenge. They will identify the crucial moments keeping them from their goal, determine the vital behaviors that will lead to their success, and develop a six-source plan for securing the change they’ve dreamed of for years. But first…

Meet Bobby. Bobby is a decorated army veteran who has served two combat tours of duty in Iraq. The one thing keeping him from being promoted to Major and continuing to serve his country is 50 extra pounds that he can’t seem to lose. Motivated by his wife and four children who depend on the benefits of his Army career, Bobby is looking to finally lose the weight and earn the promotion he deserves.

Meet Terri. Terri has struggled for the past 20 years with her weight. But after years of struggling, she is finally ready to change. Motivated by her two beautiful daughters who have come to her asking to have a “healthy mommy”, Terri is ready to achieve her goal of losing 50 pounds.

Meet Steve. For the past 5 years, Steve has been on the brink of earning his Master’s degree. While his course work is complete, the one thing standing in his way from getting his diploma is his thesis project. Due to an intense travel schedule, Steve’s thesis remains unfinished. His goal is to finish his thesis by October 31–making him better qualified for future promotions.

Help our changers accomplish their goals! Your comments can provide the social motivation they need to keep going.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Maxfield is coauthor of the bestselling book, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything. His second book, Change Anything, will be available April 2011.

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Dear Crucial Skills,

What should I do if I believe I have reached my “peak” in my company and professional growth is stagnant? I posed this question to HR and managers only to receive dull feedback, which makes me feel they have no ideas or suggestions. I suggested I earn another bachelor’s degree in a field we need, but the tuition assistance program only permits me to take classes directly related to my current position. I have my letter of resignation ready to go and am simply waiting for the job market to improve, but I hate to start over again and prefer to avoid it if possible. What should I do?

Needing Growth

Thanks for your question. Many people are in your position—often without even knowing it. Their careers have stagnated and their jobs may even be at risk. This is a tough situation, but there are actions anyone can take to regain control of a stalled career.

We studied this question while writing our upcoming book Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success. We went into organizations and asked people: “If you were facing a really tough problem at work, and had time to get input from someone in your work group, who would you go to for the best, most trustworthy advice? You can name up to three people.” We found there was a lot of consensus on who these people were. We got what statisticians call a “power curve.” Half the people weren’t named by any of their peers; however, about ten percent were named by nearly half of their peers and were recognized by everyone as the “go to” people. Not surprisingly, managers also named them as the most promotable.

When we look closely at these highly valued individuals—across a wide range of organizations—we learn they share the same three characteristics:

1.  Know Your Stuff. These promotable people are top performers at their current jobs, and put in regular effort to stay on top. If they are software developers then they are among the most skilled at writing code. If they are salespeople then they are among the most skilled at closing sales. They work hard to keep current and hone their craft.

2. Focus on the Right Stuff. Top performers seek out the problems that have the greatest strategic importance to their team, their manager, and their organization—and find ways to contribute in these areas. How do they get to these mission-critical assignments? First, they are intensely interested in understanding their teams’, managers’, and organizations’ priorities, and the challenges these priorities entail. Second, they equip themselves to make their best and highest contribution to addressing these challenges. They work on themselves, their skill set, and their access to critical tasks.

3. Build a Reputation for Being Helpful. Top performers are networkers. But their networks aren’t just a collection of business cards and friends. These promotable people use their expertise and time to develop a reputation for being helpful. They become widely known and respected by others because they help others solve their problems.

With this as a backdrop, consider what you can do to position yourself for career growth inside your organization, or potentially in a different organization. Begin with an honest, steely-eyed assessment of where you stand on the three characteristics of highly valued employees. Do you have a reputation for knowing your stuff, focusing on the right stuff, and being helpful?

Second, work to improve your reputation in these areas. Begin by asking some questions that are a bit different from “what are my career opportunities here?” Instead, get some informal time with the leaders and peers you respect most, and ask them about the most important priorities they see, the most critical challenges they face, and the best way you can help them achieve their goals. There is nothing wrong with asking about career opportunities, but those questions haven’t yielded the results you want. So, try asking questions that will help you build your reputation.

As you discover key priorities and challenges, you may learn you need to skill up, but it’s doubtful you need another bachelor’s degree. It’s more likely a few classes, a certification, or a volunteer assignment will get you the skills and experience you need. For example, if you are trying to get into a project management or supervisory role, can you find a well-known nonprofit organization in the community that would have a specific short-term project you could assist them with in the evenings or on the weekends? You could then add these classes, training certifications, and experiences to your resume and include the people you worked for as references.

These suggestions require that you don’t allow yourself to be limited to what your organization is willing to sponsor. Instead, you may need to invest your own resources and time outside of work in the short-term to achieve your long-term goals. I also want to emphasize the importance of maintaining strong relationships with HR and your management team. You don’t want to have the reputation of a dissatisfied employee—a complainer. That would undercut the very reputation you are trying to build.

I wish you the very best in your career development and agree with your point that the current job market presents obvious challenges for everyone—hopefully short-term challenges.

David

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joseph Grenny is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations. His fourth book, Change Anything, will be available April 2011.

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Dear Crucial Skills,

It’s my job to influence the people in our company to improve quality—both of incoming raw material and of our outgoing products—and it’s hard.

We’ve got all the “head” stuff right—technical expertise and good quality tools—but we don’t have the heart. And to make it even more difficult, the people I need to influence don’t report to me and are too busy meeting other goals. So I can’t get them to commit to our quality goals—or worse, they commit with their mouths but then don’t deliver. Please help!

Signed,
Sick of Sigma

This is a classic influence problem. And most companies never see it that way.

During the 80s, my partners and I worked with many of the storied U.S. manufacturers who lost their way because of poor quality. We saw stark differences in those who developed a true culture of quality and those who simply went through the motions. Much of that experience informed our writing of Influencer: The Power to Change Anything. Our hope in writing that book was to help leaders become conscious of the fact that leadership is skillful influence. It is the fundamental work of leaders to influence the behavior of people in an organization (it is not the role of HR, the quality department, the ethics department, etc.). And sadly, far too few leaders 1) realize this is their job or 2) have the skill to do so.

So congratulations on the fact that you don’t suffer from problem #1! However, it sounds as though your organization may have a chronic case of problem #2.

Few leaders have an articulated and systematic way of thinking about the insightful question you raise—how do I influence the behavior of a handful, a few hundred, or many thousands of people?

So let me frame your challenge in this way: your job is to influence the influencers. Your job is not, as you said above, to influence the people in your company. You can assist leaders in doing this, but attempting to do it yourself will only lead to frustration and failure.

Here are some suggestions for influencing the influencers:

Help leaders make a connection. Most leaders don’t care about influencing behavior because they don’t see its relevance to results. We’ve worked with some pretty cynical leaders over the years who dismiss influence work as “soft stuff,” but that attitude changes the instant they come to see a connection between behavior and the results they are sworn to achieve.

Too often, those of us who try to influence these influencers make vague arguments about empowerment, teamwork, trust and so forth that require leaders to make a leap of faith in some philosophical argument in order to engage in leading change. That leap isn’t necessary when they can see how concrete, specific, and measurable behaviors are the root of their frustrations.

For example, in one large manufacturing area we found an executive who was a little more accessible than others and we asked him to join us in interviews with the five departments in his factory that consistently produced the highest quality output as well as five average teams. We conducted hour-long focus groups in each of these teams to elicit the behaviors the team thought were helping or not helping.

At the conclusion, it was clear to this executive that one of the most damaging behaviors in the mediocre teams (and even more so in the poor performing teams) was a lack of peer accountability. He heard story after story of peers witnessing others shipping poor quality goods or skipping quality processes without so much as raising a finger, let alone a concern, and left a zealot about changing this behavior. Once he saw the connection between concrete “vital behaviors” and his critical results, he was spurred into action.

Focus on results. Your job is to help leaders see the connection between behavior and results. If you do this right, your senior leaders will begin to realize you have “mutual purpose.” They’ll see you aren’t just nagging them about quality, but that your interest is in improving results overall. Never let yourself get pigeonholed into a smaller agenda than that of the larger enterprise or you’ll lose influence with those you most need to engage. Always present your proposals in a way that demonstrates how your entire motivation aligns with that of your senior leadership team.

Influence with data. So let’s say you’re trying to involve some more accessible leaders in exploring the relationship between behavior and results—and they aren’t biting. You’re framing everything you present in terms of enterprise interests—and it’s still not working. You don’t have the formal authority to compel anyone to pay attention to your objectives. What can you do?

The best strategy you can use is to influence with data. Leaders’ mental agenda is set by the “data stream” they live within. The kinds of reports, measures, and indices served up to them regularly determine what they think about. That’s why leaders appear to have different “values” than frontline workers. Those on the front line accuse leaders of only caring about the bottom line, while those at the top can sneer at the frontline workers who don’t see the “big picture.” This predictable conflict doesn’t happen because DNA is different at the top than at the bottom. The problem isn’t one of IQ or values. It’s one of data. Senior leaders receive a steady stream of enterprise level data. Those on the front line are influenced by data about product, schedules, rework, or other in-the-trenches concerns. So if you want to change someone’s mental agenda, change the mix of data they receive.

One of the best examples of influencing without authority I’ve seen was led by Donald Hopkins—a brilliant but humble MD who wanted to get the attention of heads of state in twenty countries in order to eradicate Guinea worm disease. Most of these leaders didn’t care a whit about the Guinea worm because it was a rural disease. These leaders saw, thought, and cared most about urban issues—where the bulk of their populations lived. So Hopkins had to get their attention. He started by developing a nationwide measure of Guinea worm infections. When it appeared to be one villager here and another there, the scale was hidden. But when the president of Nigeria, for example, saw that there were 3.5 million infections each year in his country. He began to sit up. Then when he saw that his country was doing worse at addressing this than neighboring countries, he began to lean forward. From there, Hopkins was able to suggest ways he could influence change and remove this awful scourge.

I hope some of these ideas are useful as your work to influence your influencers. Your role is crucial in your organization—and influence is your primary skill set!

Best wishes,
Joseph

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joseph Grenny is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.

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Dear Crucial Skills,

Help! I am the wife of a hoarder. My husband buys and keeps everything. He has a hobby room, garage, and a rented storage unit full of stuff, including twenty-year-old key chains from vendor booths, console TVs from the 1970s, empty boxes, old magazines, plastic silverware, and anything others don’t want or need. It is in no particular order and the spaces are chaotic and embarrassing to the rest of the family. His space at work is in the same condition!

I spoke to him about cleaning up, sorting through, and getting rid of unnecessary items with no success. Do you have any advice on how to approach this?

Signed,
Stuffed Full

Yes, I have advice!

Before I start, please note that my response won’t give you specifics on dealing with hoarding—which is a psychological problem with its own characteristics and about which I am not an expert. I hope some of what I’ve written helps you think about the common challenge every reader of this newsletter faces—the challenge of influencing those we love to change habits that are far larger than a crucial conversation.

This is not a Crucial Conversations issue, it’s an influence problem.

Crucial conversations are great at influencing change when all it takes to change is surfacing an issue and providing straightforward advice and accountability. We have spent twenty-five years studying and writing about these methods because they are often the simplest step forward and the step people are most reluctant and incapable of taking.

But sometimes the behavior won’t yield to a ten-minute conversation and a bit of follow up. For example, a dear friend recently suffered his third heart attack. After his first, his doctor counseled him to change his eating habits, exercise more, and take blood pressure medication. Terrified of the heart attack, he complied with this advice. For a while. But within a few months, he was eating cheesy burritos, channel surfing, and failing to take his medication. Then came the second heart attack. And the second recommitment to changing his behavior. And the second descent into old ways. And so on.

As all this happened, his children and wife had many crucial conversations with him—pleading with him to change, reminding him of how they had almost lost him. But the more they tried to help, the more resentful he became. They became nags, and rather than influence change, they provoked his resistance to change.

When we treat an influence problem as a crucial conversation, we not only fail to produce change, we can (with all the best intentions in the world) become nags in the process. Perhaps you haven’t crossed the “nag” line yet, but if you continue down this path, it is most likely coming!

So how do you escape this trap?

Recognize the size of the problem. The problem is not only that your husband lacks the will to change. The problem is that he is blind and outnumbered. And so are you! He’s blind to how many sources of influence are sustaining his hoarding habit. And he’s outnumbered because there are far more sources working against him than for him.

We often think overcoming a habit like hoarding is just about personal motivation (The first source of influence), but it’s not. It’s also about personal ability (the second source of influence). Your husband likely has powerful impulses that drive him toward this behavior and lacks the skills he needs to retrain those impulses. He needs coaching and mentoring—and maybe even professional help—not just encouragement. If you try to motivate someone who is unable, the result is not change but depression. If you want to help him increase his ability to change, you’ll need to identify the strategies people use to successfully escape hoarding.

Please note that this is an example of just one of the six sources of influence that are likely at play here. Make a study of the six sources of influence and reflect on which are part of the problem. Our forthcoming book, Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success, will be a useful tool in helping you explore all six sources in the context of personal change.

Control your own behavior. The most powerful human impulse is the need for control. People resist any attempt to constrain or force their behavior. Untold millions have gone to war and given their lives rather than submit to tyranny. We do the same, even when defending our autonomy to behave badly.

If you want to increase your influence, give up any desire to control your husband’s behavior. In fact, the first question you should ask yourself is, “How can I prepare myself for this behavior to continue forever?” You need to get to the point that you decide how you will control your own choices without centering your life on his choices. If, in the extreme case, you would prefer to live without him rather than with his hoarding, you need to be clear on that. If you can cope with the hoarding and would prefer to continue the marriage, lovingly, maturely, and respectfully set boundaries to make it work. Don’t “use” these boundaries as a way to manipulate him.

Help him motivate himself. The most common question we’re asked by those trying to influence a loved one is, “How can I help them want to change?” When it comes to personal change, the answer is, you can’t. However, you can influence their personal motivation in two ways:

Stop standing between him and consequences. Direct experience is life’s great teacher, but we often undermine people’s motivation to change by standing between them and the natural consequences they would otherwise feel. For example, a drug addict who is financially supported by those who want him to change is protected from the financial misery that might help him connect his choices with consequences he doesn’t like. The first thing you and your family can do is examine the ways in which you enable your husband’s actions by not letting him experience the natural consequences of this habit. If you are doing this, find a healthy way to change. If the change will be jarring to your husband, be sure to have a crucial conversation to help him understand what you will change and why.

Help him find his own reasons to change. With most bad habits, people have moments of clarity. Moments when we feel a desire to change. Skillful influencers can help others extend the potency of these moments by reacting with a motivational interview rather than a motivational speech. A motivational interview is a simple, structured way to help others explore and crystallize their own reasons to change and plan for doing so rather than taking control and forcing our own agenda on them. How you react during small moments of motivation can either help others capitalize on them or overpower them with your own well-intended but overwhelming motivations.

Again, I am not an expert on hoarding, nor is this a complete plan for change. However, I hope some of these insights help in the challenge of influencing a loved one to change potentially destructive behavior.

Best wishes—and please let me know what you learn about influence in the coming months and years.

Joseph

Our research shows nine out of ten people who are skilled at holding crucial conversations enjoy their family gatherings—despite the unruly behavior of their relatives.

So to kick off the festivities, our award-winning video team presents Holiday Spice: Relatively Speaking . . .

Share with your friends:

Follow these four recommendations for talking to unruly relatives about their bad behavior so you can strengthen relationships and enjoy your family gatherings:

Work on me first. How you see your relatives determines how you treat them. To soften judgments, ask yourself, “Why would a reasonable, rational and decent person do what they’re doing?” For example, do you see your Uncle Fester with a poor driving record as criminally irresponsible or as harried and in need of help?

Make it safe. When confronting bad behavior, first help the other person know you care about his or her interests. For example, if Uncle Fester is coming down with the flu and kissing everyone he greets, begin with, “Uncle Fester, it wouldn’t be a holiday if I didn’t get a hug. I’m glad you’re so affectionate and warm to all of us, but . . . .”

Just the facts. Start with the facts and strip out accusatory, judgmental and inflammatory language. “Uncle Fester, I notice you are sick. And I noticed you’ve been double-dipping your chips in the bowl . . . .”

Tentatively share concerns. Having laid out the facts, tell the person why you’re concerned, but don’t do it as an accusation—share it as an opinion. “My concern is that with all of us in such close proximity, we’re all going to come down with the flu. I know you don’t want that either.”

Invite dialogue. After sharing your concerns, encourage the other person to share his—even if he disagrees with you. One of the best ways to persuade others is to listen to them. “So Uncle Fester, is there a way we can get your warmth and love without getting more than you mean to give? Or am I seeing this wrong?”

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,

After working as chair of a small committee in my department for more than a year, my boss told me I must step down because the committee finds my leadership “chaotic.” I am concerned that this is indicative of my inability to lead. I chaired the committee years back and was relieved of command without a full explanation, and I have served on several committees without being asked to chair. My question is two-fold. First, can leadership be learned or is it a trait people are born with? Second, what should I do to regain the trust of my department—I’d like to be a leader.

Lacking Leadership Skills

Good for you for turning this unfortunate situation into an opportunity for personal development. Too many people in your shoes become defensive, angry, or depressed.

Is leadership a trait? No! You don’t have to change your genes or revisit your early upbringing. Rather, leadership is a bundle of skills, and now is the perfect time for you to master them.

Begin with a skill scan. Consider the different skills that are required to lead committees, and determine where to begin. You already have some clues. Your boss says the committee finds your leadership “chaotic.” Learn more about what that means. Find someone who will share tough truths with you, and get concrete examples of when your behavior caused others to draw that conclusion.

Chances are you need to build your skills in one or two of the competencies involved in leading a committee. Here are the areas I’d consider:

Project Management Skills: Committees are formed to accomplish objectives. The committee leader is expected to manage the overall process of achieving these objectives. Up front, you work with the committee’s stakeholders to define the project. Then, during the project, you work with team members to keep the project on time, on spec, and on budget. Maybe “chaotic” means you aren’t doing enough between meetings to keep the project on course.

Meeting Management Skills: The committee leader usually leads the committee’s meetings. Meeting leaders make sure the right people are at the meeting, they come prepared, and they make sure the meeting starts and ends on time, the agenda is clear, and decisions and next steps are documented. Maybe “chaotic” means people find the meetings confusing or unhelpful.

Dialogue Skills: The committee leader is expected to foster open dialogue and to help resolve disagreements. Do your committees get bogged down in disputes? Do you see silence and violence instead of honest and frank discussion? Maybe “chaotic” means people see dithering, debate, and denial where they want dialogue.

Political Skills: The committee leader is expected to maintain strong communication links to the customers and stakeholders who are sponsoring the committee. The leader keeps everyone updated on progress and changing needs. Maybe “chaotic” means people feel blindsided by changes that come from outside the committee.

Build the skills, using deliberate practice: Listen to others’ specific feedback. Select the area where you are weakest, and then build your skills. Read books and articles, or take a workshop. Even better, find a colleague who is a good leader and ask for coaching.

Then begin your deliberate practice. Volunteer for an assignment that requires you to use your new skills, but don’t practice at work. Find a community or volunteer assignment where you can build your skills.

A warning: Maybe your boss isn’t being completely direct with you. Maybe his or her real desire is to have you spend less time working on committees and more time working on another assignment. Ask yourself whether leading a committee is the best way for you to contribute. If it isn’t, then consider focusing on an area that makes you more valuable.

Finally, if a leadership opportunity presents itself in the near future, don’t pursue it. New skills require an investment of time. So does regaining trust. Don’t rush back into a committee chair position until you and your organization are ready.

David

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joseph Grenny is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.

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Dear Crucial Skills,

Our company is going through tough times in the midst of the current financial downturn. We are not downsizing but have been instructed to cut expenses, work more efficiently, and basically do more with less. We have implemented many initiatives—including staffing to workload, reducing overtime, and purchasing more efficiently. All of these initiatives have caused a decrease in employee morale and management is now seen as the enemy.

We have tried to communicate the reasons we are making these changes—including trying to avoid layoffs—yet the anger and overall unhappiness continues. What more can we do?

Signed,
Misunderstood

First of all, let me set your mind at ease that you are normal. And your employees are normal. And that’s the problem.

There’s nothing more normal than resenting those whose decisions create pain or disappointment for you. In fact, that very instinct has been key to the survival of our species for millennia. Evolutionary biologists explain that the human tendency to rationalize our pain by blaming others is inherited from a time when our survival was dependent on being suspicious of those around us. When you and I meet a stranger for the first time, we are hard wired to assess two things: 1) Do they mean me harm? and 2) Are they capable of carrying it out? By perpetually scanning our environment for threats, we live to enjoy another day.

However, in the last couple of hundred years, this tendency became very maladaptive. In complex organizational life, our knee-jerk tendency to assign bad motives to those who inconvenience us creates rampant mistrust, dysfunctional conflict, and as you point out, resentful disengagement. All of that is a long way of saying, welcome to the human race.

It’s also a way of leading to my main point: overcoming this natural tendency requires extraordinarily skillful influence—the kind few leaders practice. Most leaders harbor a naïve hope that a few PowerPoint slides and a perky e-mail or two will overcome this massive genetic inertia toward the negative. Fat chance.

Your only hope—as we describe in Influencer—is to change how you change minds. Here’s how.

1. Discard verbal persuasion. Most of our influence attempts in these circumstances value efficiency over effectiveness. We hope that if we simply reason with people and share logical information they will see the wisdom of our decisions. Give it up. That’s just not going to happen. When you cut costs by reducing people’s overtime, decreasing their discretion and forcing them into unfamiliar tasks, they’re going to want someone to blame. And there is a short list of suspects. You can’t talk them out of conclusions they are hard wired to draw.

2. Create an experience. Your hope lies in engaging your employees in the problem before you present a solution. Before they will appreciate the insoluble tradeoffs you faced as you tried to make humane decisions, you’ll have to put them in the exact emotional and intellectual position you were in and give them the opportunity to mentally appreciate the predicament. And this isn’t the work of a five-minute announcement. You need to set up the problem, involve them in struggling to find solutions, help them confront their simplistic tendencies, then agonize all over again about additional options.

For example, I worked with a large aerospace company that had to make drastic changes in benefits in order to remain competitive. The leaders knew the decisions would be unpopular but wanted to help people understand they did not make the decision exclusively on behalf of shareholder interests. So they gathered groups of opinion leaders from across the company and treated them to the same agonizing set of tradeoffs they had faced. At the end of these three-hour sessions, they asked the group to make a recommendation that satisfied all the criteria the leaders had to address. Every one of the opinion leader sessions ended with a highly split vote about what to do. After a half dozen of these sessions, the story went out through the grapevine that “This was a really tough decision and our leaders did their best to get it right for us and all our stakeholders.” There was hardly a complaint when the tough changes came down—because key employees were not given a lecture, they were given an experience.

If you want to create understanding, you need to create the problem in people’s minds before you present the solution. They need to experience it, own it, play with alternatives, then feel the weight of balancing the tough tradeoffs.

Now let me be clear, I am not suggesting that leaders abdicate decision making. I am not attempting to describe a process for democratic deliberation in organizations that must make fast-paced decisions. The process used at the aerospace company gave employees an opportunity to critique a decision that was already made. If leaders had the time, they might have used this as a consultative process as well as to give them input. But in the end, they would have still made the call.

I applaud your efforts to analyze what you have done well and what you could improve. It is clear that you have a deep concern about the welfare and sentiments of your team. I’m confident that, with continued reflection, you’ll increase your influence for good.

Warmly,
Joseph

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joseph Grenny is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.

READ MORE

Dear Crucial Skills,

I was recently asked to lead an effort to implement job rotation in our organization. The problem is that the team I’ve been asked to lead thinks it’s a dumb idea. They are focused on their own jobs and have no interest in cross-training and rotation. How am I supposed to lead change when those leading with me don’t see the value?

Signed,
Changeless

Be careful!

As I read your question I worried that you might make the same mistake many leaders make when dealing with resistance. The mistake is to commit the fundamental attribution error. That’s the gaffe of assuming people’s resistance is simply a function of their bad attitudes, lack of commitment, or plain and simple orneriness. When you characterize them as simply “focused on their own jobs,” I worry that you’re chalking them up as “narrow minded.” While this assumption may be true, it may also be wrong.

If you draw this conclusion, then you might be tempted to either write your team members off, or to use compulsion to bring about change (i.e., let them know “the boss expects us to do this”). While there are times when it’s wise to invoke authority, it’s by no means the best way to influence change and invite commitment.

The key to leading change is to first understand the sources of influence working against your desired results.

I’ll give a few examples from the six sources of influence we describe in Influencer:

1. It could be that your teammates aren’t interested because they worry they won’t find the new work interesting (a personal motivation problem).
2. It could be that they worry they won’t be as good at the new roles as they are in their current roles (a personal ability problem).
3. They may also be getting pressure from colleagues who think it’s a dumb idea (a social motivation problem).
4. Maybe they are stressed about the new team assignment because it’s being piled on to their existing workload—no one is giving them backup (a social ability problem).

I could go on, but the point is it would be wise for you to take a couple of team members to lunch one-on-one and ask about their feelings and concerns. You may not identify all of the sources of influence that are actually impeding progress, but if you listen with all six sources in mind you’ll likely walk away with a much better idea of the real reason behind their resistance.

With that said, let me suggest a couple of specific ideas:

1.  If they just aren’t personally motivated, take a field trip. Usually, when people aren’t responding, leaders pile on more verbal persuasion to talk people into seeing the wisdom of change. They use logic, reason, and even a bit of pressure—which works less the more you use it.

What leaders fail to consider is that the less-than-motivated would probably respond to the same kind of influence that convinced them change was necessary in the first place—direct experience. Too often, leaders forget how they became convinced of the need for change—which was rarely because someone talked them into it.

Here’s how leaders get motivated: they talk to a colleague, or read an article and get a brilliant idea they think would be fabulous for their company. Say, for example, having everyone wear propeller hats. Chances are they saw this new idea in action and got to touch, taste, and smell the hidden benefits of propeller hats. When visiting their buddy’s company, they saw with their own eyes that everyone wearing propeller hats increased productivity 1,000%. This direct experience persuades the leaders completely. As a result, they return to their company and simply throw words at people expecting them to think and feel the same way they do. “Hey, let’s put in an order for propeller hats for everyone!” The leaders’ words fall on deaf ears. Others think it’s a stupid idea, or one that “won’t work here.” They even grumble that this new idea is simply the “hat of the month.”

So, it would be wise for you to slow down a little and let your team meet with people from organizations that are further down the road on job rotations. Let them ask tough questions. Let them talk with people from these organizations who were skeptical in advance. Let them live there for a day or two. Whatever it takes—the investment of time in helping them arrive at their own conclusions up front will pay huge dividends in their engagement later.

2.  Ability gaps are often disguised as a lack of motivation. Often, when you’re asking people to venture into unknown territory they act reluctant. But more often than not, they don’t want to go because they worry that despite their best efforts, they can’t succeed. Or, they worry it will be uncomfortable to attempt change. Adding compulsion won’t deal with their concerns. However, adding to their ability to succeed will.

In your situation, you could add to your teammates’ ability by arranging a single-day experiment. Design an experience that helps them gain a new job-rotation skill so they can see that they are able to handle rotations. Also, when you get into the guts of your influence strategy, be sure to invest a huge amount in coaching, training, and deliberate practice to address ability concerns.

3.  Don’t keep Influencer to yourself. Finally, share the six-source model with your team. As you teach them about this way of looking at change, you’ll free them up to diagnose barriers more effectively with you. You’ll also make it safe for them to speak up about various barriers they might have thought were undiscussable. Reading the book together—or, dare I say it—going through the training together, is a powerful way to ensure the success of your effort.

Teach the Influencer model to the team and include them in good diagnosis and design.

Best wishes in your influence efforts!
Joseph

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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Dear Crucial Skills,

We’ve been through Crucial Conversations Training, have returned back to work, and aren’t changing all that much. Everyone liked the ideas and wanted to do something new, but we haven’t been very good at transferring what we learned in training to how we behave at work. What can we do to kick-start our interest and actually change how we behave at work?

Stumped

Dear Stumped,

The problem you suggest is common to everyone who has ever had a new aspiration. You finish a training program, set down a book, or walk away from a lecture or sermon—fired up with good intentions to embrace what you just learned. But then you get back to work and are faced with eighty new e-mails waiting for you, a boss who is on your case about a project you let slide, and your coworkers who want you to join a new action team. You’ll have to implement what you learned at training sometime early next week, once you get caught up.

As the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months, you envision the decay curve from your introductory psychology class associated with embracing new concepts. It’s not one of those slightly sloping lines you might see when tracking, say, weight loss. No, the nasty decay curve that plots changes in behavior against time is really more like a decay cliff. With each day that passes without making some kind of change, the likelihood of doing anything new drops precipitously. As the days pass, good intentions transform into apathy, apathy into old habits, and old habits into guilt.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can implement new techniques that support the changes you’d like to make. Here are six tools (following the model we use in Influencer) for transforming good intentions into behavioral changes.

1. Value Links. There are probably at least two reasons you wanted to embrace what you learned in training. First, you believe implementing the skills will make your life better. You also want to be the kind of person who speaks honestly and effectively. You want to work in a company where people replace back-biting with honest dialogue. These are some of the values that go with learning and implementing the skills. Keep these values in mind. Talk with your colleagues not just about the training content, but also the underlying values. As you link behavior changes to the qualities you care about, you increase the likelihood that you’ll actually implement what you learned.

2. Advanced Learning. Most training sessions are intended to start you on a path of learning. Crucial Conversations Training is no different. At the end of the formal training, kick-start your informal and extended learning. Assign your work group to study one of the chapters from the book. Meet and review what you studied. Discuss how it applies to you and your work group. Continue through the end of the book. In addition, ask your HR manager or trainer to conduct a follow-up training session where you review Crucial Conversations concepts, discuss applications, hone skills, and otherwise continue to advance your learning.

3. Contract with the Boss. As the training comes to an end, meet with your boss and lay out a plan for implementing what you learned. Make it clear that you want to bring the skills back to work where they can do some good. Review the skills you think will help you the most, discuss them candidly with your boss, and then tie them into your formal performance review. You might as well get credit for making personal changes and adding to your skill repertoire.

4. Maintenance Crews. Find one or two other people who have been through the training and form a “maintenance crew.” Meet monthly and work to maintain and improve the concepts and skills you learned during the training. Discuss common problems, jointly settle on how you can use the skills, and then practice the conversations. Take turns practicing each skill with real problems you face and don’t forget to give each other candid feedback and specific coaching. By practicing in a safe setting and receiving honest feedback and advice, you can improve your skills in a risk-free environment while preparing to deal with real problems at work.

5. Rewards. Ask your boss or HR manager if it would be okay to reward people who practice the new skills they’ve learned. Make the reward simple and then ask people to report their attempts at holding crucial conversations. People shouldn’t share the names of others involved in the crucial conversation (respecting privacy), but should write a short report of the skill they tried, what happened, and if necessary, what they might do different next time. Then, based on hitting a certain target number of attempted crucial conversations, celebrate efforts with small rewards.

6. Agenda and Reminders. If you care about something, you talk about it, and if you want to hard wire the conversation about high-stakes conversations, add it to your agenda. In each team meeting, openly share what you’re doing, what’s working, what isn’t, and any corrections you are making. Post the Crucial Conversations model on your office wall. Also place a copy in your meeting rooms. Use the model as a reminder of what to do and how to do it. Use the model when discussing your experience as a team.

Use any of these suggested follow-up tactics in combination, and the chances you’ll continue to practice and master the skills increase. Use four or more methods, and the likelihood you’ll transfer the skills from the training room to your work increases tenfold.

Kerry