[MUSIC] In our last video we learned about the sources of power, in this video we'll learn some ways we can use our power to influence others. According to the authors of influencer, the new science of leading change, influencers do three things better than others. One, they are clearer about the results they want to achieve and how they will measure them. Two, they focus on a small number of vital behaviors that will help them achieve those results. And three, they over determined change by amassing six sources of influence that both motivate and enable the vital behaviors. You learned the first two in coaching. Let's look at the third, amassing six sources of influence. What motivates the person you are trying to influence? The influencer author said that when you're providing reasons to do something, use reasons that are aligned with that person's motivators. You might have a great idea that will lead to customer retention and need leadership's approval to implement it. But you find that your leaders are more concerned about saving money and may not want to invest in your idea. You will get more traction in influencing leadership to adopt your ideas by focusing on how higher customer retention will save money in the long term. Do the people you are trying to influence, have the ability to implement the change that is? Do they have the skills or knowledge by social motivation? They mean find the influencers and enlist their help in promoting your idea. I once was able to influence a senior leader to invest in an idea by asking people in my network who had a good relationship with that leader, to casually mention the idea whenever meeting with him. Eventually, he came to me with a request to implement my idea. By social ability, they mean find allies and work together to influence others. By structural motivation, they mean design the organizational structure and policies, the rewards, the span of accountability people have that align with the things desired. One company I know of trying to get everyone to work together on a new product design. The production, marketing and sales employees were evaluated and rewarded for producing and selling existing products. It was very obvious, why none would take the time needed to work on that new product and finally. By structural ability they mean design the environment to support the behavior you seek. I had a client that wanted its warehouse personnel to be faster at collecting products from the shelves. When I asked the warehouse manager what he thought was in the way of that, he replied, the employees who work here are lazy, they just want to talk to each other all day, worse, they leave boxes all over the floor. It just slows down the next person who needs merchandise from those boxes because they're no longer wear the inventory records, say they'll be. When someone tells me another person is lazy, a little red flag goes up in my head. Few people are characterological lazy, if they are behaving lazily, there might be something leading them to that behavior or preventing more energetic behavior. So, the next day I showed up in Jeans and a sweatshirt and asked to be put to work collecting merchandise from the warehouse shelf. The manager handed me a pick list, the list of items I was defined and gave me two hours before the break, at which time I needed to be done with the list. They gave me the shortest list by the way. Yet pretty quickly, the problems were obvious, merchandise was stored in boxes on shelves that went from the floor to about eight ft high. I am short but even if I was tall, I would have a hard time getting to at least some of the merchandise. I went hunting for a letter and found three in the far corner of the 100,000 square foot warehouse. Took me a while to find them, so I was quite relieved. Unfortunately, as soon as I tried to roll one way, I was stopped by the shift supervisor. I lacked the certification required to use the rolling ladder, okay, can I get a standing ladder? None were available and he had no idea where they might be. Can I get someone with certification to bring the rolling ladder where I need it? We only have three people with that certification and they're all busy. Well, you know what I did, don't you? Without any other way to get to merchandise on the higher shells, I had no choice but to climb up. Also against safety regulations, it was difficult to see inside the boxes from that angle. So, often I had to bring the box down to the floor and then I had to decide, do I drag this box all the way back up and miss completing my pick list on time? Do I even have the coordination to climb while carrying the box? Yeah, you know, some of those boxes stayed on the floor and you know, I did not make my deadline. Most of the employees were around my height and it is highly unlikely that any were lazy, none had the resources to get the job done. And I might add that majority spoke English as a second language and the manager had disallowed them from using another language while in the warehouse. Making it all the harder to enable them to ask for help, to work together to get boxes up and down or to get training needed for rolling ladders certification. Before I arrived, the managers plan to get people to work faster and to put the boxes where they belonged, was to implement a three strikes you're out policy. With that plan, he would have had to fire half the warehouse team, change the layout, change the rules, change the structure, don't assume the only answer is to change the people
