Six Sources of Influence
"It takes a combination of strategies aimed at a handful of vital behaviors to affect change in profound and persistent problems" (Influencer, pg. 76)
Influence masters increase their chances of success by targeting six specific sources of influence, which are personal motivation, personal ability, social motivation, social ability, structural motivation, and structural ability.
To help you identify the six sources linked to the problems you are facing, we've compiled the contemporary research of experts and practitioners.
Read their practical suggestions by clicking a category of interest below:
Read their practical suggestions by clicking a category of interest below:
Addiction
In his book, 7 Tools to Beat Addiction, Dr. Stanton Peele shows how to utilize the six sources of influence to overcome all types of addictive behavior, from using drugs and alcohol to gambling to shopping:
- Personal Motivation (Source 1) - Connect to or create anti-addictive values, such as: achievement, consciousness, activity, health, responsibility, self-respect, community.
- Personal Ability (Source 2) - Invest in anti-addictive skill building. These skills include: communication, problem solving, independence/being alone, managing negative emotions, resisting urges, relapse prevention.
- Social Motivation (Source 3) - Social factors can be utilized by addicts as a tool in these three ways: 1) Find people and groups that motivate and enable recovery. 2) Work with the significant others so they become a supportive force to reduce the pressures to succumb to addiction. 3) Play the same positive supporting role for others with addictions (i.e., spouse, friend, or others in a group).
- Social Ability (Source 4) - Put training participants together in teams. Team members meet together after training to discuss how they are using the skills to catch and solve problems early.
- Structural Motivation (Source 5) - Perhaps the strongest structural motivators that fight addiction are employment and work accomplishments. The motivation to progress in a profession can provide immense incentives to cease addictive behavior.
- Structural Ability (Source 6) - Environmental factors can often trigger addictive behaviors. Identify these factors and restructure life to avoid such triggers. Develop the skills (source 2) to healthily cope with environmental factors that can’t be changed.
Business
72 to 90 percent of major corporate projects fail. According to the Silence Fails study conducted by VitalSmarts and The Concours Group, project failure can be avoided if people will enact the vital behavior of holding “crucial conversations” around the five major contributors to project failure: Fact-free planning, AWOL sponsors, skirting, project chicken, and team failures. Harnessing the six sources of influence is essential to ensuring that these conversations are held. One successful intervention used the six sources of influence to implement Crucial Conversations, a training program that teaches participants to communicate in a more constructive manner.
- Personal Motivation (Source 1) - Connect Crucial Conversations skills to core values of individual employees and leaders—people generally want to become better communicators and be part of a team that produces high-quality results.
- Personal Ability (Source 2) - Train employees in Crucial Conversations skills, equipping them with the competence to approach even the most sensitive subjects.
- Social Motivation (Source 3) - Identify and engage opinion leaders in Crucial Conversations skills training. These influential people go through the training first, see its benefits, and begin spreading the word and engaging others. Rapid change in behavior happens when leaders up and down the “chain of command” are the ones delivering the training. Not only does it make the skill training more credible, but it also engages leaders far more deeply in the skills.
- Social Ability (Source 4) - Put training participants together in teams. Team members meet together after training to discuss how they are using the skills to catch and solve problems early.
- Structural Motivation (Source 5) - Tie mastery of the skills directly to performance reviews. Leaders’ bonuses depend in part on effective organization-wide diffusion of the program.
- Structural Ability (Source 6) - Hang posters that outline the skills in meeting rooms, print skill descriptions on meeting agendas, and relocate teams that struggle to communicate to be nearer to each other. Be sure leaders are easily accessible to hold crucial conversations about project problems. Ensure functional and cross-functional groups meet regularly in forums conducive to the five crucial conversations for flawless execution.
Education
According to Dr. Ethna Reid and the thousands of hours she and her colleagues have spent conducting best practice studies, there are eight vital teaching behaviors to ensure success among students. They are as follows:
- Reinforce correct responses and positive behavior
- Elicit rapid overt responses
- Closely monitor students’ responses
- Increase rate of responses among all students
- Expect learning mastery (83 to 100 percent accuracy)
- Reteach when students fail to learn
- Model for students during instruction
- Teach reading, writing, listening, and speaking in all fields
Criminal Rehabilitation
Dr. Mimi Silbert has worked miracles by applying all six sources of influence to the most resistant problems in the world—criminal lifestyles, gang culture, and lifetime drug addictions. She lined up every last source of influence to make change inevitable at Delancey Street:
- Personal Motivation (Source 1) - Dr. Silbert needs these long-term criminals to want to be honest and law abiding—to want to be the person they would once have labeled a sucker or a dope. Otherwise, she’d need a prison to keep them in line. She motivates residents by giving them real experience in an honest and law abiding world—the world of Delancey Street. It’s just a matter of time before they see for themselves that life as a responsible citizen is not so bad, in fact, it’s actually enjoyable. She links every lesson people learn to moral values to help them learn to cherish behavior they never thought important before.
- Personal Ability (Source 2) - She teaches everyone basic interpersonal skills from day one (like how to disagree with someone without slugging them), as well as many advanced trade skills. All leave with a GED or higher. This gives residents an alternative set of skills for survival. They no longer have to rely on dealing drugs or committing other crimes to make ends meet. Most importantly, they learn skills for communicating, solving problems and taking responsibility for other people.
- Social Motivation (Source 3) - Everyone at Delancey is surrounded 24/7 by other people who watch their every move, praise them liberally, and confront them when they’re getting into trouble. The norm at Delancey is “everyone confronts everyone about everything.”
- Social Ability (Source 4) - Everyone at Delancey is part of a team that gives teaching, guidance, and coaching – minute-by-minute. As a result, people are all showered with the advice, feedback, and help they need to rapidly develop productive life skills.
- Structural Motivation (Source 5) - The more you progress at Delancey, the better your circumstances. The most basic motivation at Delancey is eating. Dr. Silbert lays it out plainly: “Our lives are very simple. If we don’t learn to work, we don’t eat.” But there are other incentives too: better and more interesting jobs, more private lodging; freedom to explore the outside world; personal spending money; etc.
- Structural Ability (Source 6) - At Delancey, you are around people who help you make right choices, and far away from those who don’t. The design of the facility, your job, and the environment as a whole promote positive behavior.
Weight Loss
In his book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, Dr. Brian Wansink shows how we can marshal many of the six sources of influence to effectively lose weight:
- Personal Motivation (Source 1) - Food preferences are strongly connected to past experiences. If you eat healthy food during enjoyable experiences, you can rewire the idea of comfort foods.
- Personal Ability (Source 2) - According to Dr. Wansink, we make approximately two hundred food decisions a day. Harness the knowledge and skills that help identify how your environment affects your food decisions. This knowledge allows you to restructure your environment—so you “mindlessly” eat healthier.
- Social Motivation (Source 3) - Eating behavior is unconsciously affected by those eating around us. Studies show that “pacesetters” eating around us influence the rate and amount we eat. If they eat only one cookie, you’re more likely to eat only one. If they eat six, you’re more likely to eat six. So when eating in a group, sit next to people who tend to set a slower pace.
- Social Ability (Source 4) - Dr. Wansink found that 72 percent of food choices are made by the nutritional gatekeeper of the house—the person who most often purchases and prepares the food. Get the nutritional gatekeeper to make healthy food choices and more than half of your decisions are made for you.
- Structural Motivation (Source 5) - The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy reports that the cost of fruits and vegetables has increased 40 percent since 1985, while the cost of fats and sugars has declined. Such monetary incentives drive people towards eating unhealthily. Rearrange your food budget with this in mind.
- Structural Ability (Source 6) - If your bowl of chocolates is six feet away, you are 50 percent less likely to eat candy than if it’s in arm’s reach. If it’s not in the house, you probably won’t want it badly enough to go out and get it. If you set up your environment to work for you instead of against you, you don’t have to rely on willpower.
To find out more about the study conducted by The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, see:
1. J. Putnam, J. Allshouse, and L.S. Kantor, “U.S. Per Capita Food Supply Trends: More Calories, Refined Carbohydrates, and Fats,” FoodReview 25, no. 3, Winter 2002.
2. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, “Food Without Thought: How U.S. Farm Policy Contributes to Obesity,” November 2006.
