Book Extract

Enlist social support

Rogers’s discovery offers enormous leverage to leaders, parents, and the general population alike. When it comes to creating change, you no longer have to worry about influencing everyone at once. If you preside over a company with 10,000 employees, your job is to find the 500 or so opinion leaders who are the key to everyone else. Spend disproportionate time with them. Listen to their concerns. Build trust with them. Be open to their ideas. Rely on them to share your ideas, and you will gain a source of influence unlike any other.

You don’t get to decide whether or not you engage the help of opinion leaders. By definition, they will always be engaged. They always observe and judge your influence strategy—that’s what they do. Then they will give your ideas either a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. And since they are respected and connected, they will exert their widely felt influence and decide the destiny of your influence strategy—whether you like it or not.

If you are interested in engaging opinion leaders in your own change efforts, the good news is that finding them is quite easy. Since opinion leaders are employees who are most admired and connected to others in the organization, simply ask people to make a list of the employees who they believe are the most influential and respected. Then gather the lists and identify those whose are named most frequently (typically ten or more times). These are the opinion leaders. Once you know who they are, enlist them and partner with them in your efforts to institute change.

The influence game

On a more personal note, if you are trying to change something within your own life, co-opt the power of those who have an influence on you. If it’s true that we will electrocute a stranger because a guy in a lab coat says, “The experiment requires that you continue,” what could we get ourselves to do if we could only find a way to marshal the social support of our actual loved ones and friends?

It turns out, quite a lot. For instance, research demonstrates that those who simply receive emails from a friend checking on their progress with smoking cessation, dieting, or exercise do a much better job of sticking with their plans than those who receive no inquiries. (This means that our friends Henry needs to enlist the emotional support and encouragement of his wife, co-workers, and loved ones if he expects to live a healthy lifestyle). When diabetics involve a loved one in their disease maintenance, compliance soars. Social psychologists learned long ago that if you make a commitment and then share it with friends, you are far more likely to follow through than if you simply make your commitment to yourself.

Better still, team up with someone who is attempting to make the same changes you are. Exercise together. Diet together. Work on your explosive tempers together. Encourage each other, keep each other in the loop, and hold each other accountable. We crave the acceptance and admiration of those we admire. So co-opt the power of social support for your own benefit.

Become an opinion leader

If you aspire to become an effective influencer, you should also aspire to become an opinion leader within your own work and family circle. Parents, in particular, do well when they remain a respected voice with their children throughout the developmental years, and not just until their kids turn 13. Despite the stereotype of all teenagers eventually dismissing their parents’ opinions, there are many parents who remain an important source of influence, even during their children’s most trying years.

This doesn’t mean that their offspring eagerly embrace every parental opinion or admonition, but that their parents’ opinions still carry weight, even when they go against the wishes of their children.

Here’s what it takes to become and remain an opinion leader. People, including children, pay attention to individuals who posses two important qualities. First, these people are viewed as knowledgeable about the issue at hand. They tend to stay connected to their area of expertise, often through a variety of sources. Second, opinion leaders are viewed as trustworthy.

They don’t merely know a great deal about a certain area, but they also have other people’s best interest in mind. This means that they aren’t seen as using their knowledge to manipulate or harm, but rather to help. If others believe that you are missing either of these two qualities, you won’t be very influential.

But being respected and trusted isn’t enough. Opinion leaders are also generous with their time. They frequently rub shoulders with the people who look up to them, and when doing so, they speak their minds in a direct, healthy way. For instance, when we (the authors) examined the factors that contribute to employees’ satisfaction in their relationship with their boss, we found that the best predictor was frequency of interaction. Long periods of absence don’t help.

Bosses who are accessible, talk openly, and spend informal time chatting with their direct reports are far more likely to be influential than those who maintain their distance. The same is true with parents.

So when it comes to drawing on the power of social influence, think opinion leader. Identify opinion leaders, partner with opinion leaders, and become an opinion leader in your own right. If you want to be an opinion leader with your coworkers, direct reports, friends, and family members, you have to be both respected and connected. More often than not, that calls for face-to-face dialogue where you jointly discuss issues, work through differences, and come to shared agreements.

Occasionally the problem you are dealing with stems from long-held and widely shared norms. Virtually everyone has done the same thing for years—even generations.

As these norms begin to change, everyone needs to talk about the changes before anyone can successfully act in new ways without facing ridicule and eventual isolation. Changes in behavior must be preceded by changes in the public discourse.

Excerpt from ‘Influencer’ by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler. Reproduced with permission © 2008, Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited. Price: Rs 550. Vishwanath_Ghanekar@mcgraw-hill.com