GroshLink

Three books by Vital Smarts sat beside Here Comes Everybody. 

 

 

• Influencer: The Power to Change Anything (Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler, Ron McMillan, David Maxfield. McGraw-Hill Companies: 2007)
• Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high (Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler, Ron McMillan. McGraw-Hill Companies: 2002)
• Crucial Confrontations:  Tools for resolving broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior (Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler, Ron McMillan. McGraw-Hill Companies: 2004)

As they approached their due date, I took them to the library with the intention of skimming them, taking some notes, and returning them in one morning. How did I do?  What take aways do I have to pass along?

Influencer: The Power to Change Anything begins by questioning the serenity trap:

Every day you ask for the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference (p.4).

Then Influencer promises to enable the reader to influence through "high leverage strategies and skills that can be applied across the vast array of human challenges," (p.6).  The material draws from behavioral/social science research proven to affect positive course correction by changing vital behaviors and thereby changing of minds along with lives.  The authors provide illustration after illustration of influencers and how they've gotten the job done. 

I appreciate a number of points from the book.  For example:

• As it's difficult to exert influence toward change, many find coping easier.  
• Humans are "quite complicated.  It turns out that they think.  Humans observe, cogitate, draw conclusions, and then act.  All this is important to know because if you want to change the world, you eventually have to change how people behave.  And if you want to change how they behave, you have to first change how they think" (p.21).
• Identifying clear vital behaviors involved in your desired end is important. There is value in
  
  • Positive deviance (p.35).
  • Recovery behaviors (p.37).
• Changing minds involves a sense of the new behavior's worth and the sense that it appears to be possible.  As such, storytelling alongside formative experiential learning assist significant changes.
• The six sources of influence bring a lot bear to challenges (p.78)
  
  • Personal Motivation:  Make the Undesirable Desirable
  • Personal Ability:  Surpass Your Limits
  • Social Motivation: Harness Peer Pressure
  • Social Abillity:  Find Strength in Numbers
  • Structural Movitation:  Design Rewards and Demand Accountability
  • Structural Ability:  Change the Environment

But do the six sources of influence lead to a no-fail arsenal of strategies to change vital behaviors and thinking? (p.21-22)  Do they demonstrate Christ-likeness and summarize my approach to being an influencer/leader for the Kingdom of God?  No.  Although various insights are helpful, I have been called to care.  As a servant leader, I am dependent upon the leading of the Father, growing in Christ-likeness, and fruit of the Spirit as part of the Body of Christ.  Although there is overlap, between vital behaviors, the call to transform/change minds, and the sources of influence, they are not all the same.  Furthermore, a Spirit filled version of six sources of influence doesn't fully summarize the follower of Christ called to "influence."  Wish I had more time, just going to have to post.  Any want to explore this further?