Influencing behavior engages six sources of influence

The ability to influence others toward vital behaviors that produce the desired results begins with recognizing and appropriately leveraging six sources of influence.

If you want to amplify your influence, you need to learn to think categorically. Every time you think of a way of influencing others, ask yourself, “Which source of influence does this idea employ?” This practice is a helpful nudge to ensure you explore all possible sources of influence.^[1]

The six sources of influence are listed below:^[2]

Source 1. Personal Motivation

As you watch others not doing the right thing while repeatedly doing the wrong thing, ask: Do they get pleasure or a sense of meaning from doing the wrong thing? In most cases—particularly with deep-rooted behavior—this source of influence is an important factor in propelling and sustaining change.

Source 2. Personal Ability

When trying to understand why others don’t do what they should do, ask: Can they do it? Just because individuals enjoy doing something doesn’t mean they’ll succeed. They need to have the skills, talent, and understanding required to enact each vital behavior or they’ll fail.

Source 3. Social Motivation

Next, you need to examine the social side of influence by asking: Do others encourage them to enact the wrong behavior?

Source 4. Social Ability

Others not only provide a source of motivation, but they can also enable vital behaviors. To examine this important source of influence, ask: Do others assist them? Are they enabled to do it?

Source 5. Structural Motivation

Even leaders who think about both individual and social factors are often blind to the role “things” play in encouraging and enabling vital behaviors. To check for this source, ask: Are they rewarded for doing it, or punished for not doing it?

Source 6. Structural Ability

Finally, the physical and virtual environments we’re in, and the structure of our work and social systems, can either encourage or discourage performance. To examine this source, ask: Does their environment enable them?

It is important to remember that both motivation (left column) and ability (right column) are required before behavior can change. The authors of this model observe that their research shows “most leaders tend to live on the left side of the model and rarely look at the right. They tend to overestimate the amount of motivation required to influence change, and grossly underestimate the degree to which ability plays a role.

#change-management #leadership

See also:

• Changing things happens in the opposite direction
• Influence focuses on results
• Results are produced by vital behaviors