Incentive - March 2008 - (Page 37)

Author’s Bio: Change Agents By Ron McMillan W e’re surrounded by pervasive and persistent problems in business. And, as leaders, we develop compelling strategies to combat these issues and capture market share; but then our people fail to successfully execute. When things don’t change, it’s not necessarily because we lack the courage to change them—just the skill. Fortunately, we can learn from gifted influencers who are solving some of the world’s most profound problems by changing behavior. Ron McMillan is coauthor of the New York Times best sellers, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything and Crucial Conversations. He is also a sought-after speaker and consultant and cofounder of VitalSmarts, an innovator in corporate training and organizational performance. Six Sources of Influence Master influencers understand that deeply entrenched behavior does not have one cause but a conspiracy of causes. There are six sources of influence that drive our behavior—and if we hope to increase our influence in our organizations, we must employ these sources. Often, we assume that if we just train people, or just restructure, or just implement a new performance management program, behavior will change. others have to provide resources, help, etc., or do they create barriers? Influencers enlist others, including coaches and mentors, during crucial moments to change habits. SOURCE 5: Structural Motivation How do the external motivators like pay, recognition and reward systems affect the individual’s motivation? Are there costs associated with the behavior? Influencers align structural factors to reward and encourage the individual’s motivation to enact the vital behaviors. Consider a Couple of Examples: • Mike Miller doubled productivity in the Sprint IT Department and improved systems availability for the end user by 90 percent. • Don Berwick of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement waged a battle against medical errors and is credited with saving more than 122,000 lives in 18 months. He has recently launched a campaign to prevent five million worldwide cases of preventable deaths, and he’s getting it done. How do they do it? All of the gifted change agents we studied understand that to have great leverage in solving even long-standing and complex problems, you must focus on changing just a few highleverage behaviors—otherwise known as vital behaviors. Jack Welch understood the power of vital behaviors when he spent decades trying to foster candid and open dialogue at General Electric. His belief was that this one behavior would profoundly affect many other behaviors for the better. And it did. However, the influence process does not stop at identifying the vital behaviors. The influencers must ensure that everyone engages in the vital behaviors—every time, all the time—and without exception for one full year. But how do influencers get people to adopt the vital behaviors, whether it’s increasing the sales of the sales department or increasing work productivity? SOURCE 1 Personal Motivation Left to themselves, does the individual want to do the vital behavior? Influencers connect vital behaviors to intrinsic motives so individuals enjoy doing it or link the behavior to important purposes. SOURCE 6: Structural Ability How do the nonhuman factors such as environment, structures, policies, systems and resources affect the person’s ability to do the behavior? Influencers make good behaviors easier and bad behaviors harder through the use of physical surroundings, cues, and information. SOURCE 2 Personal Ability Does the individual have the knowledge, expertise, acumen or emotional strength to do the behavior? Influencers educate, train and apply deliberate practice. In Summary In the face of profound, persistent and resistant problems, Influencers don’t settle for coping. Rather, they identify the vital behaviors that will produce the desired result to solve the problem. Influencers then target six sources of influence to ensure that people enact the vital behaviors every time—making change virtually inevitable. In this way, the most persistent and pervasive problems give way to solutions and take people and performance to the next desired level. SOURCE 3 Social Motivation How do others affect motivation? How does peer pressure or the boss’s opinion affect the person’s desire to do the vital behaviors? Influencers enlist the support of opinion leaders and formal leaders. SOURCE 4 Social Ability Do others help or hinder the individual’s performance of the targeted behaviors? Do INCENTIVEMAG.COM Incentive is now featuring monthly columns from the authors of Influencer. Read this month’s at www.incentivemag.com/threeways | March 2008 | Incentive | 37 incentivemag.com http://INCENTIVEMAG.COM http://www.incentivemag.com/threeways http://incentivemag.com

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Incentive - March 2008 Contents Editor’s Note: Delivering on Diversity In The News Cover Story: Leveraging Diversity in the Workplace Incentive Interview: Paul Levesque on Why Awards Fail Case Study: AEIS’ Max!-imum Incentive Program Mine Employees’ Creativity with Innovation Incentives Incentive Must-Reads The Third Annual Gift Card Roundtable My Turn: Motivation or Bribery? Everybody Get Together In Her Shoes: Why Bosses Should Be Flexible Incentive Primer: Passport Problem-Solving potentials Here and Now Is CES Electronics Heaven? China and Crystal: More Than a Pretty Face Travel News Florida: What’s New on the Beach? Smooth Sailing for Incentive Cruising Come To Hawaii And Take It Fast Last Word: But Enough About You

Incentive - March 2008

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