Influencer

1. Focus and Measure: Define Clear Goals and Track Progress

"We will save 100,000 lives from medical mistakes by June 14, 2006. By 9 a.m."

Clear, compelling goals drive change. Successful influencers start by articulating specific, measurable objectives that inspire action. They avoid vague aspirations and instead focus on concrete outcomes with deadlines.

Frequent measurement is crucial. Develop clear metrics that directly relate to your goals and track them regularly. This provides feedback, maintains focus, and allows for course corrections. Be cautious of choosing the wrong metrics, as they can inadvertently drive undesired behaviors.

Examples of effective goal-setting:

• Dr. Don Berwick's 100,000 Lives Campaign in healthcare
• Grameen Bank's specific targets for reducing poverty
• Corporate initiatives with clear, time-bound objectives

2. Find Vital Behaviors: Identify High-Leverage Actions

"Not all moments are created equal. Influencers focus on helping people change a small number of high-leverage behaviors during crucial moments."

Identify crucial moments where specific actions have a disproportionate impact on results. These are the vital behaviors that, if changed, will lead to the greatest improvements.

Methods for finding vital behaviors:

• Notice the obvious but underused actions
• Look for crucial moments of choice
• Learn from positive deviants who achieve better results
• Spot behaviors that challenge stubborn cultural norms

Examples:

• 100% condom use by sex workers to prevent HIV spread
• Specific communication practices in high-performing software teams
• Key safety behaviors in industrial settings

3. Engage Personal Motivation: Connect to Intrinsic Satisfaction

"People can actually love engaging in behaviors that otherwise might seem obnoxious. But only if they're allowed the psychological freedom to choose them."

Allow for choice. People resist coercion but embrace change when they feel they have agency. Use motivational interviewing techniques to help individuals discover their own reasons for change.

Create direct experiences that connect people emotionally to the consequences of their choices. Field trips, simulations, and hands-on activities are more powerful than lectures.

Tell meaningful stories that create vicarious experiences and moral engagement. Use narrative to make abstract concepts concrete and emotionally resonant.

Make it a game. Transform tedious tasks by incorporating elements like clear goals, immediate feedback, and a sense of progress or competition.

4. Develop Personal Ability: Master Skills Through Deliberate Practice

"Much of will is skill."

Deliberate practice is key to developing new abilities. Break complex skills into smaller components and practice them with full attention and immediate feedback.

Elements of effective skill-building:

• Demand full attention for brief intervals
• Provide immediate feedback against clear standards
• Break mastery into mini-goals
• Prepare for setbacks and build resilience

Build emotional skills to manage impulses and delay gratification. Teach cognitive reappraisal techniques to help people shift from "hot" emotional responses to "cool" rational thinking.

Examples:

• Surgical training simulations
• Role-playing difficult conversations
• Practicing financial self-control

5. Harness Social Motivation: Leverage Peer Influence

"The immediate good news is that a single respected individual can create conditions that compel ordinary citizens to act in curious, if not unhealthy, ways."

Lead by example. Leaders must visibly demonstrate the behaviors they want to see, often making personal sacrifices to show commitment.

Engage formal and opinion leaders. Identify and partner with respected individuals who can influence others. Focus on the 13.5% of early adopters who are socially connected.

Create new norms by making the undiscussable discussable and fostering accountability among peers.

Strategies:

• Use symbolic actions to demonstrate values
• Enlist opinion leaders in teaching and modeling behaviors
• Create forums for open discussion of challenging topics
• Encourage peer-to-peer accountability

6. Provide Social Ability: Enable Through Relationships and Teamwork

"With a little help from our friends, we can produce a force greater than the sum of our individual efforts."

Build social capital by creating structures that foster collaboration and mutual support. Design work processes and physical spaces that encourage interaction and teamwork.

Provide assistance during crucial moments. Ensure people have access to help, coaching, and resources when they need it most.

Strategies:

• Create interdependent roles and team structures
• Foster mentoring and peer coaching relationships
• Design physical spaces that promote collaboration
• Provide real-time feedback and support

Examples:

• Grameen Bank's borrower groups
• Delancey Street's peer mentoring system
• Corporate "buddy systems" for new initiatives

7. Align Structural Motivation: Use Rewards and Accountability Wisely

"Use extrinsic rewards third."

Prioritize intrinsic and social motivation before turning to external rewards. When using incentives, ensure they are:

• Tied directly to vital behaviors
• Immediate and meaningful
• Focused on progress, not just outcomes

Use accountability judiciously. Create clear expectations and consequences, but avoid relying solely on punishment. Use "shots across the bow" to warn before imposing penalties.

Considerations:

• Be wary of unintended consequences from incentives
• Reward effort and improvement, not just results
• Use small, symbolic rewards to reinforce social values
• Create systems of mutual accountability among peers

8. Enhance Structural Ability: Modify the Environment to Support Change

"Fish discover water last."

Make the invisible visible by highlighting important information and cues in the environment. Use visual management techniques to make progress and goals apparent.

Make desired behaviors easier and undesired behaviors more difficult. Modify physical spaces, tools, and processes to support vital behaviors.

Strategies:

• Use data displays and dashboards to highlight key metrics
• Redesign spaces to promote collaboration or focus
• Simplify complex processes with checklists or automation
• Remove barriers to desired behaviors (e.g., providing supplies)

Examples:

• Hospital hand hygiene stations
• Workplace layouts that promote interaction
• Consumer product designs that encourage proper use

9. Overdetermine Success: Combine Multiple Sources of Influence

"When they do this, change becomes not only more likely but almost inevitable."

Engage all six sources of influence to create overwhelming force for change:

1. Personal Motivation
2. Personal Ability
3. Social Motivation
4. Social Ability
5. Structural Motivation
6. Structural Ability

Analyze existing influences to identify which sources are working against desired change. Then systematically address each source to support vital behaviors.

Example combinations:

• Training (Personal Ability) + Peer Support (Social Ability) + Incentives (Structural Motivation)
• Storytelling (Personal Motivation) + Opinion Leaders (Social Motivation) + Environmental Cues (Structural Ability)

10. Make the Invisible Visible: Highlight Key Information and Cues

"Data are extremely important in the campaign against Guinea worm disease."

Manage the data stream by providing clear, frequent, and relevant information that supports vital behaviors. Make invisible factors (like microbes or long-term consequences) tangible and immediate.

Use propinquity (physical proximity) to influence behavior. Design spaces and processes that bring people together or separate them strategically.

Strategies:

• Create visual management systems
• Use simulations or demonstrations to make abstract concepts concrete
• Design physical spaces to promote desired interactions
• Provide real-time feedback on key metrics

Examples:

• Public health campaigns that visualize disease spread
• Corporate dashboards showing team performance
• Redesigned hospital layouts to improve communication

11. Make It Easy: Simplify Desired Behaviors and Complicate Undesired Ones

"Smart creatures, including Homo sapiens, use tools. Why? Because smart creatures do their best to find a way to make hard tasks easier."

Reduce barriers to vital behaviors by simplifying processes, providing tools, and removing obstacles. Conversely, make undesired behaviors more difficult or inconvenient.

Build habits through structure by incorporating vital behaviors into existing routines or creating new rituals that make good choices automatic.

Strategies:

• Redesign processes to eliminate unnecessary steps
• Provide tools or technology that simplify complex tasks
• Create default options that align with desired behaviors
• Build reminders or prompts into existing systems

Examples:

• One-click ordering in e-commerce
• Pre-packed healthy meal kits
• Automatic enrollment in retirement savings plans
• Software that prevents common errors

Last updated: January 22, 2025