Three Ways to Influence Behavior: Your Own and Others

Despite our poor track record in influencing our own or others’ bad habits, we curiously cling to the hope that we can change. As David Sedaris said, “I haven’t got the slightest idea how to change people, but I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.”

The good news is we can support each other to change in positive, far-reaching ways. For example, Dr. Mimi Silbert at Delancey Street has transformed more than five thousand former drug addicts, pimps and thieves into productive citizens. Individuals who were once warehoused in prisons now have jobs that contribute to society.

In our book, Influencer, my co-authors and I chronicle the work of Silbert and other powerful influencers. We discovered eight principals these change agents use to resolve some of the world’s toughest challenges. Here are three:

1. Change the Way You Change Minds

Change starts with a change of mind. Before people will abandon long-standing behaviors and adopt new, healthier behaviors, they must believe two things. First, they must think, “I can do it!” and second, they must believe that, “If I do, it’ll be worth it.”

To help yourself or others believe they can change and that it will be worth it, create personal experiences. Instead, of trying to persuade or convince them, help people experience the new behavior and the resulting consequences for themselves.

To do this, take others on field trips where they can watch the target behaviors in action. For instance, when a production plant full of automobile employees didn’t believe their Japanese competitors actually produced more per employee; executives flew a team to Japan where they watched their competitors in action. Now they believed.

2. Find Vital Behaviors

How do you lose weight? You could follow a strict diet. Or perhaps you could take weight loss pills. It turns out neither approach is successful. However, if you study people who have successfully lost the weight and kept it off, you’ll discover a few vital behaviors that lead to the difference. These successful people ate breakfast every morning, exercised at home, and weighed themselves more than once a week.

Masters of influence understand that key results stem from changing a handful of vital behaviors. Instead of selecting the trendiest technique or solution, they go to great pains to locate the few behaviors that matter by studying those who have succeeded in the face of failure.

3. Make the Undesirable Desirable

Humans seek pleasure and avoid pain. So, when the requisite task is noxious, painful, or boring, find a way to make it more desirable. You can either change the task itself, or help people view it in a new way. Individuals who take pleasure in their work tie it to core values and human consequences. For example, help people see how a job, although not particularly interesting, is intimately tied to customer satisfaction.

No related posts.