Influencer: The Power to Change Anything | Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, ...

Influencer: The Power to Change Anything | Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, ... | BEYOND THE TIPPING POINT

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Influencer: The Po...

	Influencer: The Power to Change Anything Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, ... McGraw-Hill, 2007 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 144 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Influencer is THE Roadmap for Change

I was both fascinated and inspired with Influencer. I consider the concepts and strategies in the book to be a well-charted road map to succeeding at change.

After reading and re-reading the book, I have already begun to see practical application in my life. One of the profound ideas that I have taken to heart includes targeting just a handful of behaviors (what the authors refer to as Vital Behaviors). The idea that by changing just two or three bad habits or behaviors can make all the difference in whether you succeed at change is reassuring--if not inspiring. This concept makes challenges that once seemed intimidating and unattainable now manageable and achievable.

And, the six source model is literally a researched formula for succeeding at changing those vital behaviors. It makes so much sense that problems cannot be solved with one influence effort alone, (I don't know why this concept didn't occur to me before) but that by using several motivational and enabling forces you can actually succeed where you've been falling short time and time again.

The inspiration came by way of reading the moving case studies of people who are targeting both vital behaviors and applying them to the six sources of influence to solve some of the world's most devastating problems. These case studies propelled me through the book and showed me, literally, that any effort--even enormously devastating problems--can be solved.

Influencer leaves you with nothing to chance and everything to gain when it comes to making important and necessary changes.

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BEYOND THE TIPPING POINT

For anyone who is seriously interested in enlarging his/her influence, Influencer is a must read. We live in a challenging age of over communication making true persuasion more difficult than ever. Most of us primarily rely on words whether it is talking to our children, blogging into cyberspace, giving speeches to employees, pleading with our bosses, or trying to sell our service, our product, or ourselves. But, as the author points out, words alone are weak.

Today, there are simply too many voices and too few listeners. But this book brings together a framework for action that when followed promises some amazing results. I found the worldwide research on influencing behavior changes on some of our toughest problems both fascinating and inspirational. I also enjoyed the documentary style of writing where story threads were spun throughout the entire book. The author's humble admission of some of their failures is also refreshing.

What makes this book most valuable to me is that it answers so many questions brought up by the Tipping Point. The Tipping Point is fun reading, but it's like relying on the Daily Show for all of your news. Influencer offers the substance of influence and will be useful to anyone who is serious about making a difference. It has obvious uses for our political leaders whose scope of meaningful influence has dissolved faster than a sand castle at high tide.

Will Marre'
Founder of American Dream Project

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Blink with a plan - to somewhat borrow the theme of a previous reviewer

I thought that this book was great. It nicely packages a bunch of good and important info not readily available elsewhere (some of which stems from the authors' own work), and it tells you how to apply this info. It's not simply content with leaving you amazed at all the sexy info/research. It tells you what to do with it.

A very rudimentary outline is (a) it presents a framework/plan for how to go about producing change (of basically any form) in the first couple chapters. For instance, it shows you how to break down complex and confusing problems into more manageable, precise problems (e.g. finding the "vital behaviors"). And (b) in the main body, it presents various strategies for getting these problems solved (i.e. generating positive influence), along with a framework to organize these strategies. Here is where you can create your specific plan of attack (e.g. select a domain of influence and see what the research has shown about how to go about influence within this domain). Finally, interspersed throughout are a bunch of cool examples from people who have been successful at changing badness into goodness. The end product is a compendium of what have to be some of the best ideas out there for producing change. Moreover, these ideas are presented in a step-by-step, organized manner.

However, I think it should be noted that the major strength was not a set of task-specific techniques, but instead, the presentation of a framework for organizing and selecting which specific techniques will work best. The book promises to give you the "power to change anything", and the plan they give you is correspondingly general. It's not really a diet book or a book focused on specific persuasion techniques, and they don't present a set of results supporting public policy A over public policy B. What they present instead is a (research supported) plan to follow for organizing and selecting the set of specific techniques that will best get the job done. And a broad perspective like this is especially helpful in our kind of information-overload world.

Basically, it combines the "amazing research tales" of Blink with a real plan for application. And in so doing, it delivers in a very realistic way on what it promises in the title. It presents what has to be one of the best general schemes out there for trying to effect change.

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The Serenity Prayer is a Trap

Yes, you heard me right. According to the authors of this book the prayer is a trap and I think I agree with them. The prayer reads:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

When Reinhold Niebuhr wrote these lines over six decades ago, I'm sure he didn't think his prayer would give solace to those would give up. But that's exactly what his prayer seems to encourage, giving up. Instead on accepting things one cannot change, one should try and make a difference, one should have the wisdom to try and make a difference. If everybody accepted the things they thought they couldn't change, the world would be a pretty dismal place.

Once the authors take their readers past the Serenity Trap, they give plenty of examples of people who didn't accept the things they couldn't change, instead they changed them. The authors not only give good examples of how an Influencer (someone who instigates change) works, but they show you how to be an influencer as well. And if I have any influence over you, dear reader, I'd like to influence you to order this book, you won't be disappointed.

Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

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Behavior Modification

It's a well-written book, but not terribly exciting. It does have good basic information about behavior modification techniques, providing examples of where the techniques have worked, how and why they have worked. The book sites case settings and ties them in throughout the book with various examples. The book also explains types of influencers that do NOT work in certain situations and why (i.e. why lecturing someone would not work in a specific situation.)

The concept of the book is: 1) here are the behavior influencers that have successfully worked; and 2) YOU can use them successfully to achieve certain behaviors (as others have). This book may be particularly useful to supervisors, coaches, teachers, or others who have a need to motivate others. There are 258 pages of information.

The book begins telling you that you have learned to follow the well-known prayer, ". . .[grant me the] SERENITY to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference." So, basically, we try to fix a chronic systemic problem a few times, then give in to the serenity and accept that we cannot change this problem/behavior/thing/etc, and most of us only lack the proper SKILL to be the catalyst for the change. The book studies cases of those who did NOT fall into acceptance of serenity and what they did to successfully influence others. One such successful influencer used throughout the book is Dr. Mimi Silbert, founder of Delancey. Through various therapy and socialization techniques and through her skills in behavior modification, praise, etc, Dr. Silbert has taken "thieves, prostitutes, robbers, and murderers" who are "nasty, racist, violent, and greedy" and gotten them to totally change their behaviors, become employable productive citizens and actually care about each other's success. She states that "most were gang members and many are third generation gang members". "Some have been homeless for years and most are lifetime drug addicts". She states that within hours of joining Delancey, they are working. "Of those who join Delancey, over 90 % never go back to drugs or crime." You will see examples from Delancey throughout the book.

The book explains 6 vital behaviors, which apply across ages, gender, geography, etc., the first vital behavior being reward vs. punishment. Top influencers reward positive performance frequently, while non-influencers criticize and condemn. Of course, the book continues in more detail.

Notable is also that at the end of each chapter is a summary of the concepts covered in the chapter, making it easy to assimilate what you just read in each chapter and easy to return and reference the high points of each chapter.

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