Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, Second Edition

by Joseph Grenny

Hopkins took an interest in the Guinea worm because he concluded that it could literally be eradicated from the planet. All he had to do, he told us matter-of-factly, was change the behavior of 120 million people spread over 10 million square miles. Think about it. How would you approach this kind of problem? With a team of two dozen people and a few million dollars in the budget, how could you even think about getting millions of strangers to change? The difference between Dr. Hopkins and the rest of us is that he (like all the influencers we studied) knows how to think about these kinds of problems and how to develop predictably repeatable and effective strategies to solve them. The first thing influencers do is focus and measure. They clearly articulate the goal they are trying to achieve. They know that fuzzy objectives are anathema to influence. Equally important, they know that clear, consistent, and meaningful measures ensure that they’ll actually track their efforts and genuinely hold themselves accountable. This act alone sets them apart from the crowd. In fact, of the hundreds of influence attempts we’ve studied over the years, the vast majority of them fail at the outset by neglecting this first key. Unsuccessful agents of change make one of three early mistakes that undermine their influence: 1. Fuzzy, uncompelling goals: They begin with only a vague sense of what they’ll achieve (“Empower our employees,” “Help inner city kids,” or “Build the team”). 2. Infrequ...