Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, Second Edition

by Joseph Grenny

consider the work of a couple of educational influencers, David Levin and Mike Feinberg. They didn’t stumble into a way of getting tens of thousands of inner city youth to—and through—college. They studied their way into it. As of the date this book was written, the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) system that Levin and Feinberg founded in 1994 had 133 free public college prep schools serving over 30,000 students. Their teachers are paid no better than public school teachers. Their budgets are no larger. Their work hours are much longer. And they go out of their way to recruit kids with the fewest opportunities. Eighty-five percent of their students are from low-income families. And yet with all these challenges, a child attending a KIPP school is four times more likely to graduate from college than a child attending the public schools in his or her surrounding neighborhoods. How do these two masterful influencers do it? If you’ve been paying attention, you already know two of the three keys. First, they are goal and measurement maniacs. They know the results they’re after, and they measure them mercilessly. Second, they know their vital behaviors. “Work hard” and “Be nice” are veritable watchwords at KIPP. Everything teachers and administrators do is designed to enable every student to develop these habits to a high art. And the third key to their success lies in their ability to routinely overdetermine their results. To do so, they have studiously amassed six different ...