Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change by Joseph Grenny et al.

Summary

"Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change" by Joseph Grenny and co-authors explores the psychology and strategy behind effective influence, offering a comprehensive framework for driving significant, lasting change at the individual, team, and organizational levels. The book identifies six sources of influence—personal, social, and structural, each divided into motivation and ability—and explains how to utilize them to overcome resistance and catalyze transformation. Drawing on powerful case studies from business, healthcare, and social change, the authors lay out actionable techniques to diagnose problems, harness motivational forces, and engineer environments that enable success.

Life-Changing Lessons

1. Real change comes from systematically leveraging multiple sources of influence, not just one; focusing on only motivation or only ability isn’t enough.

2. Crucial behavioral changes are often best targeted by identifying and focusing on 'vital behaviors'—small actions that drive disproportionate results.

3. Effective influencers create social support and accountability, making change not just desirable but unavoidable across whole groups or communities.

Publishing year and rating

The book was published in: 2013

AI Rating (from 0 to 100): 88

Practical Examples

1. Combating healthcare infections at Intermountain Healthcare

   The authors describe how Intermountain Healthcare drastically reduced patient infections by focusing on altering the 'vital behaviors' of hand hygiene among clinicians. They systematically identified barriers to proper hand washing and used all six sources of influence to instill new, consistent behaviors, from educating staff to redesigning systems and using peer pressure.

2. Rehabilitation of inmates at the Delancey Street Foundation

   Delancey Street Foundation successfully rehabilitated hardened criminals by creating an environment where new norms and expectations were enforced by peers. By empowering ex-offenders to teach and hold each other accountable, the program tackled both motivation and ability at the social and personal levels.

3. Combating AIDs in rural Africa

   The book recounts how healthcare workers overcame fatalistic attitudes towards HIV in African villages by pairing social modeling—showing respected community members adopting safe behaviors—with structural changes, such as providing condoms and enabling easier access to treatment.

4. Improving safety at Alcoa

   Paul O’Neill, CEO of Alcoa, transformed workplace safety by making it the company’s number one priority, incentivizing safety compliance and engaging workers at all levels to participate in the process. The environment was structured to make safe behaviors easy and expected, affecting both motivation and ability.

5. Reducing absenteeism in schools

   A school revealed that chronic absenteeism could be reduced by pinpointing and rewarding 'vital behaviors,' such as notifying parents immediately when students missed class and creating supportive peer networks for frequently absent students. This leveraged both structural and social sources of influence.