Page 123 - The Power to Change Anything

112 INFLUENCER

n Chapter 4 we examined ways to tap into personal passions
as a way of influencing vital behaviors. To that we add that
Iwe can limit our success when we assume that any influ-
ence failure is exclusively a motivation problem. We commit
what psychologist Lee Ross calls the fundamental attribution
error.” We assume that when people don’t change, it’s simply
because they don’t want to change. In making this simplistic
assumption, we lose an enormous lever for change.
Even when we do realize that people may lack the ability
required to enact a vital behavior, we often underestimate the
need to learn and actually practice that behavior. Corporate
leaders make this mistake when they send employees to an
intensive day of leadership training that consists of flipping
through a binder or listening to engaging stories—but not actu-
ally trying any of the skills being taught. Participants mistakenly
assume that knowing the leadership content and doing it are
one and the same. Of course, they aren’t the same at all, so par-
ticipants usually return to the office and apply only a fraction
of what they studied.
When leaders and training designers combine too much
motivation with too few opportunities to improve ability, they
don’t produce change; they create resentment and depression.
Influence masters take the opposite tack. They overinvest in
strategies that help increase ability. They avoid trying to solve
ability problems with stronger motivational techniques.
To see how easy it is to confuse motivation and ability prob-
lems, let’s return to Henry—our friend who is trying to lose
weight.

THERE’S HOPE FOR EVERYONE

One of Henry’s vital behaviors—snacking on mini carrots
rather than chocolate—is at risk. At this very moment, Henry
is pulling the foil back on a partially eaten, two-pound choco-
late bar. In Henry’s defense, he didn’t buy it. A colleague who