Page 201 - The Power to Change Anything

190 INFLUENCER

others failed in action, learned what they did, and then included
their unique skills in an accountability class.
After completing the course, all the graduates were asked
to put into practice what they had just learned by talking to peo-
ple who broke rules, violated procedures, or otherwise behaved
badly. But a few didn’t put their new skills into practice. These
“late adopters” waited to see if their colleagues were going to
step up to the challenge before they gave their new tools a trial
run. The majority who did confront their direct reports about
deviations were soon ridiculed for being too tough. Hourly folks
pointed to the supervisors who weren’t setting the same stan-
dards for their employees and concluded that their own bosses
were unfair or hard-nosed. Eventually everyone stopped apply-
ing what he or she had studied.
We learned from this incident the power of solidarity. From
that point on we secured the promise of every supervisor that
he or she would step up to problems before we sent anyone into
action. With that particular change project, asking employees
to toe the line turned out to be an all-or-nothing deal.
To see the importance of solidarity on a much larger scale,
let’s look at how our friend Dr. Wiwat from Thailand exploited
social capital to help stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. After fail-
ing to make a dent in the problem using traditional influence
methods, Wiwat took a much more direct approach. Shutting
down the sex industry in Thailand was the ideal, but leaders
were unable to do so, and the vicious virus was spreading at
unprecedented rates. So leaders turned their attention to stop-
ping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Since almost all the new cases
were coming from sex workers who weren’t protecting them-
selves or their clients, Wiwat started a campaign of solidarity.
In Wiwat’s view, one group of people—sex workers—could
bring the spread of HIV/AIDS to a halt, but it would have to be
done as a group. When a client offered money for sex and the
sex worker demanded protection (a solution to the spread of
AIDS), more often than not the client would simply go elsewhere.