Page 280 - The Power to Change Anything

Become an Influencer 269

be as well as to their core values (Personal Motivation). People
weren’t being asked to learn skills merely because it was the lat-
est “flavor of the month;” they were being given the chance to
become the person they preferred to be. Nobody wanted to play
project chicken—essentially lying about their readiness while
wishing the worst on their peers. Consequently, as part of the
training experience people openly discussed the existing culture,
how it violated their values, and what it would take to become
a functioning team composed of professionals rather than, well,
a group of people who had originally described their culture as
one built on lies and deception.
In addition, we gave team leaders a firsthand view of the
human consequences of AWOL sponsorship and fact-free
planning. We had them spend a weekend in development—
seeing the problems thoughtless deadlines and lack of support
from leadership created for the personal lives of those who had
to meet the deadlines. At one point, an operations manager
confessed that his marriage was about to collapse because he
had not been home a full weekend for over a year. Members
of the leadership team left with a whole new level of moral
engagement.
To provide additional motivation to learn and implement
the vital behaviors, we tapped into the social support system
(Social Motivation). First we identified opinion leaders and
asked them to help lead the influence effort. They were the first
to go through the training. By learning firsthand that the train-
ing could help them resolve real problems they had been fight-
ing for years—and then seeing the enormous benefit of
learning and implementing the skills—opinion leaders openly
encouraged their coworkers to take part in the training and put
the skills into play. To transform mere words into a vicarious
experience, several told stories of how the skills had helped
them work through a touchy discussion.
To further enable each employee to routinely use the skills,
the training was always taught in intact teams by the team’s