Page 45 - The Power to Change Anything

34 INFLUENCER

(the authors) used similar techniques when trying to determine
the behaviors that lead to high productivity in companies. We
watched top performers at work, compared them with others
who were decent but not quite as good, and identified two sets
of behaviors that set apart the best from the rest—both of
which we’ve written about in detail in our books Crucial Con-
versations and Crucial Confrontations.*
In each case, researchers compared the best to the rest and
then discovered the unique and powerful behaviors that led to
success. They didn’t think up their ideas on the way to the mall.
They didn’t sit down and brainstorm techniques with their best
friends. They didn’t even ask top performers what they believed
set them apart from their peers. Instead, they closely watched
people with proven track records and discovered what caused
them to succeed.
Of course, the real test of this and other forms of best-
practice research comes when scholars take newly discovered
vital behaviors and teach them to experimental groups. If
they have indeed found the right behaviors, experimental sub-
jects show far greater improvement in both the vital behaviors
and the desired outcome than do control subjects. Consider
Ethna Reid’s success. Studies in Maine, Massachusetts, Mich-
igan, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Nebraska, Washington, Virginia, Hawaii, Alabama, and Cali-
fornia have shown that, independent of the topic, pupils,
school size, budget, or demography, changes in the vital behav-
iors Reid discovered improve performance outcomes that influ-
ence the entire lifetime of a child.
From this best-practice research we learn two important
concepts. First, there is a process for discovering what success-
ful people actually do. We know what to look for when exam-
ining others’ claims that they’ve found vital behaviors. If the

*For more information on Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations, visit
www.vitalsmarts.com.