Influencer part 3

So today we had Kerry Patterson teaching more of the Influencer. Today we get into what you can do to help influence change. It turns out that we really under-utilize all of the ways we can help ourselves and others change. A lot of this starts with our diagnosis of the problem.

The problem is that we act as if our problems have only one cause. Greg doesn't empty the dishwasher because he doesn't care. So then we look for one simple solution that will fix it. That is what they call a fundamental attribution error. In reality, most problems are way more complex than that. A drug addict doesn't just lack the willpower, they may be in an environment that makes it tough to make the change. They might also not have the skills they need to change or the social support. We too often attibute things like this to a matter of sheer willpower, but there are many other things that contribute. Once we diagnose these several things, then we can work on a prescription.

So now the model. There are generally two reasons we do anything: motivation and ability. We want to do something and/or we are able to do something. The cool thing that they found is that you can expand that a little to add three forces to motivation and ability. These are personal forces, social forces, and structural forces. I'll recap each:

1. Personal Motivation - it starts here. We have a hard time doing things we don't want to do. So when you hear somebody saying that they don't want to do something or that their heart isn't in it, it is a problem with their personal motivation. This is the easist to diagnose and we tend to really try and hit this one. The key, is opening up the rest of these.
   
2. Personal Ability - do they have the knowledge, skills, and strength to do it? For example, healthy eating requires willpower for sure, but what skills are required? Knowing how to cook, how to shop, how to plan meals, etc. could all be affecting the person's ability to really eat well. A person might want to stop being addicted to something, but do they have the skills to get them out of the addiciton? It is a really interesting concept of moving beyond just motivation.
   
3. Social Motivation - This is where you ask if other people are encouraging or discouraging the right behavior. Kerry shared a video from Dr. Wansink (Mindless Eating) who has studied eating behaviors. He shows how we tend to eat more when we are with other people than when we are by ourselves. Just think about going to dinner with a group of people. You might be full, but you will continue to eat as long as others are eating. Even though you are full - it is just a social thing. Another interesting example that Patterson brought up was that we encourage the wrong behaviors because we don't want to really confront them. His example was a guy who gives 4-5 minute opening prayers at church despite requests from church leaders to keep it brief. The problem is that when the bishop gets up to the mic and says, thank you so-and-so for that wonderful prayer. Great, next time it will be 8 minutes! Are the people around you or the person wanting change encouraging the right behavior?
4. Social Ability - This is pretty similar, but we are specifically looking at whether others enable us. The key word there is enable. We watched a video from Dr. Wansink again talking about how kids are getting heavier. It is easy to point the finger at fast food companies or whatever, but the fact is that there is usually one person in the home who is the food gatekeeper and controls about 75% of the food choices the family makes. That gatekeeper (usually the mother) has a HUGE influence on the nutrition of the whole family. Nobody, especially a loving mother, wants to say "I'm a bad mom," or that they are harming thier children, but in fact, if that person is not making good nutritional choices (cookies greet kids coming home from school vs. fruit for instance) they are a major part of the problem. This gatekeeper is enabling the bad behavior by their food selection and preparation. So now we are maybe seeing that there are a lot of sources to a problem, and therefore we will have to think of a lot of strategies to solve them.
   
5. Structural Motivation - These are the non-human motivators. Things such as pay, promotions, bonuses, prozes, presents, treats that all encourage the right behaviors and the inverse would discourage the wrong behaviors. We have to be careful about how we use this source of motivation. If you are not careful, your kids are studying for the money they get for good grades and not the knowledge. "Of course I never pass the ball, my dad pays me $20 for every goal I score!" Beyond punishment and rewards, the environment really affects us. Patterson had us think about an inner-city, low-income family. They consume far less fruits and vegetables than other families. Why is this? Do they not like them? More likely, those things cost more. There are also less good grocery stores in inner cities and many of the groceries end up being purchased in 7-Eleven or White Hen. Interesting stuff.
   
6. Structural Ability - The non-human enablers. This is dealing with whether the environment provides the tools, facilities, and space that enables good behavior or bad behavior. They introduced a term: propinquity. This deals with the actual space you are in. If the people you work with very closely are located in a building a mile away, that makes it harder. Back to Dr. Wansink. He did a study where he took smart grad students and taught them for 90 minutes about how you will eat more out of a bigger container. So if you have chex mix in a gallon container, you will eat more than if it is served in 2 half-gallon containers. Six weeks later, he invited the students over for a super bowl party and served . . . chex mix. He divided them up into two groups, one where the chex mix was in gallon containers and the others in half-gallon ones. They figured out a clever way to weigh the amount of snacks they chose and found that the group with the gallon containers took on average 53% more mix. That is 278 more calories, in just the first round. All due to the size of the serving container. That's why one of the tricks to portion control is to use smaller plates - makes you think there is more.
   

To put all of these together for us, we saw another video of somebody re-creating the Milgram Studies. I'm not going to recap the whole study, but the idea was that he wanted to see if people would torture and kill others. Most all of us would say there is no way we would ever torture people, but he showed that under the right influences, he could get 2/3 of his participants (normal people) to do it. The amount went up to 90% if they were with another person who was totally willing to do it. [Keep in mind this study was not waterboarding, but adminitering increasing electrical shocks to someone in increasing voltage even after they have protested and gone silent - all in the name of science and the study - you should read about it - fascinating]. We all would like to think we are in the 1/3 who wouldn't do it, but the numbers (which have been confirmed in subsequent studies) hold strong. If there are three of us talking, chances are two would go all the way. Crazy. The point to all this is that you really can influence (for good or evil I suppose) other people when using multiple sources or strategies.

The key, then, is to diagnose looking for all six of these sources, not just motivation. If we can correctly find out why we are not doing the desired behavior (or the "vital" behavior) we have a much better chance of making real and lasting change. Motivation has to be there, but we have to address the other factors and sources as well. Tomorrow we should see how to put all of this together.