Audiobook Part 7. High Performance Habits: Develop Influence

High performance Habit Number five Develop influence. Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Mahatma Gandhi this chapter has three Teach people how to think. Challenge people to grow. Role model the way the CEO is in crisis Wan's global apparel company has just had its seventh straight quarter of weak performance. Sales continue to plummet, and after a decade of seeing strong performance, analysts are beginning to question both Juan's leadership and his brand's relevance. This is nearly all the information I know as I board his corporate jet on a hot August afternoon. His cfo, Aaron, is an old friend of mine and has asked me to fly cross country with them and perhaps give them some perspective. The two of them are on their way out to an all hands meeting with their top 40 senior leaders from around the world. After a few pleasantries, I ask Juan what he thinks is the core problem at his company. She is, he says, pointing to a page in a fashion magazine. A woman's photo takes up the entire page. Daniela. She's the problem. Daniela is the company's new chief designer. She was poached from another fashion house, where her youthful edge grabbed the immediate attention of the press within months of her arrival, Juan tells me, they were butting heads. He wants his line to continue with his core designs and staples. She wants to push the brand into the future, an edgier, seasonal approach. Now the entire team has split down the middle, taking sides. Without the full company backing the new lines. Infighting and blame have swept through the culture. Projects stalled, marketing failed. Revenues tanked. As Juan describes all this to me, his disdain for Daniela is palpable. It seethes into his tone with me. She's your age, he says with a hint of condescension. So I'm hoping you can help me figure out how to handle her. I doubt it's about age, Juan, I reply calmly. It's about influence, strategy and and it probably begins with something the legendary basketball coach John Wooden said. You handle things. You collaborate with people. The quote falls on deaf ears, and Juan launches into his ideas to minimize Daniela's influence in the company. He wants to slash her budget and shuffle team members so he can keep better tabs on her. He wants to start a new business unit that focuses exclusively on what he wants. He wants to limit the number of buyers who see her line. It takes him 20 minutes to describe these strategies, and his passion hasn't subsided a bit by the time he asks me, what else do you think I could do? This is not a position I enjoy being in, though I often find myself here. Leaders blaming their people for poor performance, seeking control through internal politics and individual demoralization. It's not a game I'm interested in, and if I weren't stuck in a plane 40,000ft in the air, I would simply excuse myself. Aaron senses my disconnection and says, brendan, I asked you here to give Juan some perspective. He knows you have no skin in the game, and despite his passionate feelings, I assure you he's open to your coaching. I say, just give it to him straight. He looks at Juan for verification. Juan says, don't be shy. Thanks, Aaron. I say, well, Juan, it seems you have a strong point of view on this one. It's hard to give feedback without knowing your endgame or what Daniela is thinking. Am I correct in surmising that you want Daniela to fight you until you're both bleeding and she quits in a massive media storm that will tarnish your brand forever? Aaron, surprised, sits back in his chair and laughs uncomfortably. Juan remains stoked and replies, not exactly what I'm after. No. I laugh along. So you're not trying to get her to quit? No, he says, shaking his head. I'd probably lose half the team with her. Okay, then, what do you want? I want her to play nicer. You mean agree with you and execute your plan? Juan thinks for a moment, looks to Aaron and shrugs. Is that such a bad thing? It feels a little smug. I look to make sure he's serious. And he is. This guy is cast in the old command and control mold. I reply, for Daniela, yes, I'm sure it's a bad thing. I don't know her, but no one wants to work with a boss who can't see beyond himself. If your only goal for her is to play along with you, then there's nothing in it for her. Don't you want something good for her? I mean, why did you hire her in the first place? She must have had some qualities or vision you admired. What did you promise her that persuaded her to take the job? Juan struggles with the questions as if searching for a long forgotten memory. In the heat of the battle, we often forget the promises we broke that drew the other side's guns. He recounts that he hired Daniela because she was a fine artist and good with people. A rare combination, he says. And I promised her a platform for growth with our brand. Of course I wanted her to do well and wanted to give her opportunities. But she took advantage of those things and started making this company about her vision instead of mine. Aaron jumps in. So now you see, we're stuck. No one is ever stuck, I say. They've just lost perspective. Juan asks, so what's the perspective we're missing? We all know what Daniela wants. And what's that? To take over the company. And you're sure about that? She hasn't said it, but sure. I think that's what's happening. Well, I can't question you on that assumption because I don't have a full view into this. And I can't ask her because she's not here. So let's assume it's true. If we know your perspective and we know hers, then I suppose all we've lost is perspective on what makes influence actually happen. And what's that? Aaron asks. Raising ambition. The only way to influence another person is to first relate with them and then help raise their ambition to think better, do better, or give more. The first part happens when you ask rather than accuse. The second happens when you work to shape their thoughts and challenge them to rise. The problem I see is you know Daniela's ambition and. And instead of trying to help her rise to it, you're blocking her. Juan shakes his head in astonishment and leans into the table. Are you kidding me? You're telling me to give her the company? Not at all. I'm saying you can't influence a person in any useful way by diminishing them or putting out the fire in their belly. People only like to work with leaders who make them think bigger and grow more. If you want to influence Daniela, you. You'll have to reconnect with her and surprise her by helping her think even bigger. Then you'll surprise her even more by challenging her to rise and meet the higher ambition with you. That ambition might not be to have her take the company over, but I doubt that's what she wants as much as what you fear. Regardless, the two of you need a new ambition to work toward. No new ambition together, same old problems. Juan shakes his head. So what then? We need a new company vision. No, you need a new vision for how to influence Daniela. If you influence her, well, she'll be on your team and you'll achieve great things. If you fail, then, as you said, she'll take your team. So how do I do that? I can tell that Juan is frustrated, so I challenge him further. I just told you, help her think bigger. Issue a challenge. Do something great together. He crosses his arms. I don't get it. I cross mine. No, you probably do get it. You just don't like it? I'm suggesting something simple here. I'm doing the same thing to you that you should do to her. I'm asking you to think differently and challenging you to engage her differently. Think about her as a collaborator again. Help her think bigger about her role, her team, the company that gets you influence. Challenge her to be even better than she is doing what she loves. That gets you influence. Raise her bar. Don't block her. That gets you influence. And it sounds like that's something you don't have with her now. Okay, so what's the point of all this? What do you propose I do with all that influence? I decide to take a risk and follow my own advice. I know that one thing all leaders share is that they love a challenge and deep down, they want to be role models. So I lay it on the Juan, you be a better leader to her and the team than you were the first time around. He sits back in his chair and uncrosses his arms. For the first time since we met, he smiles and agrees. After this exchange with Juan, I pulled out my journal and drew a model for influence, which you will learn in this chapter. I'll tell you the end of the story once you know the model. Sometimes all we need is a new set of practices for developing influence and everything can change. But how do we get to the core of what influence really is? To measure influence, we ask people to score themselves on statements such as I'm good at earning people's trust and building camaraderie. I have the influence needed to achieve my goals. I'm good at persuading people to do things. And we reverse score on questions like these. I often say inappropriate things that hurt my relationships. I struggle to get people to listen to me or do things I ask. I don't have a lot of empathy for other people. As you might imagine, people who strongly agree with the first set of statements and strongly disagree with the second set have higher influence scores and better overall high performance scores. So what affects your influence scores on the hpi, the High Performance Indicator, the most? Let's start with what doesn't. A sense of giving doesn't appear to affect influence scores. Though we all think that more giving people would have higher influence scores, that's not the case. For example, people who rate themselves high on I am more giving than my peers are not any more likely to actually have or report having great amounts of influence. This is frustrating, but common sense too. We all know someone who gives and gives and gives, but can't rally others around them to help out. There is nuance to this Influence is strongly correlated with feeling like you're making a difference. So it's not about feeling like you are giving more than others. It's about feeling like your efforts are making an impact. In coaching sessions, it's clear that those who feel like they give all the time but don't make a difference or receive reciprocation can end up feeling unappreciated, unhappy, and yes, lacking real influence in the world. Creativity is also not strongly correlated with influence. Though we live in a culture obsessed with creativity and individual displays of creative work and art, respondents who identified with being creative in our studies didn't necessarily feel any more influential than others. Creative talent doesn't always come with people skills. What does matter, just as in other HPI categories, is your perception of yourself. If you believe that your peers view you as a successful high performing person, naturally you believe yourself to be more influential. But it's not just about perception. It's common sense and our coaching clients tell us it again and again. More influence really does equal a better life. When you have more influence, your kids listen to you more, you resolve conflicts faster, you get the projects you ask or fight for. You can get more buy in on your ideas, you make more sales, you lead better. You're more likely to become a CEO, senior executive, or successfully self employed. Your self confidence goes up and so does your performance. Here is where a lot of people ruin their chances at doing just that. They say things like, well, I'm not an extrovert so I can't be influential or I'm not a good people person or I don't like trying to persuade people. Somehow these people believe that personality has a connection to influence, but that's just not true. A comprehensive meta analysis on social skills found that personality does not correlate with political skill, which is how researchers often refer to influence or your ability to understand others and get them to act toward objectives. This skill predicts how well you do on tasks, your belief in yourself to do a good job, self efficacy, and how positively others view you. It also lowers stress and increases the odds that you'll be promoted and experience greater overall career success. More than anything else, having this skill, political skill, leads to a positive personal reputation and that further enhances your ability to to influence others. Couple these career outcomes with a proven increase in your overall life happiness and it's no wonder I often tell people one of the primary skills they must master in life is influence. Influence Basics we're not who we say we are. We're not who we want to be. We are the sum of the influence and impact that we have in our lives on others. Carl Sagan Most of the other high performance habits are under your direct personal control. You choose to seek clarity. The level of energy you feel is largely under your command. How prolific you are with productive output is up to you. But what about influence? To keep a broad perspective on this topic, at least for the next several pages, let's define having influence as the ability to shape other people's beliefs and behaviors. And as you desire, it means you can get people to believe in you or your ideas, buy from you, follow you, or take actions that you request of them. Of course, influence is a two way street, but more and more researchers are coming to understand just how much control you have over others perceptions of you, and ultimately how much influence you have with them. It turns out that no matter your personality, you can develop more influence in the world than you probably imagine. Ask no, really, Just ask. One reason people struggle to gain influence in their personal and professional lives is that they simply don't ask for what they want. This is in part because people drastically underestimate the willingness of others to engage and help. Several replicated studies show that people tend to say yes over three times as often as people thought they would. This means that people are terrible at predicting whether someone will agree to any given request. Another reason people fail to ask is because they think the other person will judge them harshly. But it turns out that here too, people are lousy fortune tellers. Studies show that people overestimate how often or to what degree others will judge them. You can't possibly know whether you have influence with your co workers unless you ask them to do something. The same goes for your spouse, neighbors or boss. This is why the kitchen table wisdom of you never know until you ask is so valid. It's biblical too. Ask and you shall receive. Part of gaining influence is simply learning to make a lot of requests and getting better at making those requests, which comes only with practice. Lots of people dream of having influence, but they never wield the most influential tool in creating it. Asking underperformers fail to ask all the time. They let fear of judgment or rejection prevent them from speaking up, asking for help, trying to lead. And the sad thing is, they're usually wrong. Throughout my career, I've been blessed to advise a lot of people in the media. You'd be surprised how sensitive they get. All those years in the spotlight often blind them with fears about what other others think Then when they leave a show or try to do a business deal on the side, they struggle to ask for what they really want. I often have to share some tough love with them. I understand you worry what others think, but if no one has ever said it to you, here you go. Most people aren't thinking about you at all. And even when you put yourself in front of them to make a request and they say no within minutes, they're right back to not thinking about you. They're not sitting there judging you. They're too busy dealing with their own life. So you might as well get on with it and ask. Otherwise, you set aside your dreams for judgments that probably don't even exist. I also share this research fact with them. If someone does say yes to helping you, they tend to like you even more after they've done something for you. People don't grudgingly help you. If they didn't want to, they'd probably say no. It's counterintuitive, but if getting people to like you more is the goal, then just ask them to do you a favor. Finally, when you do ask for what you want in life, don't just ask once and quit. Research shows that influencers understand the power of repetition. So they try multiple times to get their ideas in front of those they hope to influence. The more you ask and share your ideas, the more people become familiar and comfortable with with your requests, and the more they start to like the idea. Asking isn't just about making requests to get what you want. If you seek greater influence with other people, learn to ask them a tremendous number of questions that elicit what they think, feel, want, need, and aspire to. Great leaders ask a lot of questions. Remember, people support what they create. When people get to contribute ideas, they have mental skin in the game. They want to back the ideas they helped shape. They feel that they're part of the process, not a cog or some faceless minion. It's universally agreed that leaders who ask questions and get those around them to brainstorm the path ahead are more effective than dictator leaders who just push their demands and requests on others. This same principle works in your intimate relationship, your parenting style, your community involvement. Ask people what they want, how they like to work together, and what outcomes they care about. Suddenly, you'll start seeing more engagement and you'll have more influence. If you want more influence, remember, ask and ask often. Give and you shall receive in all the asking. Don't forget to give in just about any area of endeavor. Giving to others with no expectation of return increases your overall success and, of course, if it increases the likelihood that you'll get what you want. Researchers have long known that often you can double your ability to influence others by giving before you ask for something. High performers have a giving mindset. They enter almost every situation looking for ways to help others. They carefully consider the problems people face and offer suggestions, resources, and connections. They don't have to be prodded to do this. They're proactive in seeking to give something to others, whether in meetings at work, or when while visiting in someone's home. In organizational settings, often the greatest thing you can give to others is trust, autonomy, and decision making authority. Researchers call this giving someone authorship, meaning they get to choose what to work on or how to get things done. New achievers often worry about the specter of giving burnout, giving so much that it becomes stressful or or exhausting. But that's just not a problem. Burnout is more of an issue of poor energy management and low clarity than of over giving. All this sounds great, but often people don't view situations with a helpfulness bias. It's not because they're bad people. It's likely because they fear they're already teetering on burnout. You give less when you're tired or stressed. That's why it's important to master the habits of energy and productivity. People who score high in those categories tend to have more influence. It makes sense, right? If you're more energized and on the path toward accomplishing your goals, you're probably more willing to help others. Be a champion of people. According to The American Psychological Association's 2016 Work and well Being Survey, only about half of employed adults in the United States feel valued by their employer and sufficiently rewarded and recognized for their efforts. While most employees, 68%, are satisfied with their work, half don't feel sufficiently involved in decision making, problem solving, and goal setting. And only 46% participate regularly in those activities. Imagine walking into a company and discovering that fully half the employees don't feel rewarded, recognized, or involved. Think of all the consequences of that less motivation, lower morale, poorer performance, higher churn, more complaining at the water cooler, and more resistance in meetings. The good news is that it's easy to change the situation simply by demonstrating sincere appreciation for those you seek to influence. Since so many people feel ostracized, unappreciated, or undervalued, when you show up and and give genuine praise, respect, and appreciation, you stand out. Be grateful for people. Just by offering gratitude, you can more than double the likelihood that those receiving your appreciation will help you again in the future. Give thanks in meetings. Write thank you notes. Spend more time noticing positive actions by your people. If you're the one who appreciates people the most, you are the most appreciated. Appreciating people is one step. The next is to become their champion. Find out what your people are passionate about and cheer on their good ideas. Be excited for people when they do a good job and publicly praise them. The ultimate measure of whether you really support someone is to trust them. Give them the autonomy to make important decisions, and praise them in public when they do well. That's how people know they are truly cheered on. Perhaps all this sounds too basic, but every leader I've ever worked with has acknowledged that they need to do a better job of expressing appreciation and giving people more trust, autonomy and praise. In fact, I've never met anyone, myself included, who couldn't do a better job in these areas. And that's why I know that anyone, including you, can gain greater influence. These ideas are the low hanging fruit of gaining influence. Now we'll focus on the more advanced strategies. The Difference Makers Blessed is the influence of one true loving human soul on another. George Eliot can you name the two people who positively influenced you the most in your life? Take a moment now to think about those two people and answer the what specifically made each person so influential to you? What was the greatest lesson each person taught you about life? What values or traits did they inspire you to embody in your own life? I've asked these questions to audiences from around the globe. People may name family members, teachers, close friends, first employers or mentors. You can never guess who someone will say was the most influential, but I've found that you can predict why those people were the most influential. Typically, those who positively influence people the most have something in common. They exert an effect on us, deliberately or not, by executing one or more of three influence actions. First, they shape how we think by their example, lessons they impart, or things they say to us. They open our eyes and make us think differently about ourselves, others or the world. Second, they challenge us in some way. They call us out on our stuff. Or they raise our ambitions to be better in our personal life, relationships and contributions to the world. Third, they serve as role models. Their character, how they interact with us and others, or how they met the challenges of life inspires us. Now think again of the two people who most positively influenced you. Can one or a combination of these influence actions explain their impact on you? If they taught you to be a better person. It probably happened because of a combination of all three, even if perhaps in subtle or unexpected ways. I called these three influence actions the ultimate influence model. I've taught CEOs to use the model as an outline for crafting their speeches to their employees. At All Hands meetings, I've seen wives sit down with their husbands and talk about how to use it to influence their teenagers. Members of the military have used it to understand how their enemy was influencing local resistance forces. Entrepreneurs have used it to structure their sales presentations and marketing materials. The rest of this chapter will show you how to use the model by giving you three new practices. I'll also share how others have shaped my life with these practices. My hope is that one day someone adds your name to their list of those who most positively affected them. In the end, that is the ultimate influence we all hope for. On page 229 of High Performance Habits, the book the there's another diagram. It's called the Ultimate Influence Model. It's another Venn diagram which has two overlapping circles. In the left circle it says Teach people how to think. And then there's three categories of how to teach people how to about themselves, about others, and about the world. On the right circle it says Challenge people to grow and contribute. And then three categories there challenge their character, connections, and contributions. Where the two circles overlap, it says Role model. The way to get a printout of the Ultimate Influence Model just go to highperformancehabits.com tools to gain influence with others 1 teach them how to think about themselves, others, and the world 2. Challenge them to develop their character, connections, and contributions. And three Role model the values you wish to see them embody. Practice one Teach people how to think. He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow. Albert Hubbard I want to give you some day to day examples of how you start gaining influence in people's lives, because I don't want you stuck in an abstract conceptual model. Framing how others should think is what we all do in real life, usually without realizing it. Consider how many times you've said or heard these phrases. Think of it this what do you think about? What would happen if we tried? How should we approach? What should we be paying attention to? No doubt you said one of these things to someone recently. You were trying to elicit an idea or or guide their thinking. In doing so, you are gaining influence, even though you probably didn't know it. My goal is simply to have you start doing this more deliberately when it becomes A habit. You'll notice how good at it you've become and how much your influence with others has grown. Imagine you have an eight year old child. She's doing homework at the kitchen table. She's getting frustrated and says, I hate homework. How do you respond? While there's no universal rule, no right or wrong approach, what if you thought of talking to her? Not to get her to do her tasks, but to shape the way she thinks about homework? When people complain, be they children or our peers at work, we have an extraordinary opportunity to direct their thinking. What if you shared with your child how you used to think about homework? How? And how a simple change in the way you thought about it helped you do better in school and even enjoy the process? What if you asked her what she thought of herself while doing the work and helped her reframe her identity? What if you brought in how to think of her teachers and peers? What do you think might happen if you spoke with her about how the world perceives people who follow through? When I work with leaders, I'm consistently telling them they should always communicate how their people should be thinking about themselves as individual contributors, about their competitors and about the overall marketplace. I mean that literally. In every email to the full team, in every all hands meeting, in every investor call, in every media appearance, in the all hands meeting, you say, this is how we should be thinking about ourselves if we're going to win, if we're going to compete. This is how we should be thinking about our competitors. If we're going to change the world. This is how we should be thinking about the world and the future. Take a few moments now and think of someone you want to influence. How can you shape their thinking? Begin by identifying how you want to influence them. What do you want them to do? Then know your responses to these questions before you meet with that person. How do you want them to think about themselves? How do you want them to think about other people? How do you want them to think about the world at large? Remember, there are three things you want your people thinking themselves, other people, and the greater world. Meaning how the world works, what it needs, where it's headed and and how certain actions might affect it. Learning how to Think the words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world. But as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end and by posterity. John Paul Richter in interviews, I'm often asked about the influences in my life who shaped my my perceptions of myself, others and the world at Large. That answer begins with my parents. I remember countless events in which my parents taught me how to think. When I was 5 or 6, we were living in Butte, Montana. One winter, the heater broke. In some places, that's an inconvenience. In Butte, where winter temperatures regularly dip below minus 20 degrees, it's a dire situation. The challenge was that we couldn't afford to fix the heater. Though dad and mom worked hard to care for us four kids, we were living paycheck to paycheck. It would be at least a week until my dad got paid and we had enough money to fix the heater. Looking back, the situation could have been terribly stressful for us kids, let alone for our parents. But they were resourceful people and they both sought to bring joy into everyday life. So instead of panicking, my mom went into the garage, found our camping tent and set it up in the living room. She threw in our sleeping bags and coats and electric blankets. We kids, oblivious of the dire situation, just thought we were camping. We'd walk to school and ask the other kids, where did you sleep last night? When they said in their bedrooms, we'd brag that we were camping out in our living room. My parents made a difficult situation fun. Turning adversity into a good time is one of life's highest arts. And mom and dad were good at it. Through all the challenges my parents faced raising us kids, they taught us to be self reliant. That's how they wanted us to think of ourselves. That no matter the situation, we could handle it and make the best of it. Throughout life, mom was always telling me that I was smart and I was loved and that I should care for my brothers and sisters because we were all we had. Dad was always telling me, be yourself, be honest. Do your best. Take care of your family. Treat people with respect. Be a good citizen. Follow your dreams. By guiding my childhood with directives such as these, my dad and mom taught me how to think of myself. They taught us how to think of other people too, by the way they treated others with compassion. When I was in middle school, dad ran the local Department of Motor Vehicles, the DMV office. His team's job was to give qualified people their driver's licenses. The operative word in that sentence is qualified. A lot of people couldn't pass the written test or their vision was too poor, or they couldn't park a car or remember to stop at a red light. Others just forgot to bring their ID or Social Security card. What most had in common, though, was their reaction. To being told they wouldn't get their driver's license that day. They were irate. What often makes people's DMV experience worse is that the department is terribly underfunded. That's why you often have to wait in long lines, deal with old technology, or feel confused about what you're supposed to do. The DMV employees who don't receive great pay and have to deal with unhappy people all day are hampered by endless red tape and bureaucracy. They're doing the best they can. At least my dad was. I have a lot of memories of accompanying my father to work. He was a genuinely happy and thoughtful man. He had served 20 years in the United States Marine Corps. After retiring from the Marines, he worked three jobs, all the while going to night school to get his college degree. He and mom had very little growing up and very little as they worked hard to raise us four kids. I had great respect for my dad, so you can imagine how it felt watching person after person literally scream at him because they forgot their paperwork or failed the test. I heard people insult his intelligence, his team, his office, his face, his very existence. I saw people fling their test papers at him. People spat at him. As people belittled or blamed my father, I always wanted to tell them, don't you know how hard he works? Don't you know he's doing the best he can given the rules set by the state? Don't you know he served 20 years and got all shot up to protect your freedoms? Don't you know he's in a lot of pain? Don't you know he's my dad, my hero. I watched people treat my dad terribly, but I also watched his responses. He rarely let them throw him off. He would handle conflict situations at work with grace and aplomb. He would try to make people smile or laugh. He always had a good joke, and he always tried to be helpful. He would patiently guide people through their paperwork or exams, even when they were negative. He would pat his team members on the back and whisper words of encouragement to them after someone at the counter was rude. Most nights, dad came home calm and cool. Other times, you could sense all that confrontation bottled up within him. On rare occasions, it spilled out toward us. But for the most part, especially in his later years, it was as if dad left the stress at work and at home. He would just chill on the couch and read his paper, go golfing, take me to play racquetball or take care of the yard. He became more and more of a peaceful warrior. As a kid I didn't understand how hard it must have been to keep his composure at work. Looking back, I'm in awe that the old gunnery sergeant never reached across the counter and throttled someone. As many times as I saw him treated poorly at work. Many more were the times he came home and described how someone was kind enough to bring in some cookies to thank his team. He told me he didn't overreact because he understood that most people were good and caring. It was just that when they were in a hurry, they could be oblivious, dismissive or rude. He always gave people the benefit of the doubt. To dad, everyone was like a neighbor and he wanted to help them. That's how dad taught me to think of other people as neighbors whom I should always give the benefit of the doubt and be helpful toward. And when hurry or disappointment soured their attitude, I should meet them with patience and humor. My mother too is remarkable. She was born in Vietnam to a French father and a Vietnamese mother. Her dad was killed in the French Vietnamese conflict long before my father, her future husband, ever served in the U.S. vietnam War. After her dad died, mom was sent to France under the Children of War program. She was separated from her brother and sent to live in abusive boarding schools. When she turned 21, she immigrated to the United States. Eventually she met my father in a Washington D.C. apartment building where they both lived. They fell in love and soon moved to Montana where my dad had grown up to raise us kids. There's no doubt what drew my dad to my mom. She is the most joyous and energized person you could meet. After they were married and had moved to Montana, dad worked for the DMV while Mom kept various part time jobs cutting hair, working at a nursing home to support our growing family. By the time I was in middle school, mom was working as a nurse's aide at a local hospital. Many of my teenage memories revolve around seeing my mother crying on the couch at nights while dad tried to comfort her. The women at the hospital were mean to her. She had an accent. She wasn't from here with English as her third language. She struggled with the medical terms and pronunciations and her co workers belittled her and held her back because of it. Sometimes in a small town, being from another place is hard. Still, mom kept a good attitude and expected us kids to treat everyone with compassion, even the mean people like dad. She always gave them the benefit of the doubt. She would remind us that people were doing the best they could and often just needed our help. Many of My childhood memories of my mom involve her baking food for people or delivering them groceries or gifts. Other people, she said, needed our attention and generosity. To this day, my mom is one of the most positive, giving, loving people you could ever meet. At my seminars, she's often helping out on my team, though attendees don't know she's my mom. She'll help check in and serve thousands of people. Often on the last day of the event, I'll bring Mom on stage to thank her. When she walks out and people realize she's been one of the crew all weekend, I can tell that some are thinking how wonderful and others are thinking, oh, I would have been nicer had I known. Regardless, they always give her a standing ovation. Seeing my mom, who put up with so much in life receive a standing ovation from thousands of people is a feeling I can't put into words. Watching and listening to my parents, I learned how to think of other people. Mom and dad didn't teach me that other people were mean or bad. Instead, they trusted in the goodness of others in general and showed me that with patience, grace and humor, people could open up, change, and be friendly. More than anything, my parents gave me the gift of how to think of the world in positive terms. They were always grateful for what the world gave them and excited about the possibilities for tomorrow. This doesn't mean they had big dreams or grandiose plans. They were simple, kind people who just believed that with hard work they the world will give you a fair shake. They showed me that life is what you make of it and that it's here to be enjoyed. I can't imagine my life without these lessons. We all have stories of people who influenced us to think better or bigger. Perhaps these stories will bring to mind stories of your own about who influenced you and how you might teach your family or team to think. Performance Prompts for practice number one is on page 237 of High Performance Habits. Again, you can download all the performance prompts in one document at highperformancehabits.com Tools performance prompts number one. Someone in my life I would like to influence more is number two. The way I would like to influence them is three. If I could tell them how they should think of themselves, I would say number four. If I could tell them how they should think of other people, I would say number five. If I could tell them how they should think of the world in general, I would say practice. 2. Challenge people to grow the most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do. Kobe Bryant High performers challenge the people around them to rise to higher levels of performance themselves. If you could follow them around as they lead their lives, you would see that they consistently challenge others to raise the bar. They push people to get better, and they don't apologize for it. This is perhaps the most difficult practice in this entire book to implement. People are afraid to challenge others. It sounds confrontational, and it sounds as though it might make people push back, feel inadequate, or ask, who the hell do you think you are? But this isn't about confrontation. It's about issuing subtle or direct, positively framed challenges to motivate others to excel. As with any communication strategy, intent and tone really matter. If your intent is to diminish others, then your challenges will likely influence people in negative ways. Look for a similar result if you sound condescending. But if your intentions are clearly to help someone grow and become better, and you speak to them with respect and honor, then your challenges will inspire better action. There is no doubt that regardless of how well you communicate, some people may not like it when you start pushing them to grow and contribute. That's a price you must be willing to pay to affect change and and gain real influence in life. You have to be willing to challenge your kids, to develop character, to treat others better, to contribute. The same goes for the rest of your family, your co workers, and anyone else you serve and lead. We are in a precarious time in history when people are shying away from setting standards with others. Setting standards is really just another way to say issuing positive challenges. People think that challenging others will lead to conflict, but that's rarely true, especially when dealing with high performers. They like it. They're driven by it. Not only can they handle it, but if you are in a position of influence with them, they also expect it of you. If you feel some hesitation in doing this, let me remind you of the data. High performers love challenge. It's one of the most universal observations we've made in our research. Consider the following I respond quickly to life's challenges and emergencies rather than avoiding them or delaying. I love trying to master new challenges. I'm confident I can achieve my goals despite obstacles or resistance. People who strongly agree with these statements are almost always high performers. This means that facing challenge is a huge part of what high performers do well and want to do well. Don't deny them that by being hesitant to issue the challenge. Character influencers challenge others in three realms. First, they challenge their character. This means they give people feedback, direction, and high expectations for living up to universal values such as honesty, integrity, responsibility, self control, patience, hard work, and persistence. Challenging someone's character may sound confrontational, but in practice it's a supportive, helpful gift. I'll bet someone influential in your life once told you you could do better or you're a better person than that or I expected more from you. These were standard setting statements that challenged your character. You may not have liked hearing them, but I'll bet they got your attention and got you to rethink your actions. Of course, challenging someone to develop more character can happen in subtler ways through indirect challenge. Asking someone how would your best self approach the situation? Challenges that person to be more intentional in how they behave. Other indirect challenges might sound something like looking back, do you feel you gave it your all? Are you bringing the best of you to the situation? What values were you trying to embody when you did that? For leaders, I suggest the direct approach of asking people to think of how they can challenge themselves in future scenarios. Ask what kind of person do you want to be remembered as? What would your life look like if you gave your all? Where are you making excuses? And how might life turn out differently if you showed up Stronger Connection the second area where you can challenge others concerns their connections with others, their relationships. You set expectations, ask questions, give examples, or directly ask them to improve how they treat and add value to other people. What you wouldn't condone is poor social behavior. High performing leaders call out anyone who is being inappropriate, rude, or dismissive of someone else on their team. High performing parents do the same thing with their children. They just don't let bad behavior slide. What's important to note here is that high performers are explicit in their expectations for how people should treat each other. I'm always surprised at how direct they are in telling people over and over how to treat one another. Even when people around them are treating one another well, they still keep pushing for them to unite even more. If you've observed a high performing leader in a team meeting, you've probably noticed how often they suggest how the team should be working together. They say things like listen to one another more, show each other more respect, support each other more, spend more time with each other, give each other more feedback. The word more seems omnipresent when they are challenging others. As I've taught this point around the world, I've noticed that some misconstrue this as high performers being hard on their teams, but that's not necessarily the case. No doubt high Performers do have high expectations for those they influence and but they're challenging you to connect with others better is clearly in an effort to help bring a sense of cohesion and solidarity to those you live or work with. High performers want to help you experience greater unity with others because they know that will increase your results. Contribution the third area where you can challenge others is in their contributions. You push them to add more value or to be more generous. This is perhaps one of the more difficult challenges that high performers issue. It's hard to tell someone, hey, your contributions here at work aren't enough. You can do better. But high performers don't shrink from saying this kind of thing. When high performers issue challenges to contribute more, usually they are not giving feedback solely on the quality of what you're delivering now. Rather, they challenge you to contribute more. Looking ahead to create or innovate so that you make the future better. In almost every in depth interview I've done, it's clear that high performers are future oriented. When challenging someone to contribute something meaningful. They don't just challenge people to make better widgets today. They challenge them to reinvent the product suite, to brainstorm entirely new business models, to find adjacent markets to go after, to push into unknown territory, to to add new value. Though I initially thought that high performers were doing this on a large scale, telling their entire team to create a bigger future, I was wrong. Instead, high performers challenge individuals. Specifically they go desk to desk and challenge each person on their team. They adjust the level of challenge they issue to each person they are leading. There's no one size fits all approach to pushing people to contribute. That's how you know you're working with a high performing leader. They'll meet you where you are, speak your language, ask you to help move the entire team toward a better future in your own unique way. My challenge to endure and lead a teacher affects eternity. Henry Adams Aside from my parents, the other great influence in my early life was Linda Ballewit. Linda came into my life at a critical moment when I was about to drop out of high school. Not that I didn't love school. The issue was that my family had the opportunity to go and see relatives in France. Because of my parents work schedules, the only time we could go was during the school year. Unfortunately, the timing of the trip coincided with the district's strict new absence policy under which any student missing more than 10 days of school would be expelled from school for that semester. Our trip was going to be 14 days. If I went on the trip, I wouldn't be allowed back into school that semester. The only way to graduate with my class then would be to take summer school, a time when I was usually working full time to make and save money for college. My parents and I fought with the principal and the school board to make an exception to let me go and return to our class. Our argument was that for my family this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and that we had already worked with my teachers to make up for the lost time by coming back from the trip and giving reports to my classes about my experiences. Unfortunately, we lost the fight. If I went on the trip, I wouldn't be allowed back into school, and since work prevented me from taking summer school, I probably wouldn't be able to graduate with my friends. I was devastated. We went on the trip anyway because as Mark Twain said, never let school get in the way of an education. I wrote an editorial to the local newspaper condemning the school board and then hopped a plane to Europe. On the trip, I took a lot of photos and significant notes about the culture and places we visited. It was the greatest learning experience of my life and the trip brought my family closer together. As expected, when I got home from the trip, I wasn't allowed back into school. My French teacher did allow me to come in and show some of my photos and tell my class about my experiences in France. I did the same for my art class, but when the principal found out I was in school, he had me escorted out. I was so embittered by the whole ordeal, I considered just quitting. My grand plan was to drop out of high school and start my own groundskeeping business. Then I met Linda Belew. Linda was an English teacher and the journalism advisor for the school's student newspaper, the Inua. She had read my editorial in the newspaper and heard about my photos of France from the art teacher and sought me out. When we talked, she praised my editorial and then practically in the same breath, told me it could have been much better. She asked how I thought through the writing process and gave me some tips. Then she asked to see my photos from France. She praised them too, and also told me they could be better. She had this way of praising and challenging me that just worked. I suppose you could say our relationship began through her challenging my contributions. None of it matters anyway, I told her, because I'm not coming back to school. I'll never forget how she handled the situation. What she didn't do was tell me it was a dumb idea. She didn't try to convince me that the school administration was Just following its policy. She didn't try to explain the value of high school. Instead, she respectfully challenged my character. You aren't a quitter, Brendan, and you don't want to be one. You're too strong a person to let the administration make you quit. Linda also told me I had potential and that I should join the student newspaper when I returned to school the next semester. She just assumed that my returning and joining would be the most obvious, natural thing in the world. And then she challenged my character, connections and contributions all in one fell swoop, saying something along the lines of, that's too bad. You could have been good. A lot of students here need someone like you, someone willing to stand up for what they believe in. You could do a lot of good at the school and you could learn to create good art and writing here. You have too much talent and potential not to use them in a creative endeavor. Just think about that. And if you ever think it's a good idea to come back, let me know and I'll be here for you. You don't seem the type to quit anything. I can't remember my counter argument, but I do remember how she responded to it. She listened. She accepted and honored my point of view. She formed a real connection with me and said she hoped to see me again the next semester. I went back that year. Linda took a group of students, including me, and inspired us to think, work together, and contribute in ways we never had. She led us to hope that we could become the best high school newspaper in the country. Even with our few resources and limited experience. She created an expectation of excellence not so we could win awards, but so we could look in the mirror and at each other and. And feel a sense of pride and camaraderie for giving our best effort. She wanted us to become leaders who led with integrity. Linda's leadership style was the embodiment of people support what they create. Every front page, headline, photo byline and layout. She let us choose. Even though she was an expert in every aspect of journalism. She showed us how. How to analyze our competition and strive to improve. On our last issue. She guided us to come together as a team, supporting one another and building on one another's strengths with steadfastness and compassion. She helped us become more competent and confident in more ways than one. Linda helped us become better human beings. Every weekend and every late night spent working to make our deadline, Linda was there. She always role modeled what she wanted us to do as ask questions. I can still hear her voice behind me as I would place a final photo or article in the layout. Is that where you want that? Is this our final final? Is there anything else you'd like to add? She was always asking us more questions. How best to handle a situation. What kind of people we wanted to be, what messages we wanted to communicate to the world. How to complete our work with excellence. How we wanted to represent ourselves and our school. That year at the National Journalism Education association convention, our paper won best of show. We were number one in the country. A small school from Montana beating big schools that often had 10 to 20 times our budget and resources. Under Linda Belew's leadership, I won national and regional first and second place awards for photography, layout and design, news writing, and investigative reporting. I eventually became a managing editor. After I graduated, the paper went on to another decade of top awards. Linda Ballou ran an underfunded high school journalism program in an underfunded school district in an underfunded state. And yet she consistently took in new classes of inexperienced students and developed them into outstanding young journalists who won the highest national and international awards. Her students newspapers won number one rankings across almost every category awarded in high school journalism. And Linda became perhaps the most decorated high school journalism teacher in our nation's history. What made her so remarkable? It comes down to three things. She taught us how to think. She challenged us and she role modeled the way to influence a team to perform with excellence in one conversation. On that precious, pivotal day when I was about to drop out of high school, Linda Ballou changed my life forever. If not for her, you would not be listening to this book. Performance prompts for practice number two of influence begins on page 246 in high performance Habits. The book. You can download this one, which you'll want to because it's long@highperformancehabits.com Tools Think about a person in your life you are trying to influence positively and complete the following sentences in character. Number one. The person I'm trying to influence has the following character strengths. Number two she could become a stronger person if she she is probably too hard on herself in this area. Number four if I could tell her how to improve who she is, I would tell her. Number five if I could inspire her to want to be a better person, I'd probably say something like in connection. Number one. The way I want this person to interact differently with others is to Number Often this person doesn't connect as well with others as I would like because he what would inspire this person to treat other people better is to in contribution Number one, the greatest contribution this person is making is the areas where this person isn't contributing well enough. 3. What I really want this person to contribute more of is practice. 3. Role model the way example is Leadership Albert Schweitzer High performers give a lot of mindshare to thinking about being a role model. 71% say they think about it daily. They say they want to be a good role model for their family, the team and the greater community. Of course everyone would say they want to be a good role model. Who doesn't, right? But what I found with high performers is that they think about it much more often and specifically in relation to how they are seeking to influence others. Meaning they aren't just seeking to be a good person in general as you would typically think of a role modelsomeone who is kind, honest, hard working, giving, loving. They go a step further and they think about how to act so that others might follow them or help them achieve a specific outcome. It's less I'm trying to be Mother Teresa and more I'm going to demonstrate a specific behavior so that others will emulate that exact behavior which will help us move toward a specific result. To be clear, high performers do want to be perceived as good people and good role models, but that just makes them human. What makes them high performers is the laser focused intention on how they can act in a way that gets someone to improve who they are or achieve a specific result. To illustrate this point, let's return to the story from the opening of this chapter. Remember Juan, the apparel company CEO? He was butting heads with Daniela, his new head of design. I had challenged him to be a better leader to her and his team and then drew out the ultimate influence model. We worked through the model together, exploring how he wanted Daniela to think about her role, her team and the company. Then we we discussed what challenges he might inspire her to take on regarding who she was, how she connected with others and what she contributed importantly. We also flipped the scenarios and went through the model again. In other words, I asked him to imagine that she was going through the model and had to give him advice on how to think and what challenges he should take on. How, in his best estimation did she want him to think about his role, team and company? How would she like to challenge his character, connections and contributions? Going through the model from her perspective was difficult for him, but it opened his eyes to the idea that perhaps he was perceiving her attempts at influence as threats rather than leadership. He began to realize that she was challenging him and the status quo at the company, and in significant ways that might actually be helpful. Of course, we could only speculate on her perspective. What we knew for sure was that if he wanted to change the situation, he must change. We had to get him into the role model mindset, which is very different from the defensive mindset. To open that way of thinking, I asked him to tell me about the most influential people in his life. As he did, I drew out components of the uim, the ultimate influence model, to show him specifically where, why they were so influential, how they had challenged him and taught him to think. His most influential people were his father and his first business partner. After he described them to me, I asked how he could honor their legacy by bringing their values and spirits into his organization. I said, how can you bring what made them so amazing into your company and your own leadership style? How can you be a role model to your people the way these two were to to you? This conversation clearly shook him. Most people don't think about that kind of thing. Then I said, now let's go back to the issue at hand. Why do you think so many people in your company see Daniela as a role model? Although he hadn't a good word to say about her, only minutes earlier, he found a few points of grudging admiration. He respected how outspoken she was, even though he didn't like it because he was never so gutsy at her age. He was impressed by how quickly she got other people on board with her vision, stealing away some of his supporters. He admired her tenacity. He believed that people saw her as a role model because she was challenging them to look forward more than he was. For a moment, I didn't know whether these efforts were working. Was he becoming embittered or perhaps seeing things from a new perspective? So I pushed further. Juan, I'm just wondering if you could perhaps one day be just as good a role model to her as she is being to others and as your role models were to you, what would that look like? That last question was when everything clicked, I literally saw the light come on for him. I can't describe it exactly, but it seemed that months of frustration lifted off of him. There's just something magical that happens in our life when we let all the drama go and decide to ask how we can be role models again. Juan realized that to be a role model in this specific situation, he must demonstrate the very thing he wanted from her. He had to lead with questions instead of take solid stances. He had to be open to everyone's thoughts. He had to let her lead. If he hoped that one day she would be open to his thoughts, he had to be open himself to hers. If if he was to be respected, he had to give that same respect. The most important thing he realized, though, was that he was not embodying the values his father and his business partner had instilled in him. I feel like I'm being petulant, and that's not how they'd want to see me lead. By the time we landed for their All Hands meeting, Juan had worked through the uim, the Ultimate Influence Model, several times and brainstormed some ideas with Aaron and me. But when we arrived at the meeting, unbeknownst to either of us, he had also decided to throw out the entire agenda for the meeting. Instead, he would teach his team the UIM and along the way create a real dialogue with the whole group, including everyone who had been in Daniela's corner. He would go on to ask them how they, as a united group, should be thinking about themselves, their competition, and the market. He challenged them to come up with plans for how they could improve individually as leaders, how they could grow as a team, and how the company could make greater contributions to the marketplace. He was enthusiastic and open, collaborative and inspirational. It wasn't fake. I could see that the entire team was surprised by how differently he was addressing them and they were liking it. At the end of the training, he asked Daniela, the head designer, to the front of the room. He admitted his erroneous thinking about her, the team, and the brand. He shared what challenges he felt he faced in his own character, connections, and contributions. He asked her to share her own version of the uim, and then he sat down. She was surprised at first and treaded carefully, but he kept cheering her on and asking her to share more. Two hours went by. All the while he sat, listened, asked for more insight, and took notes. As she finished, he led the group in a standing ovation for her. That night at their team dinner, she toasted him with one of the most heartfelt and emotional toasts I've seen in my career. On the Fight Back, Juan said something I'll remember for a long time. What if our real ability to be truly influential is our ability to be influenced? Performance prompts on page 252 of High Performance Habits. If I were going to approach my relationships and career as an even better role model, the first things I would start doing someone who really needs me to lead and be a strong role model right now is three some ideas on how I can be a role model for that person. Number four. If ten years from now the five closest people to me in my life were to describe me as a role model, I would hope they said things A beautiful lack of trickery. You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. Zig Ziglar Whenever I talk about influence with others or share the ultimate influence model, inevitably someone asks about manipulation. I suppose that's because we've all been dealt our blows from past loves, friends and business people who manipulated us in some ways. We know marketers and media heads who tell us how to think and challenge us to buy things we really can't afford. Could these ideas be used to manipulate or negatively influence others? Of course they could. My hope is that you gain some insights into a higher level of service from this chapter. High Performers just Don't do Manipulation. That sweet spot in the middle of the uim? That ideal of being a role model is just too compelling a drive. No doubt high performers are capable of manipulating others. They just don't. How do I know? Because I've interviewed and tracked and trained and coached so many high performers in the world. And in that process I've gotten to know their teams and families and loved ones. The people around high performers don't feel manipulated. They feel trusted and respected and admired. Is it possible to get ahead in life by manipulating others? You betcha. For the short term. But ultimately manipulators burn all bridges and find themselves disconnected, unsupported, alone. They find no long term success with relationships or their own well being. If they achieve any success in it's built on deceit and discord and poisonous energy. Of course you may find an extreme example of some deceitful person who is an external success, but that is merely one of the rare outliers. A handful of manipulators are not the mean. What I'm trying to impress on you is of those who have achieved long term success, far more are role models than manipulators. I share this because we live in a chaotic world and there is plenty of dark intent. But that also gives us an opportunity to be the light. The question we all face in these turbulent times is how diligently will we work to be the role model? How much focus and effort will we bring to our days to help others think bigger? How many bold challenges will we share to help others rise after all our years on this planet? How well will will we inspire the next generation to be role models themselves?