Part 6: Unleash Your Scrum with Multi-Skilled Professionals — Leveraging the Influencer Model for Change
The previous article highlighted a significant challenge: the scarcity of multi-skilled professionals makes it tough to build such teams through direct recruitment alone. This situation steers us toward a more viable and long-term approach — developing these skills within our existing teams by creating a supportive environment for learning multiple skills.
This article presents a robust framework to help us discover how combining personal, social, and structural motivators in carefully crafted practical experiments can instill multi-skilled growth.
We will explore the Influencer Change Model, a concept I discovered in the book “Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change,” by Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler.
Before we delve into specific experiments, it’s essential to understand the model’s fundamentals. It will serve as our roadmap for systematically applying these experiments throughout the rest of our series.
If you’re joining me for the first time, I recommend reading the previous parts for context:
Part 1: Unleash Your Scrum with Multi-Skilled Professionals — The History and Background
Part 3: Unleash Your Scrum with Multi-Skilled Professionals — Exploring The Single-Skilled Dynamics
Part 4: Unleash Your Scrum with Multi-Skilled Professionals — Reversing the Dynamics
Chapter 9
The Influencer Change Model
Leadership is all about changing people’s behavior, and influencers are leaders who understand how to create rapid, profound, and sustainable behavior change.
The authors created the Influencer Change Model based on exploring striking examples of change on a grand scale like saving over 5 million Thai citizens from contracting HIV/AIDS by influencing the behavior of over 60 million people or changing the behavior of 120 million people spread over 10 millionacrossare miles to eradicate Guinea worm disease. By poring over 17,000 articles and books, they identified, met, and closely examined the work of scholars and practitioners who had succeeded in influencing rapid, profound, and sustainable change to find commonalities and package them in a model comprising three keys to influence.
- Focus and measure.
- Find vital behaviors.
- Engage all six sources of influence.
Focus and Measure
The inaugural step for influencers is to focus and measure meticulously. They clearly delineate the objective, ensuring it resonates rationally and emotionally, thus serving as a beacon of focus and a source of inspiration.
A quintessential aspect, they realize, lies in having clear, consistent, and meaningful measures. Such metrics serve as the linchpin in tracking efforts and instilling genuine accountability. Well-chosen measures drive behavior by perpetuating attention and necessitating continuous assessment.
Illustration: Dr. Don Berwick, the former CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, encapsulates this message eloquently: “I think it’s unacceptable that the sixth leading cause of death in the United States is healthcare.… We inadvertently kill the equivalent of a jumbo jet filled with passengers every day of the year. I think we should save 100,000 lives. I think we should do that by June 14, 2006… By 9 a.m.” This goal, potent in its specificity and emotionality, exemplifies the essence of focus and measure.
A common hurdle for change agents lies in the murkiness of their goal-setting. Here are typical missteps that limit influence:
Ambiguous, Lackluster Goals: Phrases like “Empower employees” or “Improve customer service” sound unclear and fail to ignite enthusiasm or provide a clear direction.
Absent, Sporadic, or Non-Specific Measures: Goals lacking specific measures, or those assessed infrequently such as “Track office morale” or “Monitor engagement every 2 years”, render progress tracking a fanciful endeavor.
Misguided Metrics: For instance, in the Soviet Union, “Measure productivity by tonnage” led to an excess of unneeded rail spikes, overlooking the dire need for nails. It’s a graphical example of how ill-conceived metrics can skew behaviors detrimentally.
Find Vital Behaviors
The crux here is pinpointing the behaviors that need a shift to achieve the desired outcome. Specific methods and techniques matter, but not until you’ve nailed down the exact behaviors you want to change.
It might seem like a mammoth task at first. But the good news is, you don’t have to list many behaviors. Often, just one or two key behaviors can make a big splash. An essential behavior is a scenario where someone’s choice either nudges toward awesome results or triggers a domino effect of negative behaviors causing many problems.
Illustration: The YMCA and Redwoods Insurance slashed the number of deaths in public pools by two-thirds. They zoned in on one crucial lifeguard behavior called 10–10 scanning, which means a lifeguard scans her pool section every 10 seconds and jumps in to help within 10 seconds if needed.
The authors share some handy hints for spotting and influencing key behaviors:
Spot the obvious stuff — like how folks with better heart health tend to exercise, munch on healthier food, and avoid smoking.
Pinpoint the critical moments when a key behavior is on shaky ground — like figuring out when customer service takes a hit despite everyone being trained in customer service.
Learn from the pros — the positive deviants who’ve hit the mark under the same conditions.
Keep an eye on sneaky, harmful cultural norms — like it being cool to break traffic rules if the boss is in a hurry.
Engage All Six Sources of Influence
Personal Motivation
Often, we observe individuals engaging in unproductive behaviors, which prompts the question: do they enjoy it? Especially with ingrained habits, personal motivation plays a crucial role in driving and maintaining behavior. Enjoyment often stems from associating effort with desirable outcomes or simply from the act of striving.
Illustration: Many students find school tedious and irrelevant. Now, imagine a setting where hard work links directly to promising futures, where pupils learn to correlate diligence with good grades, which, in turn, are tied to success. This narrative, coupled with educators making classroom learning enjoyable, transforms the learning experience.
To help individuals embrace what they usually detest, consider the following strategies:
Providing Choices: Empower individuals with the freedom to choose, fostering a sense of ownership and engagement.
Offering Direct Experiences: Enable firsthand experiences that create a personal connection and enhance understanding.
Facilitating Vicarious Learning: Encourage learning through observing others’ experiences and creating relatable scenarios.
Sharing Meaningful Stories: Narrate stories that resonate emotionally and intellectually, highlighting the value of desired behaviors.
Gamifying Unpleasant Tasks: Introduce game elements to make challenging tasks more engaging and enjoyable.
Personal Ability
When deciphering why individuals stray from desired behaviors, it’s pertinent to ask: Do they possess the necessary skills? Enjoyment alone doesn’t guarantee success; acquiring the requisite skills and understanding is crucial to effectively adopting vital behaviors.
Illustration: In education, dropout rates aren’t solely due to an allure for leisure; they often stem from recurring failures making students feel incompetent. Contrast this with a learning environment that instills a sense of competence through engaging, informative practice experiences coupled with clear feedback. When students taste success, they’re keen to replicate it.
Achieving success requires a dedicated approach to “ideal” practice, encompassing:
- Small, attainable goals tied to a larger objective
- Short bursts of intense focus
- A meticulous attention to process details over the result
- Swift feedback loops
- Monitoring micro-indicators of progress upon reaching each smaller goal
- Setting the bar slightly higher with each subsequent goal
Social Motivation
Next, examining the social facet of influence is pivotal. A key question is: Do others around them encourage undesirable behaviors? The social milieu is a potent source of influence, as individuals often seek social approval, emotional support, and a sense of reward when aligning with expected social behaviors. This social reinforcement can significantly sway individuals’ actions, sometimes even subconsciously.
Illustration: When half of your peers decide to leave school, dropping out starts to appear as the norm. Conversely, as newcomers connect with classmates who highly regard learning, put in the effort, set their sights on college, and attain success, they too become inspired to tread a similar path.
Exploring three focal areas unveils the essence of social motivation:
Utilizing the “I” Influence — embodying and exemplifying the desired behavior personally, thus serving as a real-life model for others to observe and emulate. Your personal demonstration of the change can inspire and motivate those around you to follow suit.
Engaging Opinion Leaders — harnessing the influence of key opinion leaders, who constitute about 10% of the group, can cascade change through the 90%.
Engaging Everyone in Changing Social Norms — initiating open dialogue by making the undiscussable discussable, and fostering a sense of 200% accountability, where everyone takes responsibility not only for their actions but also for the actions of their peers.
Social Ability
When exploring this dimension of influence, ponder: Are others facilitating the desired change? Beyond motivation, our social circles can significantly enable or impede vital behaviors.
Illustration: Consider a student on the brink of dropping out due to lack of support. Contrast this with a scenario where a teacher gives a newcomer the contact information of three helpful classmates and her personal number, offering a safety net.
The Beatles aptly said, “I get by with a little help from my friends.”
Unlocking social ability is made possible by:
- Utilizing social capital and harnessing collective intellectual and physical resources.
- Transforming sources of undesired behavior into part of the solution.
- Shifting a “me” problem to an “our” problem.
- Crafting situations demanding collective resolution.
- Embracing uncertainty and risks as catalysts for collaborative problem-solving.
- Nurturing instant feedback loops by pairing up with seasoned teammates, accelerating the learning curve and course correction.
Structural Motivation
“Things” play a pivotal role in propelling or enabling vital behaviors. To gauge this source of influence, ask: Are the rewards and sanctions aligned to encourage the desired actions?
Illustration: some students might find the allure of a paycheck more enticing than education prospects. Introducing rewards that applaud punctuality and task completion could incentivize them to stay on the academic path.
The beauty lies in aligning carrots and sticks with the desired behavioral patterns, shifting the spotlight from merely rewarding a specific behavior to crafting a landscape where undesired behaviors lose their appeal.
Here are some pivotal insights that unfold the intricacies of structuring rewards to stimulate desired behaviors:
Rewarding the Right Behaviors: Bestowing rewards on behaviors already tied to pleasure and enjoyment may be redundant. It’s essential to identify and reward behaviors that require a nudge.
Collective Achievements: Although aimed at motivating, individual rewards could sometimes breed harmful competition or discord among team members. Evaluating the dynamics and promoting collective achievements can be more harmonious.
Effective Rewards: Rewards that are immediate, modest, and directly correlated to the desired behavior can be more impactful. They act as quick affirmations, making the journey towards the goal enjoyable and motivating.
Narrative within a Reward: The underlying message conveyed through a reward often resonates more than the reward itself. It signals what’s valued and encourages alignment with desired behaviors.
Applauding Efforts: Rewarding the instances of desired behavior or the effort put forth, rather than solely the result, helps keep the momentum alive and acknowledges the process.
Structural Ability
Lastly, the material aspects of our environment can either support or hinder our performance. To delve into this source of influence, ponder: Is the environment conducive to success?
Illustration: Imagine a school with crumbling infrastructure and outdated learning resources — it’s a battleground for focus and meaningful learning. Take a cue from a success story at a thriving school: A mother struggled to have her daughter prioritize homework over television. Upon a routine home visit, the principal, understanding the impediment, suggested a bold move — remove the TV. Reluctantly, the mother agreed, choosing education over distraction. The principal left carrying a 36-inch obstacle to learning, paving the way for yet another student toward college.
Here’s how we can architect structural ability:
Enlighten: Disseminate information that molds desirable behaviors.
Design Space: Arrange the physical space to promote positive behaviors.
Equip: Provide tools and resources that trigger necessary actions.
Streamline: Implement structures and processes that enable the right behaviors, steering individuals toward the overarching goal.
The Influencer Change Model has demonstrated that we must combine the intricate layers of personal, social, and structural influences to shape the desired behavior. Now, our challenge shifts to applying these principles to grow multi-skilled professionals within our teams.
In the upcoming practical portion of this series, we will align our experiments with the structure of the Influencer Change Model. This approach ensures that our efforts systematically address all the critical components necessary for substantial and enduring change. I will share a strategy for initiating and conducting these experiments that I’ve found helpful and effective.
So, we’re finally ready to move on from theory to practice and explore some actionable strategies to grow diverse skill sets within teams and enhance team dynamics to leverage Scrum’s potential fully.
Continue exploring the nuances of multi-skilling in transforming our Scrum practices and elevating our teams to new heights of agility in the next part of the series:
References
- Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler. Influencer. The New Science of Leading Change (McGraw Hill Education, 2013)
