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Influence, Part #3
What exactly do
you want people to DO?
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So far, we have
looked at two things:
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Paul said, "I
try to persuade men." We should try to persuade men too,
using the best persuasion and influence tools available. If you
missed this article,
click here
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Amazing
influence is possible. Imagine a 3 foot worm living inside
you. Eventually it secretes some acid and bores out of your skin,
causing excruciating pain for a month or more. In 1986, this is how
120 million people lived. This worm had been paralyzing continents
for 3500 years. There is no cure, but thanks to the influence of Dr.
Donald Hopkins, the worm in nearly extinct. Amazing things can
happen through influence. If you missed this article,
click here.
This week we will
look at the first step in an effective influence strategy--the
prerequisite to amazing influence.
"Before you can
influence change, you have to decide what you want to
change." (p. 23 Influencer)
"All influence
geniuses focus on behaviors. They're inflexible on this point." (p. 26
Influencer)
Leaders have a
nasty temptation of focusing on outcomes, not behaviors:
-
I want to
influence my people to love God passionately. (Good, but what do you
want them to do?)
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I want to
influence my people to double their classes every two years or less.
(Yes, but how? Hint: I have a book by that title; maybe you could
start by asking them to read it.)
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I want to
influence my people to be more missional. (There is a cool buzz
word. How exactly do you do missional?)
We do better to
focus on behavior. Influence geniuses are inflexible on this point. If
want people to love God more, perhaps you could focus on the behavior of
starting their day with their Bible on the lap. Get them to work through
God Sightings: The One Year Bible NLT (One Year Bible: Nltse) this year.
If you want to influence your people to double their classes, seek to
influence them to invite every member and every prospect to every
fellowship every month.
Jesus knew this. He
had a lot to teach his men, but he stated with one simple behavioral
request: follow me. This vital strategy--following Jesus, would lead to
all the rest.
Dr. Hopkins
eliminated the guinea worm by focusing on two vital behaviors: having
people strain water through a thin cloth like a woman's skirt, and
keeping people who were infected away from the public water supply.
Focusing on these two vital behaviors has nearly irradiated the worm.
Resist like crazy
the temptation to use primarily words to influence. Words are
among the least persuasive forms of influence and when used
alone almost never work. Suppose you want
your people to start their day with their Bible on their lap using the God Sightings edition
of the One Year Bible. Try to employ as many influence strategies as you
can, such as:
-
Buy God Sightings
by the case and make it easy for you people to purchase at church.
Subsidize the cost if you can. (More on this in
article eleven.)
-
Create
accountability groups. (Article nine.)
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Have the pastor
share insights from the pulpit or preach sermons that correspond
with the weekly readings. (Article eight.)
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Have people
share testimonies about how wonderful it is to spend time in the Word
each day. (Article five.)
This may seem like
overkill, but it is not. "This is the core principle principle
demonstrated by virtually all the change masters we studied. No single
strategy explained their success." Change masters over determine
success. They use more strategies than they think will be necessary to
accomplish the desired results. They are realist who know that life does
not work out as well in the real world as we imagine. They don't think
the list above is too long; they think it is too short.
In contrast, my
experience teaches me that most churches underdetermine success. They
think that by asking or telling or talking change will come. It will
not. Amazing influence is possible, but you have to use more than words.
Imagine you want
your teachers to teach a good enough lesson so that the
group can grow ("half-way decent lesson each and every week, nothing
less will do"). You can ask. You can tell. Or, you can give your groups
Good Questions That Have Groups Talking. A question and answer
approach is much easier to insure half-way decent teaching each and
every week.
Imagine you want
your groups to double every two years or less. You have read where
inviting every member and every prospect to every fellowship every month
can help. You decide the vital behavior is for each group to have a
party once a month. You develop a talk on this and expect that to be
enough. It won't. You invite me
to come and and give a talk. That can
help, but alone it won't be enough. Here are some additional steps you
might take:
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Work on your
people skills. Ask: do people like you? There are vital behaviors
that can predict this. Work on them. Smile. Look people in the eye.
Show an interest in their lives. Find common ground. People are
rarely influenced to follow people they do not like. More on this in
the next article -- article 4.)
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Present these
parties as a fun thing. One of the things I try to emphasize in my
seminars is that the idea is not to dream up something that might be
interesting to outsiders. Rather, a more effective strategy is to
start with what you enjoy doing and build on that. I talk about the
thrill people will feel when they see people's lives changed through
hospitality and they know that they had a part. I talk about the
idea that growing churches and growing classes are having more fun.
Talk about these truths often. (Article 5.)
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Leaders lead.
People will never engage in hospitality until the pastors do. Titus
1.8 says the elder must "enjoy having guests in his home." (NLT)
(Article 8.)
Lead by example.
-
Perhaps you
could offer a reward--how about a free dinner--for the class that
has the most parties, or invited the most people or grew the most.
Do this carefully, or it can backfire, as the latest research
indicates. (We will talk about this in
article 10.)
The question
arises--what are vital behaviors? What behaviors predictably result in
the outcome we want? Does having a quiet time predictably create
spiritually vibrant people? Does having parties predict a group growing?
How do we know? Patterson and his colleagues offer four steps:
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Study the best.
On a church level, a great deal of research has been done on this by
Barna and Stetzer and Rainer. Studying growing churches is a great
way to find the vital behaviors that lead to growth.
-
Search for
positive deviance. We know that most churches are plateaued or
declining. Many are not. Study them. Most of your groups are not
growing. One or two are. What are they doing that the rest are not?
I did a survey of 1000+ group leaders to discover what are the vital
behaviors that lead to a group growing. The results will be revealed
in a book to be released June 2010 by Group Publishers. Hint:
parties do, in fact, work.
Dr. Hopkins
discovered the vital behaviors, he didn't invent
them. He found villages that should have had the guinea worm but
didn't. What were they doing differently? Straining water through a
thin cloth and keeping infected people away from the water supply.
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Search for
recovery behaviors. No one adopts the new vital behaviors perfectly
or instantly. We have to find a way to get folks back on the wagon.
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Test your
results. If we have found the right vital behaviors, they will show
predictable results when others try them. God has created a
predictable universe of sowing and reaping. Certain behavior get
certain results every single time.
What exactly do you
want to influence your people to do? Don't think about outcomes; think
about behaviors. Isolate a handful (think: short list) of vital
behaviors that you want to influence. Then over determine these using as
many influence strategies as you can bring to bear on these strategies.
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