How to influence, Part one

One of the most common questions I am asked is, "I know the hospitality-based strategy will work. How do I motivate my people to do it?" I am asked this by laymen wanting to know how to motivate their groups, as well as pastors who want to motivate their people.

I just read a great book on this topic: Influencer, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. It is a great book. If you are interested in how to influence people, run, don't walk, to get this book.

If I were a pastor, I would be studying this book with my staff. If I were a Minister of Education, I would put this on the schedule to study with my teachers. . . soon. I love this book so much I bought the book and the audio. I will likely listen to the audio more than once.

Here is a story that illustrates the power of using the principles in this book.

Imagine it is your job to fight a disease that has plagued humanity for over 3000 years. This disease has the capacity to ruin lives, deepen poverty, incapacitate entire villages. More than 3.5 million people in Asia and Africa alone are infected and there is no cure.

Meet the Carter Center's Dr. Donald Hopkins, one of the influence masters studies in the research for Influencer. For the past twenty years, Dr. Hopkins has waged a war against the guinea worm--the world's largest and most noxious human parasite. In years past, the worm would infect 20% - 60% of a villages population. It involves three foot long worms that people get by drinking microscopic forms of the worms in open sources of drinking water. A year later, this three foot long worm--about the width of a strand of spaghetti emerge through the skin on any part of the body. (You can actually see one of the little critters in an online video at www.influencerbook.com ) The worm incapacitates a person for periods averaging two to three months. People may have more than one worm.

There is no cure for this disease. The only hope is to influence how whole villages behave. Dr. Hopkins has been able to do just that. He and his team have been able to completely eliminate the worm in more than half of the previously suffering countries. When the Carter Center began working on this in 1986 there were an estimated 3.5 million people infected around the world. By the end of 2005, we are down to just over 10,000 cases, and it trends continue, within a few years, the last guinea will be eradicated, making the disease and the worm extinct.

All this was accomplished, not with a shot or vaccine or pill, but by influencing the behavior of people spread across thousand of remote villages. 

The power of influence has conquered many other similarly daunting problems like drug addiction and the spread of AIDS. I'd like to summarize the six influencer principles, then apply them to the idea of influencing people to double classes using hospitality as an means. If we would encourage people to double their classes, six things must happen.

Personal motivation:

• He must believe he can change
• He must believe he wants to change (it is in his self-interest to change)

Social motivation:

• He must be led by leaders that model the desired behavior
• He must see his peers engaging in this behavior

Structural motivation:

• He must be rewarded by the system
• He must be empowered by the system.

This change is all about a vital behavior. Influence always starts here. It starts by defining behavior that we want people to engage in or refrain from. In the guinea worm example above, the vital behaviors included straining water and staying out of public water supplies when infected.

If you would influence people to double a class every two years or less the vital behavior is this: get people in the habit of inviting every member and every prospect to every fellowship every month. I have seen it happen more times than I can count; you get them to the party and would not be able to keep them from class. It doesn't happen every single time--there are plenty of exceptions--but it does happen often enough to double every two years or less.

If you want to make disciples, one vital behavior is influencing people to read their Bibles and pray daily. It is a fundamental discipline of the Christian life. Let's examine how we might influence a church to read their Bibles daily.

As you look at this list, you might think it is a bit over the top. You might think it is over-kill. This is one key of every master-influencer. They over-determine success. They apply more sources of influence than might be absolutely necessary to insure the change. They make change inevitable by what might look like to some as over doing it.

Motivating people to read their bibles

Let's apply these six principles to a basic discipline of the Christian life: having a daily quiet time.

Personal motivation:

• He must believe he can be disciplined in reading his Bible. This is why the Navigators talk about seven minutes with God. It is not to limit our time to seven minutes; it is to make it something he can do. Many people see themselves as just basically undisciplined. The research does not bear this out. There is not a discipline gene. It is about learning skills that support our discipline. Here is one: set your alarm seven minutes early.
• He must believe he wants to change. It is in his self-interest to change. He must come to love the Christian life, or he he will never come to live the Christian life. Quiet time becomes a sweet hour of prayer, or he is not praying very well. The thing is, it really is a wonderful life. The Bible teaches that God is a rewarder or those who seek Him. He really is. Some of the sweetest times in my life have been times alone with God. You must come to believe this, or you will never be consistent in your time alone with God. Discipline is over-rated in a lot of Christian teaching. There is a place for discipline, but if you live your whole life trying to make yourself do what you basically don't like doing, you are going to struggle. You must come to love Bible reading and prayer, or you will never do it consistently.

Social motivation:

• He must be led by leaders that model the desired behavior. Most people do well to be in a discipleship group, at least for a time. Most of us need to be in a group that is led by a leader that will set the pace for us. The leader must embody the vision. When I was a Minister of Education, I led several of these groups, and trained others to lead these groups. One group was not working well. I investigated why. Word on the street was this. The leader would ask the people how they were doing in their time alone with God. Predictably, they would be struggling establishing the discipline in the early days of the group. The leader responded, "It is OK, I didn't have a good week with my quiet time either." The group actually reinforced the wrong behavior. If you would influence your group to spend time alone with God, you must model it. The leader must embody the vision. If you do embody the vision, it will just come up from time to time. "This week, I was reading in my quiet time and God spoke to me. . . " has more influence than an occasional lecture on quiet time.
• He must see his peers engaging in this behavior. It is one thing to see the leaders engaging in desired behavior; it is another to see my peers. When my pastor has a quiet time and tells about it, that is good, but I sorta expected that. When my friends are all having quiet times, I feel I need to step up. I think we ought to talk about this regularly in Sunday School. I think we ought to talk about how we are doing in terms of our time alone with God in our groups on a regular basis. At least once a month we ought to ask, "What are you reading these days? What is it meaning to you?"

Structural motivation:

• He must be rewarded by the system. It is easy to imagine how this can work with kids. Bible drill is a classic example. Kids are challenged to learn Bible verses and then they compete on how well they know them. (They don't actually compete against each other. They compete against themselves and the standard. Everyone can be a winner.) With a little creativity, this same principle can be applied tastefully with adults. What if you had an emphasis next year to encourage everyone to read through the Bible. Everyone who does it is invited to a steak dinner with the pastor. Perhaps we give everyone a Bible or a gift certificate to a Lifeway store if they successfully read through the whole Bible in a year.
• He must be empowered by the system. The system can reward, but it can also empower. When I was a Minister of Education, I supplied everyone who wanted them with the Daily Walk--a daily devotional guide that helped people read through the Bible in a year. There are a number of similar products available. Perhaps you could subsidize the cost of the One Year Bible for all your people.

These same six principles can motivate people to double their classes every two years or less and use hospitality to grow their groups. But, this article is a little long. Let's get into that next week. In the mean time, you might pick up a copy of Influencer. For an MP3 version, see www.audible.com I think you will be glad you did.

To unsubscribe, go to www.joshhunt.com/signup.htm