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Everyone wants to be more influential. But few of us as leaders possess more than a handful of techniques for getting others to alter their behavior.

We try, get frustrated and give up. It’s little wonder that according to a new study by the authors of the New York Times best seller “Influencer: The Power to Change Anything,” only one in 20 leaders is a true “influencer” – someone capable of changing employee behavior in a way that lasts.

Leaders’ inability to influence the behavior of their followers is at the root of the vast majority of corporate disappointments.

The good news is that it is possible to influence almost any behavior quickly and permanently with surprisingly predictable success. Even better news is that these are skills that anyone can learn, teach and master.

The “Influencer” authors identified how seemingly insignificant people are making incredibly significant improvements in solving problems others would think impossible. Then they combined those skills with five decades of social science research. The result? Powerful stories about quiet but tenacious influencers who have solved world-size problems solely by influencing how people behave.

How can we create the same kind of results? Apply these three principles to bring about the profound results you care about most:

Find the vital behaviors.

We often overwhelm people by asking too much of them. At work, the success of any change effort relies on a leader’s ability to identify just a handful of vital behaviors. Jack Welch had two vital behaviors that he drilled into General Electric Co. for 30 years: openness, meaning absolute intellectual honesty and candor; and boundarylessness, or working across the organization to leverage assets for the good of the enterprise. He claims that instilling these two behaviors was the hardest and most important thing he did to deliver sustainable stellar results.

Change the way you change minds.

Talk is easy, and it works a good deal of the time. However, with persistent and resistant problems, talk is rarely enough. Ever try to get someone to stop smoking by asking them to? People have to experience for themselves the benefits of the proposed new behavior.

Make change inevitable.

We often look for the silver-bullet solution, the one thing we can do to change everything. Master influencers never do that. They understand that behavior is determined by six powerful sources of influence. They work persistently to uncover the hidden causes of current behavior and then amass a combination of all six of these sources of influence in support of new behavior. They make change inevitable.

Remember, the root cause of disappointment and underperformance is not a failure of ideas; it’s a failure of influence. The most important skill set we possess is the capacity to influence the behavior of ourselves and others.
Shirley Poertner is president of Poertner Consulting Group LLC and an authorized and licensed associate of VitalSmarts LC, the publisher of “Influencer: The Power to Change Anything.”