In the last few years we have experienced "inflection point" (Andy Grove, former CEO Intel). "tipping point" (Malcolm Gladwell, author) and now I wonder if "influence point" may be a way to more deeply understand the process of change?
The first two describe the awareness of change. The change has happened or emerged to a point of recognition. The influence point is who is initiating the change and how. In a network there are more than one influence points yet they are synchronized in behavior.
It seems in many recent conversations about organizations transforming themselves for Enterprise 2.0 that the focus keeps shifting to either the social technology or the content knowledge generated, but rarely the humans at the point of influence. Granted the technology tools and the structure of knowledge content are easier to discuss, however the human interaction with the tools and the content they produce is what drives the process.
An announcement for the upcoming "Synthetic Worlds and Public Policy - Ludium II Conference chaired by Edward Castronova describes their process for reaching a consensus platform as:
"... a 19th century political convention putting conference attendees in the role of delegates to a political party convention whose objective is to hammer out a common platform. CONVENTION's incentives will lead the group to a set of policy recommendations believed by most participants to be important, sensible, and feasible."
Would that most change processes had as clear an objective.
One of the incentives in this convention game designed by Studio Cypher,LLC
is "influence points" which reward those with the ability to exert the most influence. There are 400 plus participants expected from a diverse set of perspectives on the topic making for "bombastic" conversations in their terms.
We have been looking at organizations as human networks (extended internal/external) and understand that they are political in their operations; to ignore the reality of organizational politics is to be naive. But how often and how well do we look at the positive influential capability of individuals in organization networks? The Synthetic Worlds Convention is making influence explicit and building it into the consensus building process. A lesson learned.
Robert Cialdini - Influence at Work, has done extensive research on influence and found 6 principles which one needs in order to move others to say "yes" or change.
They are:
Reciprocation: People are more willing to comply with requests (for favors, services, information, concessions, etc.) from those who have provided such things first. Think open source.
Commitment/Consistency: People are more willing to be moved to a particular direction if they see it as consistent with an existing commitment. Think AMAZON rankings.
Authority: People are more willing to follow the direction or recommendations of a communicator to whom the attribute relative authority or expertise. Think relative as in blogosphere or f2f, your expertise counts in rankings by peers.
Social Validation: People are more willing to take a recommended action if they see evidence that many others, especially similar others, are taking it. Think word of mouth.
Scarcity: People find objects and opportunities more attractive to the degree that they are scarce, rare, or dwindling in availability. Think any niche item.
Liking/Friendship: People prefer to say yes those they know and like. Of course!
It would be interesting to run a social network analysis of the individuals who amass the highest number of influence points at the Synthetic World's Convention to see if network central roles correlate with influence ability.
My guess is yes ... what do you think?
~Victoria G. Axelrod
