Influence is imperative when it comes to pioneering new plans. Organizational change is difficult, but if done correctly our chances of creating change increases exponentially. Initially, we should target the affective domain because people are more easily influenced when we go after the heart and speak on pain points. There’s this quote that I extracted from one of the videos in our class modules that states “If you want to see change, lead change. It takes a lot of mental fortitude and an individual fixated on sustaining the growth mindset to stay in constant pursuit of innovation.
When making that shift to be an influencer, it’s important to know “Influencers do three things better than others. They are clearer about the results they want to achieve and how they measure them. They focus on a small number of vital behaviors that will help them achieve those results. They overdetermine change by amassing six sources of influence that both motivate and enable the vital behaviors.“ (Greeny, 2013) Vital behaviors are simple and profound tasks that could spark major change. These behaviours must be very specific. The behaviours I hope to change are getting my colleagues to create their own e-portfolio, integrate e-portfolio into the “Loves Notes” Curriculum with the central point of self-reflection, building resolve, and ownership of learning experience, and attend group meetings to hold each other accountable and discuss the intricacies of the pilot. Furthermore, putting together at least 4 sources of influence increases your chances of influencing change by 10 times. Considering the information provided I have put together a plan that will create organisational change. Lastly, I will measure this by by peer evaluation, sharing e-portfolios, and student response.
I work for the Memorial Healthcare System as a Healthcare Educator. My job requires me to facilitate curriculums that caters to sexual health and relationship building. For the most part my organization is run like a meritocracy, where we all have some form of input, and they try their best to appease us in any way they could. Within my organization we have a chain of command, which includes the CEO, Executive Directors, Team leaders etc. Those are the formal leaders in our organization. As an educator and a youth counselor we do community outreach. This is where we go into the schools and sell ourselves as well as our curriculum to the administration, parents, and students in close proximity to our office. These people are our opinion leaders. We allow these individuals to communicate with us during our parent, guardian, and leadership nights. The feedback we get from there either make or break our plans of innovation, after all our job is to appease them. Additionally, what they say in those meet-ups affect how my colleagues see the plans that I opted in to pilot.
My ultimate strategy for influencing personnel within my organization is identifying their personal motivations as well as their abilities. Things such as pinpointing their “why,” because if our purpose is similar in any way I believe I could count on this person to endure the process we’ll be forced to reckon with as we fight to implement and sustain our plan. Also I like to provide extra incentives, extrinsic rewards are huge, but i’m careful on what I reward. Carol Dweck said in her Ted Talk that we should reward people for their effort and their relentlessness within the process, rather than amplifying specific skill sets that they share. She went on to call this “Praising Yet.”
Reference
Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change: 2nd Ed. McGraw-Hill Education, 2013.