This is the fourth post in a series on Improving Teamwork within your organization. In this post, we will build our influence model, and we’ll begin by analyzing why our vital behaviors aren’t already pervasive in our teams.

The mistake most of us make at this point in an influence initiative is to assume that our current problems stem from a single root cause—that there is a simple cause, and therefore a simple solution, to our complex problems. But this is rarely the case with influence problems—problems that are profound, persistent, and resistant.

• Profound: problems that are worth solving and not trivial grievances.
• Persistent: problems that have been around a while and not one-time efforts at
• Resistant: resilient problems that have defied your previous attempts to solve them.

In short, we’re interested in the kinds of problems that destroy lives, relationships, businesses, and societies—problems that are caused or worsened by human behavior

A key insight we discuss in chapter 10 of Influencer is that these influence problems are “overdetermined.” They don’t have one single root cause. They have multiple root causes. The reason they are so persistent and resistant is that, even when you get rid of one of their causes, there are others that continue to maintain them.

Successful influencers look for a conspiracy of causes in six different areas, or six sources of influence.
Below are twenty questions we’ve used to look for the causes involved in not acting on our two vital behaviors. First, remember our two vital behaviors:

1. Whenever anyone has a concern, he or she speaks up and explains the concern in a complete, frank, and respectful way.
2. Everyone holds everyone accountable for meeting expectations, for commitments, and for bad behavior—regardless of role or position.

Explore these questions with team members to understand why they aren’t acting on these vital behaviors. I’ve grouped the questions into six categories to reflect our six sources of influence model.

Source 1: Personal Motivation: Do people derive enjoyment, fulfillment, identity, or self respect from the vital behaviors?

1. Some people don’t speak up or try to hold people accountable because they don’t like to. It feels uncomfortable, awkward, or even a bit risky.

2. Some people see problems as “other people’s problems.” They don’t feel personally responsible for solving them.

3. Some people fail to speak up or hold people accountable because they are burnt out or disengaged. They have a perspective that prevents them from taking action. They say, “Why should I try? Nothing will change anyway.”

4. Some people don’t see “speaking up” or “holding people accountable” as an important part of their role—they don’t take professional pride in these aspects of their jobs.

5. Some people see their work as “just a job.” They don’t see it as defining who they are or as a moral imperative. So they don’t see “speaking up” or “holding others accountable” as an ethical responsibility.

Source 2: Personal Ability: Do people have the knowledge, skills, and emotional control to perform the vital behaviors?

6. Some people find it difficult to speak up or to hold someone accountable when it’s a person who has a bad reputation or seems frustrated right now.

7. Some people find it difficult to continue to explain a concern when the other person has tried to cut them off. They don’t know how to maintain professional dialogue when the other person doesn’t seem to want their perspective.

8. Some people find it difficult to speak up when they know they might be wrong—when they are clearly not the expert, or when they aren’t sure how to describe the concern.

Sources 3 & 4: Social Motivation & Ability: Do others—peers, managers, friends, relatives, etc…provide sources of motivation and ability to perform the vital behaviors

9. Some people don’t speak up or try to hold people accountable because, when they do, the people they confront get hurt feelings, get defensive, or get angry.

10. Some people have given up on speaking up or holding others accountable because, the people they confront don’t do their part to help solve the problem. They don’t feel listened to or respected, and the problem continues—so they give up.

11. Some people don’t speak up or try to hold others accountable because they doubt that leaders will back them up if they do.

12. Some people don’t speak up or try to hold others accountable because, if they do, they think they’ll be on their own. They doubt that anyone around them will come to their assistance.

13. Some people don’t speak up or try to hold others accountable because they would have to be the first. There isn’t a critical mass of respected people already speaking up and holding others accountable.

14. There are large power differentials based on pay, education, experience, and authority. People don’t speak up because they find these power differences intimidating—even when there’s no intimidating behavior.

Source 5 Structural Motivation: Do the formal selection, appraisal, promotion, reward, and discipline systems motivate the person to perform the vital behaviors?

15. Some people don’t speak up or try to hold people accountable because speaking up and holding people accountable doesn’t get you a better performance review, better pay, or help your career.

16. Some people don’t speak up or try to hold people accountable because no one holds them accountable for doing so. There are no costs or sanctions for staying quiet.

Source 6 Structural Ability: Does the environment make the vital behaviors easier or more convenient, and make the wrong behaviors tougher or less convenient.

17. Some people don’t speak up or try to hold people accountable because there aren’t enough opportunities. It’s too difficult to find the right times and places to meet and talk about these kinds of issues.

18. Some people don’t speak up or try to hold people accountable because the people they need to talk with are never around when they need to talk with them.

19. Some people don’t speak up or try to hold people accountable because the people they need to talk with are physicians or patients or members of other departments who don’t really need to listen.

20. Some people don’t speak up or try to hold people accountable because it’s not in their job description. They don’t think they are supposed to have these kinds of conversations.

If you are like most people, you’ve answered “yes” to many, if not all, of these questions. In most organizations these twenty questions represent twenty barriers to speaking up and holding others accountable. No wonder problems involving teamwork are so persistent and resistant!

In the next several blog postings I’ll build a robust influence strategy that will overcome every one of these root causes.