Whether CEO, CFO, employee, spouse, spouse-ette, baker man, thief – we all want to know:  How can I make him/her/them behave differently, the way I want them behave?  The answer: You can’t, they must. OK, you saw that coming.

So, let’s rephrase the FAQ:  How do you influence someone to change their behavior?

Answer:  Obey the First Law of Performance, articulated by my past colleague Steve and Dave.  How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them. Steve and Dave: “Consider that when we do something, it always makes complete sense to us.  On the other hand, when others do something, we often question, “Why are they doing that? It doesn’t make any sense!” But, if we got into the world of the person [into their head], and looked at how the situation occurred to them, [Being John Malkovich, trailer] we would experience that the same actions that we were questioning were completely and absolutely the perfect and correct thing for him to do, given how the situation is occurring to the person.”

Knowing the First Law, you can probably answer The Ultimate Leadership FAQ. Give it a try. I’ll push the pause-blog button …. [Musak for 9 seconds] … Yes, you are right! To change someone’s behavior, change how the world occurs to them. Change how the world occurs and their actions change to match the new world view. Bingo!

That was easy. So the Real Ultimate Leadership FAQ is: How do you change someone’s “occurring world”?

The answer: Change where their world occurs. It occurs in the conversation they have about the world (situation, other people, sales targets, deadlines, frozen budgets, new competitors, you name it). It’s the conversation, Silly! Create a conversation that creates a new world occurring — a conversation that the person now generates for themselves, and lives inside of. Simple and profound. Welcome to leadership.

Camille Smith understands what it takes to change at the individual, team and organizational levels. It’s not easy, it’s worth doing, and it’s required of everyone today, not just leaders. Specializing in transformational leadership, she provides the knowledge and coaching to teach others to create and sustain breakthroughs in performance. She doesn’t bring the answers; she brings them out of you. Reach out to her at camille@wipcoaching.com.