The Art of Subtle Influence

We all have people in our lives who we wish acted differently at times. Perhaps your colleague refuses to delegate, responds negatively to critical feedback, or is abrasive when engaging with other teams.

In my work with founders, I hear challenges like this a lot. When we work closely with someone, we get a front seat to both their talents and their neuroses. These minor issues are often outweighed by what a person brings to the team. In these situations, what’s a leader to do?

If you’re the CEO, you may be able to give feedback on a blind spot and direct them to act differently. However, if you’re located elsewhere in an organization, wielding authority to enact change may not be an option. And even as CEO, it’s often more effective to cultivate a teammate’s own internal desire to change, rather than mandating it.

How can we help our colleagues grow and change when they may not yet recognize the issue? We can find a solution in a surprising place: addiction research.

Addiction is like an extreme example of a blind spot, where a person is out of touch with the consequences of their behavior. In recent decades, psychologists have developed a number of effective tools for helping people who struggle with addiction, and these same tactics can be used to gently point our colleagues toward areas for potential growth.

In this piece, we’ll explore several frameworks from addiction psychology about how to help people change and will look at how you can apply these tools to lead in a non-coercive way—no matter where you sit in an organization.

Beyond confrontation and passivity

When dealing with a cofounder or colleague who is stuck in a blind spot, we tend to use two core strategies:

• Confrontation—giving someone direct critical feedback or an ultimatum about something to change
• Passivity—hoping it will change on its own, deciding it’s not a big deal, or simply firing them to avoid dealing with the conflict

Historically, if a loved one was struggling with alcoholism or addiction, you would engage them in a similar way:

• Confrontation—the classic “intervention,” giving the person direct feedback on their addiction and how it affects those they love
• Passivity—also known as “detach with love,” cutting a person out of your life and hoping they hit rock bottom on their own, eventually deciding to change

Research has shown that with addiction, neither of these approaches is super-effective, each with around a 30% success rate at getting someone into treatment. 

However, in the 1970s, researchers developed a new approach called Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT), which had a 70% success rate—more than twice as effective as confrontation or passivity.

What is CRAFT’s secret? It teaches people why the common strategies for encouraging change are counterproductive and offers a set of evidence-based skills to help people connect with their own desire to change—and these same skills can be applied in the corporate world.

The skills of subtle influence

When we give someone feedback at work, we do so expecting that they’re ready and willing to change. In reality, this is often far from the case.

In the early 1980s, two smoking cessation researchers came up with a six-stage model for understanding the process of how people change. While direct feedback can be helpful when someone is already ready to change, it typically backfires if utilized earlier in the process. 

In the early stages of change, a person feels ambivalent about changing their behavior. Part of them may acknowledge the need for change, but another part is drawn to the status quo, or sees the costs of change as too high. This is where most people are, most of the time, and is why direct confrontation rarely works. 

Instead, in CRAFT, you are encouraged to relate to your colleagues and loved ones like a stoplight. When their light is “green,” a person is open to feedback. When their light is “red,” feedback is likely to backfire.

If a person is talking about their desire to change or is actively taking steps toward it, their light may be green and they may be open to feedback. Otherwise, their light is probably red. This is where subtle influence comes in—a set of skills from addiction psychology that you can use to help a person become open to change, shifting their light toward green.