Inspired Performance – Consensus of Excellence

A very powerful influence principle is "social proof" or consensus.  What this principle says is that we look to others to see what behavior is acceptable and possible.  Even children understand the influence that other peoples' behavior has on our own behavior.  

If you're a parent I'm sure you've heard a variation on:  "But Mikey's Mom say's it's okay."  While we as parents are conditioned to respond with "I don't care what Mikey's Mom said.  I said no"  the child intuitively understands that the behavior of Mikey's parents affects your behavior.  We are so aware of the power of consensus we even try to teach our children not to pay attention to it – we warn them that consensus can be a bad thing.  I'm sure you've heard or said:  "If Mikey jumped off a bridge would you?"

Consensus and social proof don't discriminate.  The influence of social proof is just as powerful even when bad behaviors are packaged as consensus.  Ask anyone who works on Wall Street.  "All the other CEOs get big incentive bonuses."

Positive Performance

But I want to focus on positive performance.  By finding top performers in your organization and recognizing their effort, holding them up for view shows others what is possible.  By highlighting what is possible you raise the bar for everyone's performance.

Here's a great example.  Below is a video called "Inspired Bicycles."  It as selected by Josh Warner as the #1 viral video ad for 2009 in a post on Mashable.  

I showed this to my 16 year-old son.  His first response – Wow.  His second response was – I need to try that.  He wants to try what previously he would have thought was impossible.  The bar has been raised (as will my insurance premiums if he dares to try any of these impossible feats.)

How many people in your organization do the impossible every day.  How many people see that?  How can you package that performance in a way that shows the rest of your employees or channel partners what is POSSIBLE?

Make the consensus in your organization higher performance.