I was first introduced to Jon Levy's work on Influence at the MSUS Digital Transformation Academy in October, and over the last 7 weeks, I've been participating in a Microsoft follow-up course, "Influence in Action," where we had a chance to dig in a little bit more to several of the key concepts from the book, as well as a live Q&A session with Jon at the end.
Among those key concepts are Levy's Influence Equation, where he notes “Our influence is a by-product of who are connected to, how much they trust us in that capacity, and the sense of community we share.”
Influence = (Connection * Trust) ^ Sense of Community
Of course, each component of this equation requires an appreciation for the complexity around determining what connection, trust, and community really mean. And that's where the course took us: exploring the foundation for true human connection, fostering long-lasting trust, and the feeling of belonging needed to sustain a healthy community.
In a world of hybrid work, these concepts became even more significant, since the opportunity to build deep, meaningful connections has to overcome the real or perceived distance felt in purely digital engagement. This is where our facilitator, Jesse Butterworth, actually taught me a few things, too! We made use of Teams Breakout Rooms throughout the course to give participants opportunities for more focused engagement with their peers to talk through applying some of the concepts in real-world scenarios. This helped us form more meaningful connections and sense of community among our course participants that led to richer, more enjoyable conversations.
But as Jared Spataro recently shared on HBR's "The Future of Work," while digital communications have a lot of benefits, there is still no substitute for "high bandwidth" in-person communication that forge even stronger connections.
Levy had similar thoughts about that back in June 2021, although I suspect there are some generational factors involved in considering the possibility of more immersive virtual experiences as the metaverse evolves further. As Spataro noted:
"52% of the people we surveyed said that they were open to using digital immersive spaces within the metaverse for meetings as Teams in the future... we see 28% of boomers who thought that metaverse technologies like avatars would be useful and they were open to that. Whereas when we get up to Gen Z we see 51% of people open to it."
I'm still hopeful that, as enjoyable as our virtual Influence in Action sessions were over the past several weeks, we will get the opportunity to meet in person for future alumni events.
This experience also helped reinforce some of what I had observed working with communities of various size and scope over the years. Whether they were technology-related user communities, employee communities to support multiple career stages, or social communities organized to take action for particular causes, the dynamics are still very similar for how new members decide to engage, the length of engagement, and the camaraderie that develops when a true community has taken shape.
Understanding the current culture and the ability to influence the direction of a community's culture relies on a bit of give and take in every interaction over time. When it works, it's magical, but when it doesn't work, I now have more ways of assessing the situation to determine the best approach for improving everyone's experience.
Thanks again to Jon Levy and the MSUS Learning Team for putting together a great program like this to learn more about and be able to practically apply some of the concepts from his research on Influence!
Reference
Jon Levy, "You're Invited": https://www.jonlevytlb.com/you-re-invited
"Hybrid workplaces will not last: Behavioral scientist Jon Levy," CNBC, Jun.1, 2021, at
"Microsoft’s Jared Spataro on How the Pandemic Sped Up Technological Change (and Moved Us Closer to the Metaverse)," Harvard Business Review, Mar. 18, 2022, at https://hbr.org/2022/03/microsofts-jared-spataro-on-how-the-pandemic-sped-up-technological-change-and-moved-us-closer-to-the-metaverse and
"Use breakout rooms in Teams meetings" at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-breakout-rooms-in-teams-meetings-7de1f48a-da07-466c-a5ab-4ebace28e461