During my Influencer training, one of the key concepts we drilled into was “clarify meaningful results.” What are meaningful results? Well, before you waste time on the “how”, clarify the “what” you want, the “why” you want it, and the “when” you want it.

I’ve noticed some conversations just go a lot easier with some people, but I wasn’t sure why. Recently, a colleague pointed me to an article, Dialogue: The Power of Understanding by Dr. Ann McGee-Cooper. The article has a nice way of framing types of conversations. Some conversations are about exploring ideas, while others are about a winning argument or a winning idea. Once you know the nature of the conversation, you can adapt the conversations, adjust yourself, or avoid it altogether.

In my previous post, I talked about Vital Behaviors, which I learned about in my Influencer Training. I’m elaborating here on Crucial Moments because they are one of the key ways to help you find Vital Behaviors. A Crucial Moment is the point in time where you have a critical choice to make. It’s the event or trigger where, depending on how you respond, you can positively or negatively impact results in a significant way. For example, a critical moment is when your alarm goes off in the morning. You can do your workout routine or you can hit the snooze alarm and put it off another day.

One of my favorite take aways from my Influencer Training is Vital Behaviors. Vital behaviors are the smallest set of actions that lead to the results you want. They are the few high-leverage actions that if you keep doing, produce the outcomes you’re after. Vital Behaviors are key to change efforts whether you are trying to change yourself or something larger (your team, your organization, or the world.)

The six sources of influence model is a powerful model for change. I first learned about the Six Sources of Influence from my Influencer Training at Microsoft. The Influencer Training is based on the book, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything , by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. The more I walk through the model, the more I appreciate it.