I became fascinated when I was young with people who were able to exert great influence and had the power to change the world for the better.  I remember becoming enthralled with the story of Martin Luther King, Jr.  I wrote a major research paper about him in High School and one quote stood out in my mind. When Dr. King was young, he heard a powerful sermon and he saw how it impacted the members of that congregation and he made a commitment, saying that he wanted learn as much as he could because he wanted to put power behind his words.

A few years later, I saw the movie “Gandhi”.  I still vividly remember the opening scene where millions lined the streets of New Delhi watching the funeral procession for the assassinated Gandhi.  While the procession proceeded, there was a voice over from news broadcaster, Edward R. Murrow:

The object of this massive tribute died as he had always lived - a private man without wealth, without property, without official title or office. Mahatma Gandhi was not a commander of great armies nor ruler of vast lands. He could boast no scientific achievements or artistic gift. Yet men, governments and dignitaries from all over the world have joined hands today to pay homage to this little brown man in the loincloth who led his country to freedom…In the words of General George C. Marshall, the American Secretary of State, "Mahatma Gandhi had become the spokesman for the conscience of mankind, a man who made humility and simple truth more powerful than empires." And Albert Einstein added, "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."

I still remember that one phrase from Edward Murrow: 

a private man without wealth, without property, without official title or office. Mahatma Gandhi was not a commander of great armies nor ruler of vast lands. He could boast no scientific achievements or artistic gift.

Yet, this one “little brown man in the loincloth” changed the course of the world and influenced billions of people.  How does one achieve that level of influence?  How can I learn some of these skills to be able to change the small corner of the world that I inhabit?

Up till now, I have pursued this quest of learning about influence through trial and error (with the emphasis on error!).  There have been some small victories in my family life, civic service, and my life as an entrepreneur.  There have also been many failed attempts in all such areas.  I could have really used a guidebook to lay out the basic principles applied by successful Influencers.

Well, today I have such a book.  Yesterday I received a pre-release of a new book called, “Influencer – The Power to Change Anything” from my favorite group of co-authors, Al Switzler, Kerry Patterson, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Joseph Grenny. 

Al, Kerry, Ron, and Joseph are the principals of a successful consulting practice called VitalSmarts.  VitalSmarts is an innovator in best practices training products and services and has taught over 2 million people and have worked with more than 300 of the Fortune 500 companies. This book, “Influencer” is the result of decades of research and observation to document the best and most powerful ideas social science has accumulated in the past five decades about Influence and is considered by the authors to be “most important book we’ve ever written”.  That is something to be said, considering that their previous 2 books (Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations) were both blockbusters in the business world and were both New York Times Best Sellers.  (You can read my unsolicited book review of Crucial Conversations here).

My prediction is that the VitalSmarts team with get a trifecta with this book, being their third book in a row to be a New York Times best seller.

Joseph Grenny shared this with me in an email about the book:

We’ve stood and watched for years as a creeping malaise has gripped the planet. People feel powerless when it comes to influencing human behavior. We can’t stop AIDS. We can’t stay fit. We can’t improve productivity, quality, customer service, safety. We can’t achieve our financial goals. We can’t reduce terrorism. We can’t even get ourselves to floss regularly!

And yet it turns out, we can. Our new book describes vital work done by the most influential social scientist of the past 50 years who have shown repeatedly that most any behavior can be changed if you just know how to do it. In addition, we’ve traveled over 100,000 miles to report first-hand about the miraculous work of some quiet but brilliant influencers who have solved world-scale problems in world-class ways—by influencing the behavior of millions of human beings. The stories are astounding and the principles are life changing.

We’ve felt a tremendous sense of responsibility to do justice to these ideas. I hope we came close. You be the judge!

VitalSmarts has arranged with Barnes & Noble and Amazon to offer 34% discounts on pre-orders for Know More Media readers. You can pre-order right now by doing the following: 1. Go online to www.influencerbook.com/offer  before 9/30/07 and pre-order your copy from either Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.com. 2. Once you order the book, return to http://www.influencer.com/offer, enter your order confirmation number, and get exclusive access to a free video case study where you’ll meet one of the amazing real-life influencers you’ll read about in the book. These video case studies will show you what we’ve been doing in our travels from Addis Ababa, Boston, Thailand, Bangladesh, San Francisco and beyond. You will soon see a number of articles across the Know More Media network about this important book. We are inviting all the Know More Media authors to read and write about this book.  We think the concepts taught here are vital principals for anyone in business to learn and practice.  We invite you to share with us example of people that have used their influence to change the world and how they did it.