Two influence strategies usually emerge right away: bribery and threats. Both are examples of changing individual incentives to change behavior. Both alter how people perceive their alternatives when they are deciding whether to comply. This is the art of choice shaping.
Before bribes are offered or threats uttered, members of the group might perceive their alternatives—status quo and change—as . Status quo means staying in one’s seat, while change entails looking silly. Faced with this choice, most people would choose the status quo. People facing change in organizations often see their alternatives in the same way: Should I make uncomfortable changes or stick with the relatively comfortable status quo?
Now suppose I offer people money to do what I ask. The status quo option remains the same, but the attractiveness of the change option increases. Everyone has a price at which he or she would tolerate minor social discomfort because the payoff is sufficiently attractive.
The analogue in organizational change initiatives is: Find ways to compensate potential losers to make change more palatable. Of course, there are practical limits on your ability to do this; sometimes the price is simply too high. But it is always worth asking yourself whether you can offer trades or other forms of compensation (such as support for an initiative they care about) to win support.
Now suppose that, instead of offering compensation, I told the group to do as I said or I would get hired goons to break their legs. And suppose that my threat was credible: The doors were locked and the goons were visible, pipes and bars in hand. This influence strategy also alters the group’s perceived alternatives. But rather than making the benefits of compliance more attractive, it makes noncompliance more costly. The perceived cost of looking silly remains the same, but the group no longer has the alternative of just sitting tight. The analogue in managing organizational change is: Find ways to eliminate the status quo as an alternative. If you can convince people that change is going to happen with or without them.