Six sources of influence
Also known as: Influencer model
A change framework that crosses motivation and ability with personal, social, and structural levels to give six distinct levers.
What it means
The model maps influence onto a two-by-three grid: the columns are motivation and ability, and the rows are personal, social, and structural, yielding six sources — personal motivation, personal ability, social motivation, social ability, structural motivation, and structural ability. Its central claim is that durable behavior change usually requires engaging several sources at once, because most efforts lean on just one or two (typically personal motivation) and therefore fail. By forcing attention to the social and structural rows, it counters the common over-reliance on willpower and persuasion and pulls in peers, coaching, incentives, and environment design. It is a practitioner framework rather than a falsifiable theory, and its categories overlap with COM-B and others. It matters because it offers a fast diagnostic: list the six cells and you quickly see which levers a change plan has neglected.
Examples
A safety overhaul that only exhorts workers (personal motivation) succeeds once it also trains them, recruits peer leaders, and redesigns equipment and rewards — covering all six cells.
A hospital's handwashing drive works only once the posters are joined by technique training, senior doctors visibly doing it, gel dispensers at every door, and audits with consequences.
Telling staff to save more achieves little; adding a short course, a colleague savings circle, an employer match, and automatic payroll deduction covers the ability and structural cells the campaign had skipped.
First described in Grenny, Patterson, Maxfield, McMillan & Switzler, 'Influencer' (2008).