Influencer

Authors’ Note

For more than two decades we’ve felt an obligation to write this book. But the thought of capturing the strategies of influence masters worldwide was a daunting task, so we did what many authors have done under similar circumstances. We put off writing as long as we could.

Then three experiences convinced us that we had to write the book. The first took place in 1997 when we were practically knocked over by the results of an influence project we’d been working on for the previous 18 months at the Fort Worth Tactical Aircraft Division of Lockheed Martin—home of the F-16 fighter jet. Not only had the intervention been successful, but it had been remarkably successful. We had assisted leaders in attempts to influence a handful of key ...