To Be Change Fit – Know your informal influencers at ANY TIME

Informal influence inside organizations is fluid.  

People move in and out of organizations. People gain and lose informal influence over the employee life cycle. People move up in the hierarchy. Some move sideways. Few fall down in the hierarchy. 

The only stable factor is that 3% of people collectively impact 85-90% of their peers. The names of the 3%, however, change, over time. (Source: #ThreePercentRule) 

Knowing who the 3% are, at any given time, is being #ChangeFit.

This sparks a question: "How often should I update my list of informal influencers – or in the best case – my list with names of the 3% to stay change fit? When does my list become irrelevant?" 

We often get asked that question by our clients. They understand the above, but answering the question is tricky. Is it every 6 months, every 18 months, every 3 years, or every 5 years?  

The answer is as so frustratingly often: "It depends!"

It depends on your organizational growth and/or decline, major incidents or programs in your organization (like AI transformation or an acquisition), and it depends on employee turnover.  

In a recent case, a life sciences company had grown its workforce 50% in five years, as well as added two new affiliates to the organization. Employee turnover had been very low, so 60-65% of the original workforce was still with the company. From what at the outside looked like a very stable organization: the 3% was impacting almost the same percentage of their peers as five years before – was nothing but stable when looking at the informal influence flows.