what you're about to see is real real
kids doing real things just thought you
should know my name is Hiram granny and
I was there for the whole thing so
here's a question what does it take to
get people to change and I'm not talking
about their socks and underwear but
change behavior especially when it's
hard for example every year close to a
hundred thousand people die from
hospital-acquired infections that means
people got sick at the hospital and it
turns out one of the main culprits is
hand hygiene that means just getting
people to wash their hands could save
lives
so my crack research team decided to
conduct an experiment to see if we could
change something as difficult as
hand-washing habits only with the
toughest subjects of all kids so here's
what we did we took eighty munchkins and
put them into groups first we gave them
a challenging puzzle to put together you
know kind of like the projects you
adults are always busy with then we gave
the kids a tempting distraction Oh
cupcakes for you right here they're
vicious over here
once I see that you guys have put the
whole puzzle together correctly I'll
raise my flag just like this and then
I'll blow my whistle okay and when I do
that you guys can all go and get your
cupcake so what would it take to get
these kids to wash their hands how about
a good reason so one thing you guys
should know there was a sick kid in here
playing with the puzzle pieces
he had a runny nose and coughed a lot so
there's probably a lot of germs on
everything but there's hand sanitizer
over there on the table that you can use
to wash up okay which will win out
delicious frosted cupcakes or the fear
of the typhoid Todd
let's watch they finish their task and
look if the threat of one sick kid
wasn't enough just look at all the new
germs popping up so with all those good
reasons to wash what do you think
they'll do okay so that was a colossal
failure now what well at this point most
adults would quit that's why you just
keep changing the year on those New
Year's resolutions with the next group
of kids I change the environment by
moving the hand sanitizer closer and
then put up a visual cue this ought to
make hand-washing easier and more
obvious right and in the end the
motivation to not get sick plus changing
the environment didn't influence a
single kid yikes
next I increase their ability which is
another source of influence I have them
all complete what is known as deliberate
practice or training to increase their
familiarity with good hand hygiene well
adding another source of influence get
these hand-washing offenders to wash up
done and
well now we're seeing some bad results
we're combining three different sources
of influence and some of the kids are
actually washing their hands it looks
like we're on the right track so next I
added another source of influence social
influence
what if somebody spoke up and said
something what would happen if their
bosses were in the room with them
here come the cupcakes and there goes
the flag will they wash oh look at them
pouncing on those cupcakes like a pack
of ravenous hyenas but it's not too late
because something important happens at
just a critical moment appear not even
one of the bosses speaks up wash your
hands
watch the effect
success at last
so social motivation obviously made a
difference but was it the only thing
that mattered what about our other
sources of influence here's what my kids
had to say the sign I was walking over
to get my cupcake but then someone says
wash my your hands because this boy had
the sniffles in here so what's the point
we often underwhelm overwhelming
problems we try a couple of things and
when they don't work we give up but my
dad and his colleagues discovered the
secret to overcoming tough problems you
need to combine at least four preferably
more sources of influence and it doesn't
matter if you try it with kids or
hospitals at the office or even at home
if you use four or more sources of
influence your chances for success go up
ten times ten times so there it is the
key to changing almost anything is to
marshal the power of at least four or
more sources of influence but preferably
all six and heaven knows we need it