Three Speeds of Influence + Choose Your Character
Pick an influence character that fits your personality, then choose slow, moderate, or fast based on the situation
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 85%
LaPointe frames influence like a video game: first choose your character (the influence style that fits your personality, e.g. behind-the-scenes aligner, compelling storyteller, devil's advocate), then choose a speed. Slow influence lets people fail and learn; moderate influence teaches them something they'll later see everywhere (Challenger Sale); fast influence surfaces cognitive dissonance in the moment. Being intentional and consistent about your character earns you permission to operate that way repeatedly.
Origin
Evan LaPointe / CORE Sciences; moderate influence draws explicitly on 'The Challenger Sale' by Matthew Dixon, and the Abilene Paradox illustrates the cost of not influencing.
Core principles
- 01Your personality has a natural fit for a specific influence character; leverage your strength rather than forcing a foreign style
- 02Slow influence (let them fail) is real influence but the slowest; it can take months, years, or a lifetime
- 03Moderate influence gives someone a lens/tool their future will unpack, so they see the problem themselves over days or weeks
- 04Fast influence drills below behavior to the belief with 'why do you believe that,' requiring good relationship and habitat permission
How to run it
- 1
Choose your influence character
Select a mode that fits your personality: compassion-driven ('why aren't we thinking about the user'), logic/belief-driven (insert causality, break sacred cows), creativity-driven, or enthusiasm-driven. Announce it so people grant you the role.
Pro tip Get explicit buy-in: 'I'm the devil's advocate / sledgehammer guy, is it okay if I do that over and over?' This buys future-you permission.
Watch out Letting trade winds push you into a default style instead of intentionally choosing costs you consistency and permission.
- 2
Pick a speed for the situation
Choose slow (let reality create the failure that teaches), moderate (teach a lens they'll live with), or fast (surface the logical disconnect in the moment). Match speed to stakes and relationship.
Pro tip The habitat governs this: if a founder hasn't made fast influence permissible, the whole company defaults to slow and drags.
Watch out Slow influence can take a lifetime; if you notice you're only ever 'letting things fail,' you're using the slowest tool by default.
- 3
For moderate influence, hand over a tool that unpacks later
Teach the person something and give them signals to watch for (like the Challenger Sale's long-cycle teaching), then check back in 30 days when they say 'everywhere I look I can't not see it now.'
Pro tip The underappreciated part isn't the challenge moment; it's that they keep dissolving the old belief on their own afterward until they thank you.
Watch out Don't cram it down their throat; let them live with the new information for even a couple of days.
In the wild
LaPointe cites the family that all goes camping because each person assumes the others want to, though nobody does. Teams do this constantly, and many people say 'I have no influence, let's just let him fail.'
→ Everyone acts against their own judgment; recognizing it is the trigger to apply faster influence instead of defaulting to slow.
Common mistakes
Defaulting to slow influence unconsciously
Letting people fail and learn is the slowest form of influence and can take years; many people do it without realizing faster options exist.
Winning the challenge moment instead of seeding the belief
Treating Challenger-style influence as a single confrontational 'gotcha' misses that the magic is the belief dissolving over the following days.
Is it for you?
Best for
Product managers and founders who need to move people who don't report to them
Not ideal for
Situations where the relationship is dysfunctional, in which case fix the relationship first
From the transcript
“the starting point for influence is to choose your character and choose your mode”
“you're going to pick a speed of influence which is slow moderate or fast”
“a great book to read for moderate influence is the Challenger sale”
“the fast mode of influence is cognitive dissonance”
“the abalene Paradox is where everybody in the room knows it's a bad idea”
From the episode
Improve strategy, influence, and decision-making by understanding your brain
Evan LaPointe (founder of CORE Sciences)