The Individual in Group Influence

A few nights back I went to a social that was being held for the apartments I live in. This social was primarily a dance social – I make this point because it lead me to an observation that I see people often forget – the influence of a single individual.

At this dance, everyone wanted to dance… but no one did.

The initial number of people, and the number for a good hour before more started coming, was around 35. This consisted of a maximum of around 10 males, and the rest females. This is where the interesting dynamic occurred.

Over the period of at least 15 minutes, some of the groups attempted to get the dancing started. The female groups tried dancing, but no one followed, so they stopped. A few of the males tried to be cowboys and danced on their own with no success. I managed to start dancing with a girl, but she and I also stopped shortly after when nobody else joined in (to my shame).

I was about to leave the party when another group came through the door. However, it wasn’t the group that is significant, but a single person within that group. Within a few minutes of when that group came in, one guy in that group started dancing, and the group followed. Almost immediately after, about half of the people in the room started dancing, too. I thought this was incredible. But it was even more incredible when that same guy in the group stopped, then his group stopped, and then about half of the room stopped.

This one person influenced not just his group, but somehow influenced a fair number of people he hadn’t even met – both male and female.

Some people have that reason, that factor, that GiddleBit that causes them to be an influential force. Because we don’t know who that person may be we aught to treat everyone as if they were that person. This is especially important to the front line of a business. Every customer who comes in contact with your front line must be treated as if they were that influential person at the dance because if they leave your company with a bad attitude, half of the room won’t buy your product. But if they leave your company with a positive attitude, half of the room just bought your product.

Some additional info on contagious behavior.