This article is based on three separate studies. Our first study was built around interviews with 25 C-level leaders about their leading challenges. Among the challenges we wanted to explore were bureaucratic infighting, silo thinking and lack of accountability. We constructed a survey to measure the scope of these issues and, more importantly, to see what organizations did to deal with them. We administered this survey to 900 managers and supervisors. Fully 90% of the managers surveyed said their organizations struggled with at least one entrenched habit; most said the problem negatively impacted employee satisfaction, productivity, quality and customer satisfaction. Although a high percentage of managers said they did little or nothing to confront these challenges, those who applied multiple sources of influence strategies (more than four sources) were 10 times more likely to see results than those using just one. In our second study, we studied a larger sample of C-level leaders to explore how they approached change initiatives. We focused on 100 mission-critical initiatives — efforts such as internal restructurings, quality and productivity improvement initiatives and new-product launches. We wanted to see which sources of influence the companies used to support their initiatives — and how many. Here, too, we found that a high percentage of executives used only one approach; those who used four or more had the greatest likelihood of success.

Finally, we surveyed more than 1,000 individuals about personal habits they were struggling to change, such as unhealthy eating, insufficient exercise, smoking and overdrinking. More than half reported that they had struggled with their habit for five years or more, many for longer. We asked what they did to overcome their habits, which approaches were most effective and how many different strategies they used. Here again, single solutions proved ineffective. Those who combined different sources of influence (more than four) had the best results by