OREM — Imagine you have a diabetic friend who refuses to take insulin shots. What are you going to do?

"Yell at her," said Lake Ridge Junior High's Margaret Hansen-Toth, 14, without hesitation. "If you don't get your shots, you are going to DIE!"

Most of the 4,000 junior high and high school students in attendance at the nation's largest leadership conference Tuesday came up with similarly coercive solutions (as evidenced by a shame-faced show of hands). But, said keynote speaker Ron McMillan from the floor of Utah Valley University's McKay Events center, there are other, more effective ways to influence people.

"If you want to change someone's behavior, you have to change their minds," said McMillan, who took points from his New York Times best-seller "Influencer: The Power to Change Anything." "You have to change how they see things and what they think is good."

He said changing someone's mind is a two-step process: (1) Convince the person they are capable of altering their behavior, (2) give the person motivation. To drive his point home with the high school students, McMillan quoted "Star Trek" character Mr. Spock's quick-witted reply to Captain Kirk's query about a Klingon warship that wasn't responding. "I've analyzed it carefully," Spock said. "They are either unable to respond, or they don't want to."

In 30 years studying the art of leadership, McMillan said he's noticed a trend. Top executives struggle with the same problem-solving skills as the students he taught Tuesday.

"I've traveled over 100,000 miles visiting influential leaders all over the world — Africa, Thailand, San Francisco," he said. "The No. 1 way leaders all over the world are changing people's minds is verbal persuasion."

And it doesn't work, he said. The most profound way to influence someone is to give them an experience showing them what it would be like to be free of the problem.

Children unwilling to practice the piano? Introduce them to a concert pianist or take them to an inspiring concert, McMillan suggested.

Diabetic friend not too keen on taking shots? Take him or her on a field trip to a dialysis center to see the consequences of poorly managed health firsthand.

"The single most important capacity you posses is the ability to influence yourself and others," McMillan said.

Students filing out of McMillan's presentation agreed.

"These are skills you can use in all areas of your life," said Roy High School junior vice president Jake Holt, 16. "At school, at work, at home — you are always working with people."

That's a big reason Utah Valley University's Center for the Advancement of Leadership sponsored the conference, which, in addition to McMillan's lecture, offered more than 20 workshops.

"Leadership fits into every curriculum," said Denece Kitto, program coordinator for the Center for the Advancement of Leadership. "It's our goal to get these skills — self control, conflict resolution, interpersonal communication — into every classroom."

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