Gaining organizational buy-in.

OVERVIEW

New programs of any kind are most successful when there is a clear, actionable plan for build-out and implementation. This plan requires understanding the key stakeholders and accurately interpreting their willingness or resistance to not just adopting, but embracing your new initiatives. The vast majority of initiatives that fail have nothing to do with the quality of the initiative, but the lack of pre-work to lay the foundation for its success. Establishing strong relationships with key stakeholders and gaining buy-in early on is essential for advancing the program.

This tool will walk you and your team through a discussion on what should be considered and how to overcome roadblocks to build a long-term plan for building your promoter alliance.

APPROACH

Think specifically about the key stakeholders who you need to support your program for it to have long-term success. We recommend you start broad, think about departments, divisions or units that you need to align and support efforts. From there, drill down to individuals and consider who would fit in each category (detractor, passive or promoter) for each stage of the program roll-out.

·   Conceptual Agreement:

• What: This phase is when stakeholders are briefed on the program and they verbally agree to support the idea. These are pre-planning conversations that outline the project and what is required of the various constituents. You’ll often reach a place of buy-in at this stage as little action is required, just verbal agreement.

• Who: Executives, people leaders and thought leaders who will have a vested interest in your program and those who will be directly, or indirectly impacted, by the implementation of your new initiative.

·       Active Adoption:

• What: This is the adoption phase. The company must fundamentally change behaviors to reflect the new plan or initiative and do so consistently for the program to take root.

• Who: Everyone in the organization who is involved in or affected by the new program

BUILDING YOUR PLAN

Consider each of your promoters, detractors and passives as identified above. Keep this in mind as you build out your plan. If you have more promoters at the onset, you’ll have less resistance with adoption. If you have more detractors initially, it doesn’t prohibit success, but you’ll want to be intentional and thoughtful about how to engage them so they don’t put up roadblocks or derail your efforts.

Be as specific and concrete in your ideas as possible. It’s easy to gloss over this and say you’ll get to specifics later, but building out your specifics now in a way that can be easily shared with others will save you time and effort later on.

CONCEPTUAL AGREEMENT

As you pitch and confer buy-in, take a broader view of the overall organizational values, needs and priorities to identify how to best position your program to various stakeholders. Everyone has individual goals and objectives, helping them see how your initiative can benefit them and the organization at large will take more of your time at the onset, but help pave sustained support from key groups over time.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

·  What are the three most important outcomes/elements of this new initiative that will benefit the company?

1.     _______________________________________________________________________

2.     _______________________________________________________________________

3.     _______________________________________________________________________

·  Why should other departments/individuals care about this program?

·   Why should other departments/individuals change their existing behaviors to adopt this new program? (Paint the picture of why this is important)

·  Which individuals or departments do you expect will offer the most conceptual support? How can they assist with getting others excited and bought into the program?

·    What are your biggest areas of concern for gaining conceptual adoption?

·   3 opportunities to minimize these concerns are:

1.     ________________________________________________________________

2.     ________________________________________________________________

3.     ________________________________________________________________

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

First, assess. Once you share the program concept, you’ll likely have a sense of who is immediately on board and who is not. 

Next, troubleshoot. For those who are not already bought-in, a few questions to consider:

• Is that person’s buy-in mission critical to the success of the initiative?

• What is the reason they are not willing to buy-in?

• What would happen if we can’t reach an agreement?

Take some time to think through things from their perspective to understand their challenges. Sometimes it is personality, but more often it is an underlying issue that can be resolved.

TIP: Engage one or two others who are fully bought into your program to assist in having an offline conversation with that person who is not. Focus on listening to their concerns, understanding their position and compromise when needed to help them recognize what success could look like for both of you.

ACTIVE ADOPTION

Now you have buy-in, but how do you bring it to life? Build out your strategy and share with others in advance of the launch so they are primed to assist in advocating for the program. Having a group of champions who are excited about your program will help, especially if they reflect other areas of the company. Their thought leadership will authenticate the value of your program with others, and having multiple voices promoting will multiply the buy-in effect.

·  Which individuals or departments in your organization do you expect will be the quickest to fully adopt the new program? What can they do to assist with getting others to do the same?

·  What are your biggest areas of concern for gaining active adoption?

· 3 opportunities to minimize these concerns are:

1.     ________________________________________________________________

2.     ________________________________________________________________

3.     ________________________________________________________________

EVALUATION

The biggest hurdle may seem to be launching the program, but in fact, it is the first 6-18 months after where you are at the biggest rate for failure. Having a plan to assess and adjust will allow you to stay nimble and effective, helping your program thrive and gaining more widespread adoption.

·   What are three specific ways you can evaluate if the implementation is successful?

1.     _____________________________________________________________________

2.     _____________________________________________________________________

3.     _____________________________________________________________________

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

·  How often does it make sense to assess?

·   Who will you engage to confer success?

·   What do you need to make sure to prioritize assessment outlined above?

Set quantifiable, specific and concrete goals early on and track against them regularly to determine if you are meeting, exceeding or falling short of where you should be. This is critical to demonstrating organizational impact and justifying long-term support for your program.