Work with Me

CHAPTER 1 SHIFT Choose the power of buy-in

Let's be the first to send a man to the moon.

Let's make cameras digital.

Let's set up a network of private drivers who'll take people wherever they want to go.

We need $250 000 and four new staff to upgrade our customer database system.

We should trial driverless cars.

I need management to support a 5 per cent pay rise for my team next year.

Darling, I'd really like to have another child.

Let's make another Police Academy movie!

Every one of these ideas needed the instigator to bring other people willingly and enthusiastically on board to breathe life into it. Each required some careful persuasion, a lot of negotiation and probably some persistent nagging, but the outcome couldn't be a reluctant ‘All right, do what you want’. To be successful, the outcome had to be ‘I'm with you on this … Let's do it … Sign me up’. Head and heart had to be on board and action had to follow closely behind.

In your own organisation, you probably hear comments like these every day:

• ‘I know what it will take to improve team performance.’
• ‘I know how to improve our product so we'll get fewer customer complaints.’
• ‘We know what our new strategic direction needs to look like.’
• ‘I know how marketing can better support us in the field.’
• ‘I know what we need to do to stop losing market share.’
• ‘We know why morale is low and what to do about it.’
• ‘I know how to make sure everyone puts their cup in the dishwasher.’

Yet how many of these ‘I know’ statements ...