As I mentioned in my last blog post I'm currently reading the book
"buy in" from John P. Kotter. This book is trying to explain how you can successfully get buy in for your ideas. As you well know whenever you are trying to get others to buy in to your ideas you can expect some resistance. Kotter identifies four different ways on how good ideas get killed. He refers to them as attack strategies.
- fear mongering: He identifies this as an attack strategy that is raising anxiety. People start with undeniable facts and then tweak the story in such a way that it becomes frighting.
- delay: Killing the idea by delaying it. An example might be: We have so much on our plate now we can't do it.
- confusion: Bringing up irrelevant facts or offering too many options makes it impossible to get a clear message out and hence to get buy in.
- ridicule (or character assassination): Sometimes people try to make you look silly. They may raise questions about your competence etc.
Here is how he suggestes to deal with these attacks
- Get everyone included in the discussion and give them a chance to shoot at your idea. This is to get peoples attention.
- Don't try to react to attacks with data and logic. Respond instead with short, clear language (no jargon or complex arguments). This is to keep their attention.
- Don't counterattack! The negative effects of the counterattacks will overshadow any kind of short term satisfaction that you get out of it.
- Don't focus on the attacker and their arguments e.g. if 20% of people provide these attacks, focus on the 80% of people that are with you
- Be prepared. Even when you need to get only buy in from a small and friendly group. Always prepare
This is obviously just a very short summary. If you're interested read the book. I think it is very helpful to go into more detail on these ideas.
