Explanation is Everything

Imagine you work in a large company who has been implementing changes recently.  Many of these changes have come from "above" and impact your daily work life.  You have no idea why what was black is now red, or why the water cooler was moved to the left side of the hall, but by golly you are upset that you were not asked first!

Change is a difficult word for many folks.  It comes with new things that upset old habits.  I prefer to use the word "update" instead.  Now, change can be good, as in the quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies that are monetary change, but using that word can put many people on the defensive and that usually doesn't result in positive motion forward.

When you don't give explanation about "updates," you don't get buy-in from your team.  (Oh yeah, and I prefer the word "team" to "staff" or "employees."  This helps with the big picture I'm trying to portray.)  It only takes a few minutes to put together some well-phrased sentences to help some of the stubborn bulls in the group understand why you're making these updates.  Just remember, you'll need to plan your "attack" carefully when you're trying to get buy-in, because not everyone will understand the why based on your first explanation.  You know what I mean:  there's always one in the group that says, "Yeah, but we never did that before and why fix what ain't broke?"

Everyone likes to get acknowledgement for ideas they came up with, right?  You know you're one of us!  If you thought of that new thing, you want to have your name all over it!  Well, in this case, if you're the leader (supervisor, manager, what-have-you), you need to give that acknowledgement away.  It's not necessary to keep it yourself.  You want your team to be the ones formulating these new ideas (with your gentle guidance) and taking credit because that's what's going to get them to come along with the update.

Let's take an example...  You want to get your team to increase revenue for service "X" but you know they always have excuses why it doesn't happen.  Get your team together for a brainstorming session about the financials in your organization.  Give them some background about what you see as the leader, and then approach them to find out what things they think they can help with.  When the group picks out increasing the revenue for service "X" as being in their control, make sure you praise them for that awesome idea!  Then ask them how they want to go about increasing their revenue, and what they want for a goal.  Trust me here, nine times out of 10, they will pick a higher goal than you even wanted!  Make a poster or sign to state their goals and track their progress.  They will have more buy-in about wanting to increase revenue for service "X" if that's the item"they" chose and they set their own goal.  It's not about you preaching to them what you want done.  It's about getting them to desire it for themselves.