Naysayers are negative energy. They can bring you down, frustrate you and sidetrack you. One can bring a whole meeting or whole team down. A really loud vocal naysayer can bring down a entire change effort.
Naysayers can be in your head (self talk) or voiced through other people. Either way, they need to be managed and overcome. Succeeding in this is all about attitude: you need a YES attitude
Y=A big WHY...a big reason to achieve your goal. You need a reason to succeed that is bigger and stronger than the naysayers negativity. The power of your positivity needs to go past neutralizing their negativity. It needs to overpower the negativity. It is like electric charges. If you have a strong negative charge, it will cling to a positive charge. As long as the positive is = to or greater , the net energy will be positive. The same is true here. Your positive charge - your vision/passion/rationale for change - needs to be bigger than any naysayer or sum of naysayers. This will enable you and the team to stay positive. The WHY needs to keep you motivated despite all the naysayers around. The WHY also helps everyone else around to stay positive, as long as it is a stronger, more compelling energy than the naysayers negativity.
For example, when I had a serious tumor, my big Y was my daughter. I did not want her to grow up like me, without a father. Everyime I had internal or external naysayers, my big WHY kept me positive and motivated. People told me left and right I was crazy and should just get surgery. The meant well, but they were dragging me down. And sometimes I thought I was crazy. I had to keep my energy positive to get through all the challenges I was facing. My big Y helped me stay focused on my goal and not the negativity of those around me.
E= Expect Emotional Reactions – if you expect everyone to support you, this will cause you stress. You need to expect people will throw up roadblocks. That is human nature. If you expect people to fall into line, you will never win their hearts. They may do what you say while you standing over them, but once you are going, they will revert to the old way. Even in the military, research shows that autocratic leaders are less effective than more participatory leaders.
Expecting emotional reactions means allowing people to push back, to challenge and be frustrated. It allows dialogue. And hearts and minds can be influenced when they are listened to and dialogued with. Expecting this, will make others resistance easier to deal with.
S= Surround yourself with other fun loving YES people. Change and naysayers are draining – they will bring you down and eventually make you negative. So you need to find like minded people to support you through the challenges of change. The other people are your coaches, advisors, mentors and cheerleaders. All successful people have them. Do you? If not, go find them or you will not succeed in leading change
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
5 Steps Selling Change
The other day, when working with some internal HR people, I was reminded how HR people are not the best sales people. Especially when it comes to selling change. Here are 5 tips for selling change internally:
1. Figure out how the change will help the business - If you want business leaders to buy into a new HR approach, you need to link it to the business impact. This means understanding how the change will help the company's key stakeholders: customers, employees, the community and stockholders. For example, a reorganization is going on and you think some departments need to collaborate differently for the reorg to succeed. You know that the reorg is aimed toward putting the experts closer to the customers. This will lead to more repeat business. To sell your collaboration program, you need to link it to those business results.
2. Create your Change Speech - We always recommend leaders of change use a one minute change speech. If you can't explain it in less than 60 seconds, people won't understand it, and probably won't "buy it". Make the case short and sweet, including what the change is, and why it is important. Focus on the WHY(the benefits), not the what (the class). In this example, a why could be: the course will help the customer teams respond faster, with better solutions. And remember the key to a good speech is.....practice, practice, practice.
3. Listen for Objections - After you give your speech, listen for reactions. You need to find out if they "buy it". And if not, why. What do people say? What don't they say? What is their body language and tone of voice telling you? Ask them for their thoughts. Ask them how closely this meets their needs.
4. Respond to Objections - Be prepared for the objections you expect. Have mini responses planned. For those you don't expect, get ready to think on your feet. If their objection is one you have no response to say something like, "That is a great point. Let me think about that and get back to you." If need be, go back to drawing board and change your offering (the team program) or your change speech.
5. Don't give up - It can take months to sell a new idea internally. Sometimes years. Whatever it takes, if what you have to offer will help the organization, be persistent, be flexible and don't give up. The customer is usually right. They know what they want and need. If you think they need a 2 day program and they only have time for a 2 hour program. Be creative and come up with a 2 hour program. If they like it, they will use it and even ask for more.
1. Figure out how the change will help the business - If you want business leaders to buy into a new HR approach, you need to link it to the business impact. This means understanding how the change will help the company's key stakeholders: customers, employees, the community and stockholders. For example, a reorganization is going on and you think some departments need to collaborate differently for the reorg to succeed. You know that the reorg is aimed toward putting the experts closer to the customers. This will lead to more repeat business. To sell your collaboration program, you need to link it to those business results.
2. Create your Change Speech - We always recommend leaders of change use a one minute change speech. If you can't explain it in less than 60 seconds, people won't understand it, and probably won't "buy it". Make the case short and sweet, including what the change is, and why it is important. Focus on the WHY(the benefits), not the what (the class). In this example, a why could be: the course will help the customer teams respond faster, with better solutions. And remember the key to a good speech is.....practice, practice, practice.
3. Listen for Objections - After you give your speech, listen for reactions. You need to find out if they "buy it". And if not, why. What do people say? What don't they say? What is their body language and tone of voice telling you? Ask them for their thoughts. Ask them how closely this meets their needs.
4. Respond to Objections - Be prepared for the objections you expect. Have mini responses planned. For those you don't expect, get ready to think on your feet. If their objection is one you have no response to say something like, "That is a great point. Let me think about that and get back to you." If need be, go back to drawing board and change your offering (the team program) or your change speech.
5. Don't give up - It can take months to sell a new idea internally. Sometimes years. Whatever it takes, if what you have to offer will help the organization, be persistent, be flexible and don't give up. The customer is usually right. They know what they want and need. If you think they need a 2 day program and they only have time for a 2 hour program. Be creative and come up with a 2 hour program. If they like it, they will use it and even ask for more.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Lessons on Change from Chrysler Bankruptcy
As news emerges on what was going on internally at Chrysler right before bankruptcy, it gets me thinking od some true-isms of change :
1. Change is messy - Things never go as planned. Even when there is a plan for change. For some reason we all expect change to be linear: change a and turn into b. I have never seen a large scale change work that way. There is usually a big mess in between a and b. If that wasn't the case, we would have no customers!
2. Leaders often fold under the pressure - In Chrysler's case they seemed to be pressuring dealers to buy more inventory (even if they couldn't sell it) right up before bankruptcy. In other cases, they withhold the truth, bend the truth, put off hard choices. Not everyone can hold up the pressure of change.
3. Leaders often are peceived as liars - see trueism's 1 & 2. They lead into the perception (whether true of not) that leaders are not telling the truth. They may be telling the truth as best as they know it, however the "truth" and facts are often changing.
1. Change is messy - Things never go as planned. Even when there is a plan for change. For some reason we all expect change to be linear: change a and turn into b. I have never seen a large scale change work that way. There is usually a big mess in between a and b. If that wasn't the case, we would have no customers!
2. Leaders often fold under the pressure - In Chrysler's case they seemed to be pressuring dealers to buy more inventory (even if they couldn't sell it) right up before bankruptcy. In other cases, they withhold the truth, bend the truth, put off hard choices. Not everyone can hold up the pressure of change.
3. Leaders often are peceived as liars - see trueism's 1 & 2. They lead into the perception (whether true of not) that leaders are not telling the truth. They may be telling the truth as best as they know it, however the "truth" and facts are often changing.
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