Change Requires Buy-in

I remember purchasing my first smart phone.  After poking around to understand more about it, I decided to move ahead with the smart phone.  However, I had reservations.  How much time was it going to take to learn how to use the phone?  Was the return going to be worth the time invested?  

Evaluating a business opportunity could follow a similar path - defining what you want to achieve, determining how much time it is going to take and evaluating the commitment needed to get it done.  Exploring an opportunity is more difficult when doing something new involves others. 

When this occurs, more homework is required before deciding to pursue the new opportunity.  This involves asking employees what they think about the change. Why, because you’re asking employees to strap on a new requirement and they are the ones who are going to make it happen. If people don’t have a chance to ‘weigh-in’ most likely they won’t ‘buy-in’ for what the boss wants to accomplish. 

But what the boss decides, others have to go along with, right?  Yes, bosses make decisions but employees can help the change go smoothly or become tied up with other competing priorities or worse yet, resist the change.

Isn’t a boss’s authority undermined by asking people for their input?  No, to the contrary, the role of boss is strengthened.  When employees are asked what they think, they feel respected.  They feel they matter and that goes a long way towards helping the change succeed. 

Doesn’t the boss open themselves for negative comments about the change?  Absolutely, but it is better to get those comments on the table and deal with them rather than let them undercut the initiative once after the project is under way. 

What happens if the boss doesn’t follow their recommendations?  The boss is still better off as long they follow up with those who provided the input by presenting their reasoning for the decision and showing that they valued employee contributions. 

This process of asking employees what they think sounds like a lot of work.  True, more time will be spent up front in order to achieve buy-in.  On the flip side the change will achieve a better result sooner by yielding a good return on the time spent initially to get the project rolling.  

Change is never easy but including others up front helps accomplish the objective by fostering more cooperation.

Learning how to use the smart phone had its bumps along the way but did prove to be a good return for my time.  I’ve dropped it a couple of times so it isn’t pretty anymore.  I receive offers to upgrade my phone with more features and faster connectivity.  I don’t think the trade-off for upgrading is there yet so I’ll just keeping using the one I have.