STRATEGIC MOVES

In today's world, it is not easy to attract the resources you need. One of the women we interviewed talked about having "a senior brief without the checkbook ." Funds for new initiatives may be difficult to secure. Getting people you depend upon to give you their time and effort, their human resources, can be especially challenging. Four strategic moves can help as you negotiate these resource issues.

• Align requests to strategic objectives: Resources are symbolic blueprints. They outline where an organization is and where it intends to go. The closer you link your agenda to those strategic objectives, the easier it is to make the case for the resources you need.

• Appeal to the interests of other stakeholders: The effects of resource allocations ripple through an organization. Other people have vested interests in your performance. Their ability to produce results may depend on yours. Overlapping concerns create interdependence . Because your appeals mesh with their concerns, these stakeholders can often be persuaded to bring indirect influence to bear on the allocation decision.

• Enlist partners to support the case: A single voice can get lost in the noise of competing interests. Influential partners can focus everyone on the real issue ”the importance of the task ahead and getting you the resources to do the job.

• Leverage success: Clever utilization of existing resources can produce small wins for big hits ”and in the process attract additional resources.

Donna Fernandes employed these strategic moves to marshal the resources needed to rehabilitate the Buffalo Zoo. ^{[ 2]} We will follow her progress as she makes her vision for the Zoo a reality.

Donna brought a doctorate in zoology, an MBA, and ten years ' experience working at other zoos to the Buffalo Metropolitan Zoo when she was selected as its CEO and president.

• I had worked for a year for a design firm that had done quality master planning for clients around the world so I understood what a good zoo could look like.

She would need all those credentials and experience. The Buffalo Zoo did not begin to approach her vision of what a zoo could be. It had last been renovated during the Roosevelt administration, a beneficiary of its public works projects. The third oldest zoo in the country, the Buffalo Zoo also had an outdated infrastructure. Donna's predecessor, in fact, wanted to scrap the existing plant and move to a new site.

• My predecessor thought that there was so much wrong with the place, let's start fresh. He spent three years spinning his wheels, dreaming this incredible, unrealistic dream of building an eighty-acre zoo right at the waterfront. The cost was astronomical ”$160 million. All of that money had to be raised at once because you cannot open a new zoo with one exhibit.

The lack of reality behind this ambitious plan forced the board into action. They brought in Donna to rehabilitate the zoo. To do that she needed a plan ” a vision for the zoo and a strategy for getting the resources to realize that vision.

Align Requests to Strategic Objectives

To secure the resources you need, you have to show the benefits to the organization. People must see the connection to broader objectives. The lion's share of resources goes to people who take care of critical contingencies for an organization. ^{[ 3]} In the university world, for example, many departments depend on outside grants to fund research and defray a portion of their overhead costs. As a result, the ability to secure research grants has become a core competency with prestige attached to it. In a complex intersection, prominent researchers attract internal resources because they have demonstrated their contribution ” measured in actual dollars ”to the department or institute's continuing financial viability.

Strategic objectives vary over time and within organizations. They may address a critical problem or capitalize on an opportunity. Whether an initiative focuses on problem or opportunity, however, its claim on resources correlates directly to its likely contribution to the organization's broader objectives and well-being. Attracting the right people is critical to any rapidly growing organization and thus executives who recruit and hire usually have priority claims on resources. By contrast, in a down economy, those go to the people who manage costs. The closer you can tie your resource requests to critical objectives, the greater are your chances of having your proposals heard and requests met.

Demonstrate That the Resources You Seek Will Solve a Big Problem. When people perceive threats to their environment or envision significant opportunities, they are more open to appeals for resources that will help the organization deal with challenge. Good issue sellers ”people who are able to influence change from the middle ”know that it is easier to get their message across if they connect it to strategic threats or opportunities. ^{[ 4]}

Hannah highlighted both the threats and the opportunities when she was appointed to a new leadership role in her financial services firm. "Our business model was under pressure," she says. "We needed to think out of the box and create the business of the future." The current structure ”"the way roles and responsibilities were delegated" ”was not producing results. Nor was it likely to help the organization adapt to future demands. There had to be more senior-level accountability, sponsorship, and thought leadership.

Hannah faced countervailing pressures that could squeeze needed resources away from this future-oriented project. "We still had to deliver current results in a world of limited resources." Structural changes take time to implement. Their impact on the organization and the bottom does not show up immediately.

This trade-off between short-term results and the commitment to a longer- term vision can be very hard for line people to make. Deliverables on the future stuff don't have the same visibility or predictability. No matter how important the work is for the organization's future, it can get lost.

Hannah built her case for committing resources to the redesign by carefully balancing an analysis of where they were against the vision of where they needed to go. Short-term results could not be produced indefinitely at the expense of long-term change. Both were equally important to the organization's health. If, however, no changes were made, current productivity would not pick up.

The world lives in sound bites. You have to be very clear and help people connect the dots. You have to remind them why you are talking about this issue. Why it's important to the future. Now we are at A or B. Draw the correlation. What will it take to get to C or D?

The changes envisioned would not only increase accountability, they would create greater transparency and adaptability ”making it possible for the organization to become more nimble and take advantage of opportunities to grow its market share. The explicit connection Hannah made between resources and future possibilities secured her the resources she needed.

Whether you are dealing with new systems or new organizational structures or a problem area that needs to be turned around, the link to strategic objectives supplies a critical rationale for diverting scarce resources to the effort. It also goes a long way toward preventing your requests from being characterized as self-serving.

Connect Resources to Likely Outcomes . Demonstrating the potential value of an initiative can be a challenge. Yet if people cannot see the value, they may be reluctant to make the resource commitment. In framing the value proposition, you need to consider your audience. How are various people likely to view your promises and your requests? Individuals respond to different stimuli. Some are drawn to compelling initiatives. Others look for clear financial explanations .

Pilar, the new vice president of development for a major cancer research institution, knew that meeting the board's ambitious goals required significant investment. The development office was understaffed and its technology antiquated. The board had agreed on the goals. Now Pilar had to convince them to commit the necessary resources to the effort.

To build credence for the numbers , Pilar conducted an internal audit. "Working everyone to the bone," she drew up a huge plan, "several inches thick, right down to development office's space needs over the next three years." She also included a one-page summary.

The plan was so thick and so detailed I knew the trustees would only read the summary. That's where I wanted their focus.

The president arranged for Pilar to present the plan to the four most influential (and vocal) trustees. "These were savvy businesspeople, not docs. They appreciated the executive summary. They also got its message." The summary called for investment in resources ”hardware, software, space, bodies ” but promised to deliver $60 million in new funds by 2004. The incremental costs were only $10 million ”a huge jump in the fundraising world. "It's sometimes easier," Pilar says, "to get something through that is bold, something people can get excited about, rather than nickel-diming and predicting a 5 percent or 10 percent annual increase."

The incremental benefits did not escape the notice of the four trustees. They threw their weight behind the plan and soon the rest of the board signed on. The decision paid off. Pilar's office raised $80 million in 2002 and had a staff of 110. But the resource challenge remains ongoing. Fundraising targets increase each year and strain the supporting infrastructure ”particularly the information technology systems. With hospital resources strained just to meet the needs of patient care, Pilar says, any request from fundraising has to be justified by a predictable and ample outcome.

The connection of input and output is not a rhetorical device to build a convincing argument. You do not want to be trapped in a commitment to a project that is not viable given current constraints. Certain minimum thresholds in resources need to be correlated to the results possible. For example, when Connie took over the leadership of a major sales effort, she made the connection between resources and outcome explicit to the executive committee. "Yes, I will do this," she explained. "But I cannot do it for $2 million. That is like throwing $2 million out the window." In part, Connie underscored the minimum funding threshold because she had a reputation for delivering. She had to make the executive committee understand that nobody, not even she, could produce the desired results without adequate resources. It was better not to undertake the project than to carry the twin burdens of unrealistic funding and high expectations.

Align Resources with the Ebb and Flow of the Work. The resource demands on any organization are not static. They fluctuate with the seasonal sales cycle. External events can bring certain strategic issues to prominence while others ebb in importance. Being responsive to this ebb and flow demonstrates that you are in synch with the strategic needs of the organization at different times. Recognizing where a project is in the business cycle, for example, can make it easier to secure resources when they are needed.

Alison, a biotech executive, has to be especially attuned to timing and its impact in resolving the conflicting demands on limited resources. Alison leads cross-functional teams that take a drug from the time it is discovered in chemistry through the FDA approval process. Even with an annual budget upwards of $40 million, Alison's challenge is to ensure that the drugs she has under development move steadily toward FDA approval. Working within a matrixed organization, she must compete with other team leaders for human resources ”the various disciplines that bear on any drug trial.

"Once we get approval, we can start marketing and making money." As a result, projects that are closest to market have the highest priority when it comes to resources. Alison uses this decision rule in bidding for resources. She might, for example, justify pulling a cardiologist off another team leader's project if that expertise were needed to meet a critical submission date on one of her projects. When Alison's projects slip behind on the schedule, she evaluates the implications and then decides whether or not to raise the issue.

We have to make trade-offs ”the major one being time for people. I only make waves when I really need to. In a crisis, we can go outside and hire expertise. But I weigh that decision carefully before putting in the request. It's expensive to go outside and that decision has to be justified by the costs of the delay.

Alison's approach ”linking resource requests to stages in the development process ” frames demands in terms that the head of R&D understands. Because some delays can be costly, he listens when she flags a potential problem and points out the probable ramifications if additional resources are not allocated.

Process arguments like these do not fit all situations, but when they do, they bring advantages. They deal with concrete cause-and-effect relationships, not abstractions. Not only are they responsive to the rhythms of the business cycle, they are couched in terms that resonate with their intended audience.

After the rebuff of the previous CEO's plans, Donna Fernandes knew she needed to make the strategic case in order to garner sufficient resources to rehabilitate the zoo. First she needed a vision.

• You are really selling a dream. You need a vision, a plan, that is exciting and compelling and unified.

Donna rejected the usual solutions.

• I don't like zoos without any rhyme or reason behind their organization. Some just separate taxonomic groups. This animal class or that one. Others concentrate on bio-geographic differences. This is South American; this is African.

Donna wanted a single story line that would tie all the exhibits together. She found it in water.

• Water really defines habitats ”desert, grassland ”and the patterns. Water is also a relevant story for this community. A hundred years ago, Buffalo was a center for transportation with the Erie Canal. With Niagara Falls we were the first city to have hydroelectric power and electrified streets .

Donna developed a plan that wove together different stories of water . It included a South American rain forest with a dramatic two-story waterfall; an Asian river system; and an African plain with a big watering hole where animals congregate. She also included an arctic exhibit focusing on frozen water ” snow.

• People loved the plan because it told a logical story of how water influences life on the planet, and the Great Lakes are the country's largest bodies of fresh water.

However appealing the organizing water theme, Donna still needed to show that her vision would make a significant difference to the zoo's visibility and revenues . But first she had to respond to the zoo's immediate needs. Her predecessor, in efforts to build support for moving the zoo, had emphasized that the existing plant was not worth saving. "People were talking about how old everything was; how decayed everything was."

The zoo was also about to lose its accreditation. The dilapidated building housing the primates and big cats did not meet the standards of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association. Fortunately, Donna had $2 million in county funds, appropriated when the zoo decided not to move, that she could tap. She used that money to seed the rehabilitation of the main building.

• We designed the exhibits to feature threatened or endangered species. I was trying to reposition us and called the exhibits "Vanishing Animals." We had an interactive section about how scientists study endangered species, what habitats are at risk. Everything that we did was about repositioning the zoo ”we breed endangered species, we are involved with leading programs.

The rehabilitation saved the zoo's accreditation. It also ended up costing $4 million. Donna was able to raise the difference as people began to see her vision take shape. By dealing with key strategic issues, Donna secured the initial resources to launch the zoo's transformation.

Before Donna began the resource campaign, however, she was completely candid with the board about the range of possibilities. She explicitly linked what could be accomplished to the resources they could garner. Her message to the board was blunt.

• For $20 million I could give the zoo a facelift. We would keep what we had, but improve the visitors ' experience and the lives of the animals. Or we could spend $70 or $80 million and completely refurbish the zoo, creating an educationally enriching experience with really cool exhibits. If you don't think we can raise $80, then let's not kid ourselves . There is no point in having one wonderful corner while the rest remains mediocre.

Donna carefully aligned the decision with her vision of what the zoo could become, but she was equally emphatic about the need for realism .

Appeal to the Interests of Other Stakeholders

It helps to align requests for resources to an organization's strategic interests. But individuals base decisions on more than strategic needs and problems. Their personal interests matter as well. If you want people to say yes to committing resources, they need to see that the decision will help them too. In other words, appeals need to be relevant to where people are. This resonance is especially important when it comes to human resources. (In fact, good people may be the most important resource of all.) Before people are willing to get behind an agenda, they have to be convinced that it resonates with their personal needs. There are several ways to illuminate the congruity of interests.

Focus on Key Interests. We tend to assume that people have only a limited number of interests and restrict our appeals to those. Then the list seems to get shorter on inspection. Financial incentives may be out of the question given budget constraints. Opportunities for promotion may be narrow. If, however, you go beyond the obvious and learn something about people's real interests, you may find other concerns that count with them.

Amanda, for example, discovered that interactions with professional peers mattered to her team members. When Amanda was promoted over several colleagues to head a research department, questions about her selection surfaced. To quell them and learn more about the department, she went to work to find out what her team members needed. She discovered major inequalities between her department and a parallel one doing similar research. Despite the parity in work, the scientists and engineers on Amanda's team considered the other department more prestigious. It got better computers and enjoyed generous travel allowances. Each was a sore spot for people who prized both virtual and actual interactions with their peers.

I knew I needed to equalize these discrepancies. My appointment had been competitive and unless I could deliver for my team it would continue to be questioned. So I went right away and advocated for equivalent resources.

Amanda's boss, who had several department heads reporting to him, was unaware of the friction or its causes until she pointed them out. Amanda knew her boss had multiple interests. As much as he wanted to keep costs down, he also wanted to be fair and to keep morale ”and productivity ”high. She used the last two to negotiate with him over the disparity in computer upgrades and travel allowances.

I showed him places where we could make adjustments in the division's overall budget in order to meet my department's needs for travel and equipment. The increase in my budget was modest, but it enabled me to show my people that I had advocated for them successfully.

Amanda's probing for specific needs turned up a collective interest within her department. By emphasizing the congruence with her boss's interests, she paved the way for a negotiation that benefited both her boss and her team.

Structure for Early Warnings. In most organizations, people have multiple responsibilities that force them to make tradeoffs when deciding how to spend their time and their energy. If your request for resources helps them plan and eases this pressure, they will be more likely to make the commitment.

Elizabeth, a director of contract research, constantly competed for scarce human resources. Her company, with $1.6 billion in sales and sixteen thousand employees , provided contract research to pharmaceutical companies. RFPs came in all the time. When they did, Elizabeth had to "pull people away from their day jobs" to work on proposals. These proposals, although not revenue producing, were the key to the company's future revenue stream. Elizabeth, in fact, was evaluated on how many RFPs "hit" ”produced research business.

Before Elizabeth took over as director any RFP triggered a crisis. People would scurry to put teams together in order to get a response out the door. To counteract this crisis mentality , Elizabeth created an early warning system between sales and operations.

Any RFP requires input from various functions and from the research people. We carved out a floating team and built in a layer of expertise. Therapeutic expertise ”say, psychiatry or oncology ”had to be coupled with operational expertise. Previously key people might not have been available. But with a ten-day average lead time on proposals, we could anticipate those needs and anyone could plug into the process.

The rationalization of the process had several benefits. It allowed people across the company to anticipate demands on manpower and to prioritize among the various RFPs. It also ensured that people with client contact would be involved in crafting responses to RFPs, making tailored proposals more likely. Moreover, Elizabeth instituted weekly meetings where she could update key leaders on anticipated needs. They in turn used these updates to anticipate demands on their own resources.

Make Differential Appeals. Not everybody's interests are the same. Time matters most to some people; others value visibility. Understanding these different motivations can help a leader leverage modest resources into a broader commitment.

When Maggie took over as executive director of a battered women's shelter in western Massachusetts three years ago, the agency was floundering. The precarious financial picture, if not improved, would force curtailment of its strong direct services programs.

The bottom , had fallen out. The way things were structured with federal and state funding it was difficult to downsize. A lot of staff positions were funded through specific grants. They covered salary, but not general overhead or administrative costs. If I eliminated that position, I lost that funding and those services for , say, $3,000 in overhead savings. That position might also be connected to another service that gave us support or legitimacy .

With public funding drying up, Maggie turned to her New York fundraising background for inspiration. "I had to marshal a whole new level of resources to keep the programs afloat."

In New York City people want their names in lights ” as bright as they can get for however much money they give you. I started working with celebrities . I would describe how women and their kids arrive here ”with nothing. I asked them for donations ”personal stuff, whatever. But the best thing you can give us would be your ideas. Design a room that you would feel comfortable in, a room where you would feel safe, coming from a traumatic situation. I got Gloria Steinem to design a room. I wrote a letter to Maya Angelou. She loved the idea. In fact, she ended up doing a pro bono benefit.

But Maggie also looked to the community, pondering how she could approach people who did not want to be that visible.

We launched a campaign locally ”"Be Part of the Solution." It went to where people were ”to what they had to contribute. Our families had so many needs that people didn't need a thirty- hour training session. We enlisted vets who sheltered animals when families were trying to leave bad situations. We recruited trained hairdressers who got an earful while they were doing a shampoo and blow dry. We persuaded mechanics to donate time to fix a car.

To get people to commit time and resources, you have to make it easy for them to say yes. That means tailoring appeals so that they fit the individual or the group .

Donna Fernandes had multiple stakeholders when she embarked on transforming the Buffalo Zoo. The county executive and the legislature controlled the public purse. Buffalo's citizenry was vocal and concerned . Prominent members of the community could influence public opinion and kick off efforts to raise private funds. Each group had different interests. And Donna realized that each would respond to different aspects of her vision for the zoo.

• The community groups were up in arms. The previous director, planning to move the zoo to the waterfront, never articulated what would happen to the vacant site. There were fears that it would become a major target for vandalism. His predecessor had been willing to keep the zoo in its original location, but proposed taking over the park. So all the joggers, golfers, and tennis players would have had to go.

The Buffalo Zoo is located in a historical park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Donna went to the historical commission and got a strong letter of support for her plan.

• The zoo's current footprint is Beaux Arts and very linear, formal, but stockade fencing blocks the view to the park. The whole design of the new project is very much in the spirit of Olmsted. It restores the vistas and uses water. The Olmsted Conservancy loves the plan.

Donna took that endorsement to the community and support began to build. She delivered a quite different message to the county executive and the legislature. An investment in the zoo would reach large numbers of their constituents. The zoo had the widest demographic of any cultural institution in the Buffalo area.

Despite the zoo's condition it still attracted over twice as many visitors as the Museum of Science. The Albright - Knox Art Gallery, an outstanding museum housing contemporary art, appealed to a narrow segment of the population.

Donna commissioned visitor studies to dig deeper into the comparative data.

• I discovered that the zoo's visitors had the greatest range in educational level ” from preschoolers to Ph.D.'s. We also had a great range in income level ” from poverty level to wealthy. There was great diversity in ethnic backgrounds among our visitors. All those statistics documented the zoo's appeal. It was not just a question of numbers but of range. A lot of people feel that the Albright-Knox is beyond them. You can know everything there is about animals and still love the zoo. Or you can be a total Bozo and still love the zoo.

Donna realized that visitors equal voters. "I kept pounding that point with the county executive, with the legislators. In giving us $8 million, they would be investing in an institution that benefited their constituents ."

Donna's major private donor concentrated on the business plan. Donna peeled it back layer by layer, all the time relating it to her vision. "I went to dinner with him and barely got to eat. He grilled me. I didn't consider asking for money. That seemed rude."

Enlist Partners to Support the Case

Competition for scarce resources is fierce. Any case grows stronger when its support comes from different quarters . In fact, in certain circumstances, you may not be positioned to make the case alone. Maybe you have presented similar requests so many times in the past that people who can commit the resources no longer listen attentively. Maybe, despite your formal position, people do not feel that they have to take your entreaties seriously. Or maybe the request requires such a heavy commitment that it needs a broader show of solidarity. This is where allies and partners come in.

If you think about the various stakeholders in an organization, you can map them across a spectrum. There are people you work closely with and trust. These are your allies. Then there are others, as we discussed in Chapter One, who block your efforts. In between these two poles lie potential partners. These are what one commentator has called allies of convenience or bedfellows. ^{[ 5]} They may be willing to join cause with you in certain circumstances ”when their interests align with yours. And because they bring different perspectives and sometimes represent different functions, they can help build a sharper, more comprehensive, and more persuasive argument.

Enlist People with a Stake in the Decision. Certain people are natural partners of convenience. They have a stake in the resources you secure because the allocation benefits them as well. Lorraine enlisted just such a partner. Lorraine's strategic consulting firm had just come off a series of layoffs and its top leadership was skittish about staffing an engagement before revenues started coming in from the client. "It's a Catch-22," Lorraine says. "For a time, until you get ramped up, you are underdelivering."

Matters came to a head for Lorraine when a new client, a major one, was unwilling to sign a contract without evidence that the firm had the dedicated personnel to fulfill it. "My objective was to accelerate the hiring and to shift people around internally." The contract would generate sizable revenues over an extended period, and Lorraine did not want a slow start to jeopardize it. She took her relationship manager to visit the client. "I hoped that once he understood that they were really concerned about the staffing, he would be willing to hire ahead of the curve."

Lorraine's firm has a matrix organization. Relationship managers have client P&L responsibility while the capability managers oversee billability. "So their goals were very different," Lorraine says. "The capability manager liked the potential revenue the client would bring in, but he wanted to manage the process so that we were highly billable and profitable, net/net, at the end of the day."

To satisfy the client's concerns, Lorraine had to be able to hire ahead of revenues. "We needed to hire consultants who would be 25 percent billable starting out and then ramp them up." Lorraine partnered with the relationship manager to sell that idea. Lorraine, the lead consultant on the account, could not argue the case as persuasively as the relationship manager. He could credibly demonstrate the potential in that particular client relationship and bring greater objectivity to the discussions ”or at least the perception of greater objectivity. Lorraine got the resources she wanted and the client is now a major contributor to the firm's revenue stream.

Enlist People with Specific Expertise. Certain people can bolster your case by supplying specific expertise. A specialist, say, in channel marketing lends credibility to any request for funding to support an expansion in distribution. The head of R&D can speak to the design of a research project. A leader in the organization's IT department can verify the need for backup data storage systems and corroborate the costs in dollars and time. When partners like these get behind a request, they give that request greater depth. They add substance to the argument. But beyond contributing specificity, their knowledge base commands attention. They know what they are talking about, and this credibility then attaches to your request.

Jackie, an expert in sales training, revamped the programs at her company by partnering with the executive vice president of finance. Having a Ph.D. in education did not mean that Jackie could present a credible financial argument ”and she knew it.

Jackie took over training for the residential real-estate group of one of the nation's largest banks during its annual budget process. The bank aimed to become the country's number-one direct provider of residential mortgages. But the situation in the field was changing rapidly. Loan originators needed to locate potential clients through real estate agents , financial planners, and attorneys ; they could no longer rely on leads from the branches. Conversations with the line quickly told Jackie that training was not doing enough to support the loan originators.

With the annual budget still in process, funding levels had not been fixed. Jackie estimated it would take at least $3 million to meet the needs of the five thousand originators in the field. To make her case, she partnered with an executive vice president of finance. Together they used a Six Sigma process to do a deep dive on the business case. After that dive, he was convinced. Not only would the investment pay off, it was essential ”under-funding would jeopardize any return. He had no hesitation in supporting the $3 million threshold when it came up for discussion during the next meeting of the executive committee.

That support was key for Jackie. When it came to budget decisions, committee members found it easier to accept the judgment of someone from finance than the assertions of a specialist in training.

Enlist People Close to the Situation. People closest to a situation often know the most about it. They may be able to capture the ramifications of impending allocations for decision makers who are somewhat removed from day-to-day operations. This view from the trenches brought an added dimension to Terri's ongoing negotiations over resources.

Over the past two years, Terri's consumer products company had cut its professional staff by 25 percent. Of course, there was no comparable reduction in the workload. Terri, the director of an R&D group in the food division, needed to align resources with capacity. She started by convening meetings that brought together key decision makers with members of her group to set priorities. "We were being run ragged by demands from product development," she says. "This guy wanted a study on cakes; that one wanted to test another flavor in the bottled water. On and on."

At first people complained about what they dubbed "Terri's Priority Sessions." But the meetings turned out to be great. Her staff members would come in with their priorities. The senior leadership in Market Research and R&D did not have to do any work; they just had to show up. As the staff ranked projects, the senior people were always surprised at how much work Terri's department was doing.

These presentations made the department's work visible and underscored the trade-offs between capacity and resources. The meetings also forced decisions, but the people doing the work now influenced those decisions. There were times when Terri would seed the meeting so a particular person would make a particular case. ^{[ 6]} Terri worried about losing her effectiveness as an advocate if she was always advocating. "It helps," she says, "to have other squeaky wheels."

Donna Fernandes enlisted partners, sometimes on a contract basis, wherever she could to bolster her resource case. She used experts to sell her big plan to foundations.

• We hired master plan consultants who laid out all the new areas, provided sketches of the habitats, and estimated prices for construction. They also estimated new staff that would have to be hired and developed projections for attendance and revenues. The whole business plan along with the master plan was something that foundations wanted to have. It was a complete plan, rather than a couple of bubble diagrams.

Once the local historical commission became convinced that the zoo would preserve the integrity of Olmsted's original design, its members became full partners. Their approval ameliorated community worries. Not surprisingly Donna drafted her board to help make the case with influential members of the community. But she went out of her way to involve everyone:

• Every time someone comes up to me and thanks me, I tell them, "Why don't you call the county executive or the legislators and thank them."

Leverage Successes

Resources are not always secured in a one-shot, all-or-nothing deal struck around budget time or when you are first appointed. Often they are the result of a staged campaign. No matter how creatively you negotiate, when you are new to a role the risk is perceived to be high. Prudence may caution decision makers to hold back and see what you can accomplish with the resources in place.

You can sometimes get over this accomplishment hurdle by delivering a contained and modest "demonstration project." By design, pilots or demonstration projects put almost no strain on resources. They also attract scant attention if they do not work out, yet when they are successful, they produce small wins that can be leveraged. ^{[ 7]} These projects require little in the way of organizational commitment. They don't take long to launch and use few resources. Nor do they carry a high-risk profile. Their narrow scope restricts both the new leader's exposure and the organization's. Yet the small wins they generate can supply the evidence you need to make a credible case for additional investment.

Once a successful demonstration project becomes visible and you are credited with the small win, you can go after bigger hits. You have shown you can pass the test.

Bite Off a Small Piece of a Big Pie . When an ambitious initiative with a big price tag is introduced, support can be equivocal . Ambivalence should be expected. Big efforts usually bring big risks. Yet ambitious plans can often be broken down into smaller, incremental pieces. These smaller bites can be rolled out quickly and with a minimal drain on resources. With each success, the request for additional funding becomes easier.

Micho, executive vice president of a major regional bank, started small when she was tapped to take charge of one of the institution's most visible pies ”community banking.

By 1990 the bank was feeling the impact of CRA [the Community Reinvestment Act]. We weren't in compliance with major covenants. The bank was also toying with the idea of setting up a new venture within the minority communities ”targeting retail customers as well as businesses in underserved neighborhoods. At that time it looked pretty risky to set up a whole new venture in a minority community.

To get the resources for this new venture, Micho believed that she would first need to provide evidence that the bank was not likely to lose money in immigrant or minority communities. Micho's first effort targeted advertising. She was convinced that to attract minority customers, the bank needed to run ads in Spanish and Portuguese.

At first the ad department balked. They didn't think the campaign would pay off. Business is conducted in English, we run our ads in English, and so on and so on. But I pushed and pushed . Finally I got the commitment for a short-term experiment ”a targeted campaign.

The campaign was enormously successful, drawing many new depositors and some entrepreneurs to the bank. Carefully planned, such pockets of success provide stepping-stones. Micho leveraged a modest advertising campaign into a full-bore effort to build the bank's presence in minority communities. Instead of being a high-risk CRA obligation, the effort turned out to be a positive revenue generator. But that case had to be made over time, step by step. The effort is still evolving, more than a decade later.

Pilot a New Idea. Resistance to a project's very concept can make securing funds for it difficult. A pilot project, a small version of a big idea, can elude the notice of potential critics . Alternatively, they might not pay much attention and raise no real objections to a small investment. After all, they think it will fail and the amounts are not substantial. But once launched and successful, the pilot gives you persuasive evidence justifying further expansion. Carrie, for example, introduced an ambitious effort to attract business from women entrepreneurs with a small pilot project.

The bank had been tossing around the idea of setting up a unit targeting women. They had been making loans, but there was no cross-selling of services or investment products.

Although Carrie's estimate of the potential market exceeded $100 million, she asked for modest funding to do a pilot. This bare-bones request was intentional. The scope of the project allowed Carrie to "fly under the corporate radar" during a critical testing period. "I didn't step on any lenders' toes or get in the way of the account executives" ”at least not then. Carrie fully intended to roll out a multistate program. The successful pilot not only vindicated the plan, it also gave her a platform from which she could talk about funding that larger project.

Small wins like Carrie's pilot can also build institutional momentum behind an initiative. And because success breeds success, these small wins often generate big hits in the future. With each incremental gain in support and visibility, it becomes easier to attract resources. A mathematically minded technology executive reduced the observation to a formula:

If you get 5 percent of the organization on board, they can influence the next 15 percent, and then you can bring the organization over the hump. Once you get to 20 percent, the organization can move.

Build on Tangible Results. In trying to secure needed resources, the when can be as important as the how or the what. Sometimes no amount of stretching can get you what you need. No matter how elegant or persuasive the case you present, you cannot, as one of our commentators put it, "make soup from a stone." The wise approach may be to work for visible, sustainable results and use them to make the case. Simone, a division vice president of operations, secured additional resources for her overworked department, but not without increasing their workload temporarily.

At the time of Simone's appointment, the division was already underfunded. Part of a larger conglomerate, the group supplied a full range of services for corporate events, including transportation. In the aftermath of 9/11, revenues plummeted and the parent company mandated a series of layoffs.

Staff had been cut to the bone. As a result, Simone was "caught between a rock and a hard place." She needed to get rid of poor performers, but to make her revenue goals she also had to bring in new people who could do the work.

Employee morale was awful . They weren't making their numbers, but no one owned the problem. They all blamed 9/11 and the economic slump. Apathy was rampant. No one was pushing for new contracts because they were afraid things would go wrong.

Simone realized that she could not make a case for bringing in new blood in an uncertain environment where people were being laid off and revenues had dropped precipitously. Instead, she went after a major client. "No one thought we would get the company to sign up," she says. Then she targeted another key account. These two clients alone represented over a $1 million in profits. The additional business looked good on the bottom line, but it stretched the department to the limit.

People were working abusive hours. These new accounts could tip them over the edge. The department would collapse if we continued that way.

Simone's success in the marketplace demonstrated that the division could succeed. The CEO of the parent company could see, with the two new accounts, indications of a marked improvement in the division's business environment. To serve these accounts and grow the business, however, Simone needed to hire additional people. The CEO gladly underwrote the next million. Simone's new accounts alone had netted the division that much in one year.

Donna Fernandes attributes her success in garnering the resources to transform the Buffalo Zoo, in part, to her ability to build constituencies. She managed to assemble all of these with "small wins," one step at a time.

• The $2 million in county funds she used to start rehabilitation on the main building preserved the zoo's accreditation. The visible project generated sufficient interest that private donors stepped up and filled the gap, providing the other $2 million needed.

• Dialogue with the historical commission became a full-fledged partnership.

• The (not so) small win of the main building renovation convinced the board to back the more ambitious plan of a complete refurbishing rather than take the safer and less costly route of a facelift.

Donna remembers what people thought about the zoo when she took over:

• When I first came here, I would get e-mail: "I just brought my family to the zoo and I was appalled. How can you keep those animals in those ugly cages? You should be ashamed of yourself."

With a vision and a strategic plan, Donna gathered the resources required for the zoo's transformation, step by step. As a footnote to her story, a columnist from the Buffalo News visited the zoo with his two daughters. A week later he interviewed Donna. Then he wrote a column headlined "Leadership Conquers All at the Buffalo Zoo. " ^{[ 8]}

Resources determine, to a large extent, what you can accomplish in a new assignment. But their impact is felt on two distinct levels: First is the practical, where trade-offs must be made between capacity and investment, between inputs and outcomes. But resources also carry symbolic weight. They are prime indicators of what an organization thinks important and who can be trusted to exercise judgment and leadership.

It is essential that women ”whose influence and credibility can be questioned ”pay acute attention to the resource issue. Good people want to work for good people, and resources are a tip-off to many of just how good someone is.

^{[ 2]} In previous chapters we have disguised the identities of the women whose stories we tell. We make an exception for Donna Fernandes because her resource campaign is so rooted in the Buffalo community.

^{[ 3]} Jeffrey Pfeffer, Managing with Power .

^{[ 4]} Jane Dutton and Sue Ashford, "Selling Issues to Top Management."

^{[ 5]} Herminia Ibarra, "Building Coalitions."

^{[ 6]} Deborah M. Kolb and Judith Williams, The Shadow Negotiation , p. 96ff.

^{[ 7]} Karl Weick, "Small Wins"; Debra Meyerson, Tempered Radicals .

^{[ 8]} Donn Esmonde, "Leadership Conquers All at the Buffalo Zoo."