GET READY TO BUILD MOMENTUM: STRATEGIZING TO CREATE BUY-IN

Successful leaders are not just lucky. They bring people on board and motivate them to get behind their agenda.

Competence does not guarantee buy-in, nor are imposed solutions likely to be accepted if they do not square with the needs of team members and peers. Buy-in depends on convincing peers and team members alike that they will be better off getting behind your agenda and worse off if they don't.

Go on a Listening Tour

To support a change agenda, team members must be convinced that their opinions will be heard that they matter. Attentive listeningactive curiosity is a powerful signal. Listening tours enable you to get a better sense of your team members as individuals and as a group .

• What are the interests of individual team members? What frustrates them? What problems do they see with how work gets done?

• In what areas does the group function efficiently ? What are the group's most pressing concerns? What legitimate reasons might team members have to resist your agenda? Are you open to revisions based on what you hear?

• How do your external customers and internal clients view your team? What approaches respond to their needs? What can be improved?

Help Solve Problems

Change usually creates anxiety. Addressing problems early can quiet individual fears and make the group both more cohesive and more productive.

• What can you do for individuals in your group so that their assignments fit their personal objectives? If they want to be stretched , can their positions be reconfigured? If they are not performing well, what training or coaching can you offer? How will you move out the people who cannot be coached?

• Are there any immediate actions you can take to address the group's most pressing concerns? Can procedures or systems be modified to make everyone's work easier? Can you improve communication and facilitate the way the group handles differences?

• What changes can you make to enhance relationships between your group and key users or clients?

• Are you avoiding certain issues? (These may be the ones you need to confront right away.)

Forge Broad Links

Allies and partners can build momentum behind your agenda. They also increase the comfort level of your team members.

• What interests do other groups have that mesh with yours? What steps can you take to advance their agendas ?

• What are the costs to other groups if they do not get behind your agenda? Have you made those costs clear to the relevant stakeholders?

Create Opportunities to Learn

An ability to adapt to changing circumstances is key today. Adaptive skills do not have a long shelf life. They require constant renewal.

• What formal and informal processes are in place for people to learn new skills?

• Have you created structured opportunities for dialogue on your agenda? On current projects? On mistakes? On where the group or the organization is going?

• Can you float an experimental ideakeeping it if it turns out well and discarding it quickly if it doesn't? Is there a safety net to protect people when experiments fail?