Know Your Enemy: The People Who Block Buy-In - John Kotter - Harvard Business Review

Know Your Enemy: The People Who Block Buy-In - John Kotter - Harvard Business Review

Harvard Business Review

John Kotter

Know our Enemy: The People Who Block Buy-In

8:08 AM Tuesday September 28, 2010

Last week I introduced you to some ideas I have been thinking and writing about for the past few years about how to save good ideas from being shot down. Thanks to those of you who have added your voices to the discussion.

I've had some people ask me why my co-author Lorne Whitehead and I decided to begin our new book about saving good ideas with a story. The answer is that stories can be a powerful way to teach: in a classroom, in a manager's office, in a speech by a great leader, or in a book. Many of my leadership heroes understood this, and used the power of stories to great effect.

The story we tell is a fictional one, about a town where the library needs new computers but has no room in its budget to purchase them. A clever group of people find that the local computer store is willing to do a deal: for a limited amount of time, for every six computers it sells, it will donate one to the library. To make that happen, though, the town's library committee, in an open meeting with citizens, has to agree.

The story has a main character, named "you." You are charged with getting the necessary buy-in: presenting the idea at the public meeting, explaining it, and then answering questions. As you expect, having observed meetings like this before, you get rocks thrown at you constantly for an hour or two. It's the human interaction that we've all seen and that we all more or less hate.

The characters doing the rock throwing are ones we have all encountered, and we have given them amusing names to that effect:

Pompus Meani

Heidi Agenda

Avoidus Riski

Spaci Cadetus

Allis Welli

Lookus Smarti

Divertus Attenti

Bendi Wendi

You've probably met characters like these in your own companies and communities, and can guess the different kinds of attacks that come from each of them. I say "attacks," but the reality is that in many cases, people aren't intentionally trying to be nasty. An Avoidus Riski character in your own organization may just be expressing anxieties and opinions that come naturally from getting burned on previous risks. Someone who seems like a Lookus Smarti may just be expressing a more personal desire to look smart in front of the group, with no real argument against your idea. But the outcome is that your idea gets shot down.

In our story, "you" receive some helpful advice in preparation for the meeting, identifying the different kinds of potential attacks and specific responses to each. With the support of others on your team, you're able to deflect the rocks and achieve a successful outcome. After the story, we discuss each of the attacks, what the underlying intent may be (for example, to kill your idea through endless delays, or with unfounded fear that it's too risky), and how best to deflect that particular kind of attack.
But right now, I'm interested to hear your own buy-in stories, of characters like the ones above, what their attacks were like and how you handled them (or didn't). I think (hope) others reading this blog will benefit from hearing them too. Which type of character has caused you the most trouble? What other characters would you add to this list? How have you responded? How well has this worked? Disaster scenarios can be just as instructive as successes — so pass those along, too.

John Kotter is an emeritus professor at Harvard Business School and bestselling author of Leading Change and A Sense of Urgency, and founder of Kotter International. His new book, with coauthor Lorne Whitehead, is called Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea From Getting Shot Down.

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.