At this point, you’ve done a lot of planning, collected data, considered stakeholders, and put together a strategy. Now we need to talk about how to actually get buy in.

Making the decision to change is one thing, but getting the team to buy in is a completely different beast. The team needs to buy in to the change so that the execution goes well. Without buy-in, the change will be half hearted and not as successful as it could be.

The best way to build buy-in is to build a sense that your team has ownership of the decision. That doesn’t mean they can just veto it and not change. The change is happening either way, but if they can contribute to the plan, they will feel that they have influence over the end result, and be more invested.

3 methods to build buy-in

There’s generally 3 ways to tackle change, with varying levels of team buy-in.

1. Make the decision, announce the decision, Q&A

It’s fast, but this gives the team the least space to contribute to the outcome. You’ll have the least buy-in, and you’ll get the least benefit learning from your team. It’s perfectly fine during crunch time or for low stakes decisions, but for bigger changes with a longer timeframe, it might be best to avoid this one.

So, in my case, I might use this method if a meeting needs to be rescheduled. I can see everyone’s availability in the calendar and I know their preferences for when they prefer to meet (it’s a small team, easy to remember). So I can move the meeting to a different appropriate time, send an email and a Slack message and we continue as normal.

2. Create a straw man stance on the change and invite discussion

This method is a little slower, but you get some more buy-in. This way, the team can contribute, but the decision is presented a the beginning. The team will be able to say they contributed, but not that they owned the decision.

In my case, I might try something like this when I am in a 1:1 meeting and someone is presenting me with a problem. In that situation, I can sometimes present a strawman decision and see how someone thinks through a problem. In other cases, I can invite them to present the strawman and we can pick it apart. This is also a good method for getting feedback.

3. Team meeting to discuss the problem

This method is the slowest, and also the hardest to direct. In this situation, there’s no initial decision presented, you know you want to nudge the team towards the outcome you want, but in a way where people feel they’ve truly owned the outcome. This way you’ll get the most buy-in.

So for example, my transformation of my function in the company will require method 3. Because it’s a big change that impacts career growth, the future of the role, as well as having big cross-functional impacts, there will need to be a lot of discussions to guide people in the right direction. I’ve already laid a lot of the groundwork through team meetings and 1:1s. The team is excited for the change, and are learning new skills fast.

Creating urgency

Now that we’ve built buy-in, we need to create a sense of urgency. People need to understand why the change needs to happen now. There will always be business and personal consequences. In our case, the business consequence is that if we don’t change now, we will eventually be swept under the wave of AI automations that are becoming easier and more common day by day. The personal consequence is that our function may continue to be seen as a cost center, rather than a source of value in the company. If we can successfully make the change, we can justify title and compensation changes with the new role.

There are additional ways to make the sense of urgency feel more concrete. I can include competitive information to show that other companies are already undertaking this change, I can show financial information like cost savings, I can have town hall meetings to answer additional questions, and I can set up workshops or seminars to solidify the changes in behavior I want to see. In our Friday working sessions, I try to carve out a little time for my team to collaborate and experiment with worflow automations. It’s getting us moving in the right direction. It’s important that the communication of the vision for the change is communicated repeatedly and consistently to keep the change management on track and aligned to the original plan.

Wrapping up

Select the most appropriate method of building buy-in with your team, and be prepared to invest the time in discussion when undertaking major changes. Then, create a sense of urgency and solidify the behaviors you want to see. Make it stick, and make sure everyone is clear on the vision. Next time we’ll talk about the actual execution of change management.