Hi, I'm Ken Bettenhausen, Professor of Management at the University of Colorado, Denver. In the last lesson, you completed a commitment chart, where you noted which stakeholders were likely to support your initiative, those who were indifferent and those who might resist or try to block your proposal. This lesson introduces a tool to help you think about and devise a plan to get others to support and buy into your proposal. Our work today builds on the stakeholder commitment chart you just completed in the last lesson, adding interest mapping and stakeholder analysis. You may not think of it this way, but getting Buy in is a political process. It means getting people to commit themselves to supporting or participating in a course of action begun by someone else. The most obvious way to get Buy in, is to persuade them that supporting your initiatives serves their interest. But that's not the only way to gain their support. I'd like to share two ways to gain support for your ideas that are grounded in social psychology. The first technique is Escalation of Commitment, and the second is Perceptions of Influence. Research has shown that people are much more likely to support and continue supporting projects that they have committed resources to, and those resources include their time and personal attention. The foot in the door phenomenon suggests that if you can get potential supporters to commit even a small amount of resources to your initiative, they will be more likely to support it, and to continue to support and defend it in the face of challenge. This is something that political parties and candidates know all too well. Is why they ask people for small donations that don't start to cover the administrative cost of collecting them. Bumper stickers, yard signs and now interactive internet and social media marketing campaigns all work on the same principle. When someone takes an action in support of a position, a product or political candidate, they're more likely to defend the position, purchase the product, or vote for the candidate. And if this support is stated publicly, they are much less likely to backslide or withdraw their support. The second technique, perception of influence is based on giving people a chance to provide feedback and input on the development of your initiative. Again, research has demonstrated that people who believe they have helped to shape a proposal are much more likely to support the initiative even if their input doesn't actually change what you plan to propose in the first place. For example, say you think the company could dramatically reduce its carbon footprint by replacing old fluorescent lighting with LED lights. You know implementing this would be the facility managers job. It makes sense for you to float the idea with her to gauge the support, and learn what concern she has with the idea. Neither of these techniques is without risk. Asking for a commitment of resources may cause a potential supporter to back off, and in seeking input in the development of your proposal, you run the risk of losing control of what the initiative ends up looking like. But the biggest risk is if people doubt your sincerity. If they think your openness to their suggestions is just part of a ploy to get their commitment rather than a sincere effort, their resistance may increase dramatically. Your success in finding allies and winning over potential resistors really depends on the accuracy and the completeness of your understanding of their interest and the power they have to assist or resist your efforts. I call this interest mapping. You'll be completing this as an exercise at the end of this lesson. You may want to complete it in stages as I discuss each part. First, go back to your list of key stakeholders, the list you identified during the previous lesson when you completed this commitment chart. Have you thought of any you overlooked? Add them to the list now. Now, think about each of these stakeholders. What are their key interests and priorities? That is, what things are they most interested in accomplishing, or preserving? Start this analysis, based on their job descriptions and the things the company expects them to do, and deliver. List separately the personal things you know about them, that inform their judgments and their priorities. Try your best to prioritize these interests, that is, what is their highest number one priority. Their second highest concern. But, if you don't know them well enough to do this, don't worry. It's okay to list a group of high priority interests. But also, for each stakeholder, add a set of secondary interests. Things that they'll also attend to and value, but which may not be their highest priorities and concerns. And don't limit yourself to areas that affect or are directly effected by your proposal. Put yourself in those shoes, you hold their position. What are you responsible for? What are your quarterly and annual goals? That is, what things do they have to do and make happen to be successful in their positions? Finally, to the extent you know them, list each stakeholder's personal interests, concerns, and priorities. Personal interests are important but unique. You can anticipate organizational interests and develop appeals based on them, even if you don't know the person involved. Personal interests you have to learn along the way. That's why networking with people outside your immediate work group is so very important. If people know you and like you as a person, they'll be more receptive to the ideas you propose. And the inverse is also true. Knowing and liking someone makes you more receptive to their ideas and initiatives. You may know a lot about some of the stakeholders you've listed, and very little about others. Start with the people you know well, but don't limit yourself to them. Your goal is to develop as complete a map as possible of the needs and goals and priorities and concerns of all the people who can affect your proposal. These descriptions will be very useful later when you think about how to package and sell your idea to these parties. Here is an example, marketing directors are charged with identifying and satisfying clients and customer needs. If your customers are consumers who care about the environment, you have a potential ally. But if your company sells its products and services to other businesses, your initiative may not be the marketing director's highest priority. Or she may be focused on other things that she thinks are more pressing or will have a greater impact. If you need this person's support, you'll have to find another entrance to tap. Perhaps the marketing department employs a lot of millennials. And the marketing director has been having trouble filling entry level positions. You have data to show that millennials value working for companies that are socially and environmentally conscious. This may be a need you can leverage to gain support for your initiative. Okay, now examine the interest map you've just created for the initiative you'd like to propose. Start by identifying people with strong direct interests in their proposal. These peoples' interests are aligned with your initiative. They are the low-hanging fruit when it comes to gaining support for your initiative. Refer back to your commitment chart. How much power do they hold? Can they make it happen or help it happen or allow it to happen? How committed are these people to your initiative? If one of them can make it happen, you need to decide if you should let them co-sponsor the initiative with you or even sponsor the initiative with your support. Now, let's look more broadly at the interest map. Are there groups of stakeholders who share a common interest? Circle them. Again, look more broadly and note all the groups who share common interest even if, make that especially if the interest they share aren't among your high priorities. These are what Pfeffer called the existing coalitions. There interests are aligned and so it's very likely that they work together to support initiatives that address these common concerns. Here's where it gets interesting. Say the issue that one of these existing coalitions has in common has nothing to do with sustainability. That is, there's no way you can make your initiative fit their common interests, and so justify it on its own merits. But, say one of the stakeholders in the existing coalition is a potential supporter of their initiative. Their interests align with your initiative. If you can persuade this person to sponsor or co-sponsor your initiative, she may be able to get the other member, the existing coalition to go along with it. Using the language of the commitment chart, they can allow it to happen, which is especially valuable if you identified that person as someone who could keep it from happening in your commitment chart. That's why it's called strategic. Once you've identified people who can keep your initiative from happening you need to be strategic, plan ahead, find someone who that person knows, and trust, and works with, and have them pitch the idea to the potential blocker. The exercise that follows asks you to complete a stakeholder interest map, and then identify natural allies and resistors. Look for the existing coalitions. Those of you who are really interested should note what arguments each group is most likely to find persuasive. That's the basis for your communication and persuasion strategy
