Hi, I'm Ken Bettenhausen, Professor of Management at the University of Colorado, Denver. In the previous lesson, we looked at why it's important to prepare and share your proposal for sustainable change with your boss, even for simple changes that you think you can do on your own. In this lesson we'll look at situations where the change you'd like to make is bigger than that. With a changed proposed requires significant resources and or formal approval. In these situations you have to decide how to sell the change to someone outside your immediate workplace. For this lesson, I'm drawing on the work of Susan Ashford and Jane Dutton. Two of my colleagues from University of Michigan, their research examine how middle managers solve the ideas for organizational change to top management. The lessons they drew from this research are relevant here, as you think about how to pitch your ideas, even if you aren't pitching them to the CEO or the Senior Vice President of Operations. It's commonly thought that organizational initiatives originate at the top and then trickle down and are disseminated through the ranks. That's true for some initiatives, but most changes are originate down in the belly of the organization where employees are really care. See opportunities that their company could and that they believe should pursue, or threats that need to be addressed for the company to succeed and thrive. In short, they see things from their position and the organization that they think will make the organization run better. They think these issues are either important to the organization as a whole, or that their part of the organization would run better if the issues were raised and addressed. Now all managers, must manage down. Implementing the goals and managing the responsibilities assigned to their unit. But the managers and employees who set themselves apart, the ones that get promotions and advance to positions of greater authority and responsibility, are the one's that can successfully manage up. They're able to identify areas for improvement, but more importantly, they're able to get others to why the changes they advocate need to be made. And they're able to work through the systems in place, where they work to get the chain approved and resources allocated to the project. Ashford and Dutton say you have two tasks. First you must actually get the people with clout to give some time and attention to your initiative. And second, you must proceed in a way that allows you live to sell another day. That is, your images can't be so badly damaged in the selling effort that you lose all credibility for subsequent efforts. They go on to identify five tactical choices you need to consider, as you decide how to advocate for and advance your proposal for change. They are bundling, framing, language, involvement and approach. The first basic consideration is whether to bundle your project to initiatives being advanced elsewhere in the firm, or whether you want to sell your proposal as an isolated concern. Something that stands on it's own. By bundling your initiative with other existing projects, you can tap the wider set of advocates and/or piggyback on the work they've already done, to legitimize and gain resources for the idea. Your initiative gains by association, and the existing initiative may be enhanced by including your project and ideas, thus increasing the likelihood that the overall initiative will be adopted. But there's a potential down side too. If the established initiative comes to be seen in a negative way, the initiative you so carefully link to it may also be tainted and seen negatively. And ties to old issues that have political enemies may activate their resistance and dampen their enthusiasm for your initiative. Finally, linking your initiative to an existing program may limit it to those currently advocating engaged in the existing initiative. You miss the opportunity to broaden your base and gain the ideas and support of new people. The second decision is framing. You're implicitly or explicitly frame your initiative in the ways that you describe it and present to others. For example, you may choose to frame your idea as an opportunity for the company or in terms of a threat the company faces. Researches shown that framing an issue as an opportunity can generate more participation and more commitment to take action, but it results in changes of a lesser magnitude than when frame does a respond to a threat. To frame the initiative as an opportunity, you need to get others to see it as controllable, involving gain, and having a positive impact. Another basic choice you have when framing an initiative is whether to imply that top management has a responsibility to address it. That is that the firm has a moral obligation to adopt your change. In this approach, you would emphasize the communal obligations of all partie, and the morality of approving your idea. This approach can get the issue considered at a very high level in the organization, but it may also carry some negative impact, in that it may negatively affect your personal reputation. Particularly if the people your selling don't like being pushed or sermonized to. Alternatively, you can adopt a business frame to justify the change. That's how most of the people Ashford and Dutton surveyed pitched their ideas, and what we advocate throughout this course. With a business frame you use facts and figures to suggest the financial cost of, for example, not attending to the environment or social impact of your current presence, are not worth bearing. With this frame, you're appealing to the decision maker's head, and their concern for improving their bottom line. With a moral appeal your targeting their heart and their sense of what's right. Both frames are powerful and each may be used in certain situations. Clearly the initiative you've proposed to make your company more sustainable is the right thing to do. But think back to the advice our advisory council members provided. Every one of them adopted a business frame to justify their initiatives, even though their personal motivation originated in the ethical considerations. And they saw the value of using an ethical frame when they knew a particular audience would be receptive. This brings us to our third consideration, language. This is related to framing, and that a business frame requires you to use different language to advance your idea, than you would use within a moral frame. But, there's more things that fall into the heading language. For example, do you want to use the same argument for everyone, or customize your language? That is, use different arguments, and highlight different information when you present your ideas to different audiences. The most successful advocates are able to talk numbers to number people and ideas to moralists. Another language consideration is whether the cast the issues important to achieving an organizational goal or is a solution to a current organizational problem. Doing this makes your initiative consistent with what decision makers are ready to hear. And what they've already decided is important to the organization, that's what I recommend doing this whenever possible. Fourth, you need to decide if you want to push your idea alone or involve others in the selling process. Most managers, including the members of advisory council that you've heard in earlier videos Made a conscious effort to involve others. You can think of two groups of people to engage. First are the people who are affected by the change. Including them ensures you understand their positions and incorporate their concerns and ideas in your proposal. This co-opts potential opposition and as Brenna pointed out. People who are initially and publicly opposed to your idea make the most persuasive advocates. The disadvantage is that your idea may get watered down as the issues are added to appease these new co-sponsors. A second group of people to involve are the people who stand to benefit from the change. Engaging additional advocates increases your chance of success because those who allocate resources see a broader base to support and if the idea is badly received, the responsibility falls on the group, not just you. Of course the inverse of that is also true. If the issue is well received the group, and not you individually, get the credit. Finally, as you advocate for more complex issues an important decision is what approach to take. That is, whether to advance your initiative with a formal or informal appeal, and whether to make your pitch publicly or informally. Research shows that rather than make these choices independently, you really have to consider the way your organization operates. Some firms have open forums and encourage people to share ideas, informally and to gather momentum and support. Some have formal processes for reviewing and approving initiative. It's best to do a little bit of detective work. Trace a recent change back to see how it was proposed. And it doesn't hurt to ask your boss how new ideas get approved where you work. Most managers are like our advisor council members, they're happy to share their approach to getting their pet projects approved. And there you have it five things you need to think about when preparing your proposal. Should you sell your idea as an isolated initiative or connect it to issues being advanced by others? Should you frame it as a moral imperative or build the business case to support it? Should you sell your idea using the same language for everyone? Or tailor your language to the audience? Should you go solo, or involve others? Should you use formal public approaches, or advocate for your ideas informally with private conversations? And finally, for some of these tactics, should you use both simultaneously, or at different times as you gather support for and develop your proposal for sustainable change where you live and work?
