Getting the Big Dogs to Lead: Creating Long-term Change through Leadership Commitment
I am sitting in deafening silence at a hotel dining room table with seven other peers, eating. Actually, I’m not eating at all. I am sitting with my mouth hanging open. The smell of my own defeat permeates the room causing me to lose my appetite.
I catch myself staring into space, close my mouth and paste on a fake smile, but soon the fresh mental wounds surface and I find myself sitting gate-mouthed again. I think to myself, “So this is what it feels like to be at the end of your career.”
Three hours ago I was a bundle of nervous energy cracking jokes and feeling like the king of capital. I had a fresh business plan, Excel spreadsheets that showed us “going positive” in the first year and lots of brash backers eager to glad-hand me. Then the presentation began.
It wasn’t so much of a presentation as a train wreck. I don’t know if you’ve ever had one of those days. I open my mouth to say something clever and instead the sound of a donkey braying comes out. I try to crack a joke to relax everyone and all they do is check their watches.
With the Sr. Executive team and my peers in front of me and a large screen with PowerPoint slides behind me, I struggle to make sense to anyone, including myself. The slides might as well be written in Swahili.
The harder I try the stinkier the presentation becomes. Soon the smell of desperation is in the air. It’s funny how the smell of desperation in front of a group of executives has much the same effect as the smell of blood does for sharks. Soon they are circling my thrashing body. “What are you saying?” one interrupts. “Just cut to the chase. What’s this damned thing going to cost us?” One after another the questions come in rapid fire fashion without giving me the courtesy of the time to answer.
Cleverly enough I’ve given them all a written copy of the business plan, wrapped in cellophane so they won’t be thumbing through it during my presentation. Now, just as the gloves come off, so do the cellophane wrappers, each person reading on his or her own. No one is even listening to me or looking at me any more. The meeting is over. The executives, who were supposed to stay for lunch, jump up en mass and exit the meeting leaving me there bleeding in front of my peers.
On his way out, one straight-shooting executive takes time out of his busy schedule to offer me a quick post-mortem (appropriate name for this dead presentation) on my time in front of the board.
“I’m going to be as surgical as I can with my comments,” he quips. “Is this a good idea? Yep, it looks like it probably is. Are we going have to do this? More than likely.“ He pauses and fixes me in his gaze. “That was the most piss-poor presentation I have ever seen in my life. Bar none.” With that he left me to the luncheon with my peers.
Two weeks later, much to my surprise, the board approved my idea and funded the program.
Fortunately, that was not the last time I had a chance to make a presentation in front of this group. They were generous and gave me other chances when the stakes were not so high. Along the line I learned a thing or two about getting executives to back your idea (mostly from listening to them).
The Goal: Change that Lasts
Please indulge me while I tell another quick story. Next to me on a very full flight from Detroit to Miami is a man and his 10-year-old daughter. In their conversation the man mentions that you used to be able to smoke on a flight.
She looks at him incredulously. “Nuh-uh!”
“Yeah,” he says. “When I used to book a flight I would tell them whether I wanted smoking or non-smoking.” He points out the residual ashtray in the arm of the seat. She stares at him with her mouth open, not wanting to believe what he says.
I hate to admit it, but I’m old enough to know that what he says is true. It’s incredible to think about today, isn’t it? You may be old enough to remember when non-smoking rules were introduced to the airlines and to the workplace. Maybe you can still picture a manager’s office or a conference room with an overflowing ashtray. If you walked into work tomorrow and saw something like that, you would wonder what planet you were on.
Can you imagine a time when we will return to smoking on flights or in our offices? No? Me either. This is a change that seems, at least in US and Canada to have stuck. Wouldn’t it be great if all of our change initiatives were this permanent?
Avoiding “Flavor of the Month”
Now let’s look at some change that didn’t stick. Here’s a fun idea. Read your corporate communications from 5, 10 or 15 years ago. What were we talking about as a company? Total Quality Management? Management by Objectives? Was the name “Edward Deming” thrown in for effect?
When some change initiatives come about, bold pronouncements are made, but eventually the head of steam behind the initiative becomes nothing more than a flash in the pan.
What does Flavor of the Month look like? The key ingredient to Flavor of the Month is a lack of commitment from the Sr. Leadership team.
And what about those workers who have to endure all of these change initiative? After so much change, some are barely able to suppress rolling their eyes with a sigh of “here we go again.” Endless cycles of change lead to change fatigue. Therefore, it’s critical that when you roll out a change initiative, you have Sr. Leadership buy-in.
Selling to the Big Dogs
As we saw in the last blog, real change begins with a clear and compelling case for change. There has to be a seriously driving business need. When the case is compelling enough, change is inevitable. Either we will change or eventually we will die. That’s pretty compelling.
The second step in creating permanent meaningful change is “Commit yourself and your leadership team to sustaining the change.”
I clearly understand that as a change agent, you might be an individual contributor, a manager, a director or a member of the corporate senior leadership team. Change leaders are not always at the top of the org chart. They can be at the bottom, middle or the top. So, getting the leadership team to commit to a particular direction may be a high calling, but it’s the job of the change leader, like it or not.
Since you started with the clear and compelling case for change, you’ve got a leg up. Leadership teams are all about the data. Oh sure, like any team there can be turf wars, food fights and other ugly sins at the top of the organization. But most Sr. Leadership Teams really want to focus on the data.
So, here are my top seven tips for selling to the big dogs:
And that’s it. Step one – Create a Clear and Compelling Case for Change. Step two - Commit yourself and your leadership team to sustaining the change. That way you avoid “flavor of the month.”
Next time we’ll talk about step three - Clearly communicate the benefit for all.
I catch myself staring into space, close my mouth and paste on a fake smile, but soon the fresh mental wounds surface and I find myself sitting gate-mouthed again. I think to myself, “So this is what it feels like to be at the end of your career.”
Three hours ago I was a bundle of nervous energy cracking jokes and feeling like the king of capital. I had a fresh business plan, Excel spreadsheets that showed us “going positive” in the first year and lots of brash backers eager to glad-hand me. Then the presentation began.
It wasn’t so much of a presentation as a train wreck. I don’t know if you’ve ever had one of those days. I open my mouth to say something clever and instead the sound of a donkey braying comes out. I try to crack a joke to relax everyone and all they do is check their watches.
With the Sr. Executive team and my peers in front of me and a large screen with PowerPoint slides behind me, I struggle to make sense to anyone, including myself. The slides might as well be written in Swahili.
The harder I try the stinkier the presentation becomes. Soon the smell of desperation is in the air. It’s funny how the smell of desperation in front of a group of executives has much the same effect as the smell of blood does for sharks. Soon they are circling my thrashing body. “What are you saying?” one interrupts. “Just cut to the chase. What’s this damned thing going to cost us?” One after another the questions come in rapid fire fashion without giving me the courtesy of the time to answer.
Cleverly enough I’ve given them all a written copy of the business plan, wrapped in cellophane so they won’t be thumbing through it during my presentation. Now, just as the gloves come off, so do the cellophane wrappers, each person reading on his or her own. No one is even listening to me or looking at me any more. The meeting is over. The executives, who were supposed to stay for lunch, jump up en mass and exit the meeting leaving me there bleeding in front of my peers.
On his way out, one straight-shooting executive takes time out of his busy schedule to offer me a quick post-mortem (appropriate name for this dead presentation) on my time in front of the board.
“I’m going to be as surgical as I can with my comments,” he quips. “Is this a good idea? Yep, it looks like it probably is. Are we going have to do this? More than likely.“ He pauses and fixes me in his gaze. “That was the most piss-poor presentation I have ever seen in my life. Bar none.” With that he left me to the luncheon with my peers.
Two weeks later, much to my surprise, the board approved my idea and funded the program.
Fortunately, that was not the last time I had a chance to make a presentation in front of this group. They were generous and gave me other chances when the stakes were not so high. Along the line I learned a thing or two about getting executives to back your idea (mostly from listening to them).
The Goal: Change that Lasts
Please indulge me while I tell another quick story. Next to me on a very full flight from Detroit to Miami is a man and his 10-year-old daughter. In their conversation the man mentions that you used to be able to smoke on a flight.
She looks at him incredulously. “Nuh-uh!”
“Yeah,” he says. “When I used to book a flight I would tell them whether I wanted smoking or non-smoking.” He points out the residual ashtray in the arm of the seat. She stares at him with her mouth open, not wanting to believe what he says.
I hate to admit it, but I’m old enough to know that what he says is true. It’s incredible to think about today, isn’t it? You may be old enough to remember when non-smoking rules were introduced to the airlines and to the workplace. Maybe you can still picture a manager’s office or a conference room with an overflowing ashtray. If you walked into work tomorrow and saw something like that, you would wonder what planet you were on.
Can you imagine a time when we will return to smoking on flights or in our offices? No? Me either. This is a change that seems, at least in US and Canada to have stuck. Wouldn’t it be great if all of our change initiatives were this permanent?
Avoiding “Flavor of the Month”
Now let’s look at some change that didn’t stick. Here’s a fun idea. Read your corporate communications from 5, 10 or 15 years ago. What were we talking about as a company? Total Quality Management? Management by Objectives? Was the name “Edward Deming” thrown in for effect?
When some change initiatives come about, bold pronouncements are made, but eventually the head of steam behind the initiative becomes nothing more than a flash in the pan.
What does Flavor of the Month look like? The key ingredient to Flavor of the Month is a lack of commitment from the Sr. Leadership team.
And what about those workers who have to endure all of these change initiative? After so much change, some are barely able to suppress rolling their eyes with a sigh of “here we go again.” Endless cycles of change lead to change fatigue. Therefore, it’s critical that when you roll out a change initiative, you have Sr. Leadership buy-in.
Selling to the Big Dogs
As we saw in the last blog, real change begins with a clear and compelling case for change. There has to be a seriously driving business need. When the case is compelling enough, change is inevitable. Either we will change or eventually we will die. That’s pretty compelling.
The second step in creating permanent meaningful change is “Commit yourself and your leadership team to sustaining the change.”
I clearly understand that as a change agent, you might be an individual contributor, a manager, a director or a member of the corporate senior leadership team. Change leaders are not always at the top of the org chart. They can be at the bottom, middle or the top. So, getting the leadership team to commit to a particular direction may be a high calling, but it’s the job of the change leader, like it or not.
Since you started with the clear and compelling case for change, you’ve got a leg up. Leadership teams are all about the data. Oh sure, like any team there can be turf wars, food fights and other ugly sins at the top of the organization. But most Sr. Leadership Teams really want to focus on the data.
So, here are my top seven tips for selling to the big dogs:
- Don’t let the group meeting be the first meeting. One smart manager I know said, “I’ve never held a group meeting when I didn’t know the results before the meeting even started.” In other words, hold individual meetings with the decision makers before the group meeting starts. Pre-sell them. Get their commitment before you even go into the group meeting.
- Start with a crisp clear purpose of the meeting. State the purpose of the meeting and then ask the decision makers to confirm their understanding of the purpose. You are getting them to buy-into the purpose (e.g., make a decision today).
- Play it straight. If you like to use humor to put others at ease…don’t.
- Think through ahead of time where each person is coming from and what each person needs from you.
- Predict the obvious questions. If you know what you’re going to be asked, you’ll know how to answer.
- If you are asked a question you were not prepared to answer, feel free to say “I don’t know.” But then make a commitment for when you’re going to get an answer to the question.
- Practice, practice, practice. Be sure to dry-run your presentation several times with someone who can provide you feedback.
And that’s it. Step one – Create a Clear and Compelling Case for Change. Step two - Commit yourself and your leadership team to sustaining the change. That way you avoid “flavor of the month.”
Next time we’ll talk about step three - Clearly communicate the benefit for all.
posted by RFD Blog at 5:42 PM
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