The Thoughtful Leader's Blog
Posted by Robyn McLeod on August 27, 2010
I recently met with someone (let’s call him Aaron) who has a huge new business idea. Aaron’s trying to get support for his idea from both inside his company from senior management and peers, and outside the company from an interested customer. It is a huge undertaking and, at times, very frustrating – as he meets with people, fine-tunes his presentation, tweaks the idea, and identifies others to meet with. However, his strategy is working and he is making great progress. In fact, this week he won over the founding executive of his company.
I asked Aaron what he is doing that is working to sell his idea, which is highly technical and data-driven. Many of the concepts and principles he shared with me are similar to how the IT guys operate overall, and they can be applied to selling any idea. Here are the IT principles that are working for Aaron:
1) Data is king – No matter who you are trying to sell an idea to, you need to have facts and data to demonstrate your credibility, knowledge and expertise. IT guys can give you reams of data and reports to show you why something will work or not. Obviously, you don’t want to overwhelm your audience with a ton of boring numbers and charts, but you do want to come prepared to show that you have thought through options, barriers, competition, projections, etc.
2) Gather requirements – Requirements gathering is a critical part of any IT project. IT guys sit down with their customers to first understand their environment and their needs before recommending and designing a technology solution. To sell a big idea, it’s important to know the current environment and what’s required by your potential customer. Good questions to ask are: What is the pain point? What is keeping this target group up at night? What is happening that is driving the need for the change that my idea is facilitating?
3) It’s all about the end user – No matter how great your idea is, you need to understand the value proposition to the ultimate customer – the people who will be buying and using your product or service. How will it help them? All the bells and whistles in the world won’t mean a thing if it doesn’t make the end user’s life or work easier, simpler, more efficient, less costly, better in some way. To sell a big idea, identify who truly is the end user and put yourself firmly in their shoes to know why they should care about your idea.
4) Test it out – IT guys employ a process known as Proof of Concept to help get the final go-ahead on a big project. It’s a relatively low-cost, low-risk way of setting up a demo of how the technology solution with work within the customer’s environment. This limited trial run lets the decision-maker put their toe in the water rather than having to dive into the whole pool immediately. To sell your big idea, think about how you can develop a Proof of Concept to help bring your idea, or a small piece of your idea, to life and show the folks you are trying to get on board that your idea is doable, viable, and a must-have.
5) Make it system-agnostic – It’s a lot harder to move forward on an IT project that requires large investment in new equipment, software, and tools. IT guys look to make their solutions system-agnostic. That is, the idea is not tied to a specific manufacturer’s piece of equipment or software. The solution is flexible enough to fit within a current environment or to adapt to a variety of hardware/software options. This gives the client more flexibility and more control. To sell your big idea, keep required and inflexible components to a minimum. Offer the person to whom you are selling your idea plenty of options and flexibility so they feel like they are in the driver’s seat and it’s easier for them to say yes to your big idea.
Posted by Lisa Kohn on July 23, 2010
My brother and I almost broke up over email. Well, instant messenger and then email.
We IM all the time. We joke. We play. We tease. It’s what we do. Only I joked with him one day, while we were discussing a tough family issue, and he misconstrued it and it went outrageously, quickly downhill from there. The IMs got tenser. The emails got curter…and meaner.
I teach this stuff. I tell clients all the time that email has no “tone” and can therefore be easily misread and misunderstood. IM is the same thing. My brother read my joke as serious, immediately got serious, and the next thing you know we were slamming each other. Our relationship nearly soured, if not actually ended, at least for awhile.
It’s extremely easy to get off-target when we use electronic forms of communication, and can be really tough to get back. The good news is that he and I finally managed to get on the phone to “work things out.” The not as good news is that we apparently both have a habit of interrupting each other, especially when a conversation is emotional. Our phone call was also going steadily downhill and the break up between us was becoming more imminent.
Which is when I came up with this very bizarre and silly idea…but it worked. We decided that each of us would have to say “beep” when we were done with our comment or thought. The other person could not respond, reply, break in, or even ask a question until they heard the word “beep.” It was stupid, but it worked. It allowed us to give each other space to think and talk, and it allowed us to truly hear each other, and it allowed us to find a place to agree again and begin to rebuild our trust and love.
I don’t recommend everyone using “beep.” Maybe there is an easier way for two people to truly hear each other, even when emotions are high. But desperate times require desperate measures, and “beep” definitely worked for us.
Posted by Robyn McLeod on July 16, 2010
I learned a new acronym today – WAIT. It stands for “Why Am I Talking?” I have it up on the bulletin board in my office to remind me to talk less and listen more during my coaching and other important conversations. I am naturally more of a thinker than a talker, but there are times when I get so excited, passionate or incensed about something that I talk way more than I listen. I may even talk over or interrupt the other person as I look to get my point across or share my Very Important Bit of Knowledge.
How many times have you left a meeting or conversation and realized that you dominated the discussion with your talking? You then wonder if the other person or persons noticed it too. Or maybe you question why they were all so quiet and had nothing to add. Well, they may have been waiting for you to take a breath! 
I generally pride myself on my ability to actively listen, tap into the energy and emotions of another person, and really connect. I walk away with a lot – a new idea or approach, a better understanding of an issue, a totally new perspective on a situation, and/or a stronger tie to the other person. When I forget to listen and truly engage in conversation, I miss many of those things as the other person gets a lot less airtime.
Asking questions is a great way to ensure a balanced discussion. Not closed questions that elicit a “yes” or “no,” but open-ended questions, such as “How would you approach this issue?” or “What am I missing?” or “Why is that important to you?”
So, WAIT and listen!
Posted by Cathy Alfandre on July 14, 2010
You made an appointment with your boss yesterday, and the meeting’s coming up in a few minutes. There’s a major problem with the project you’ve been working on for 3 months, and you need her guidance and feedback. After multiple weeks of everything going according to plan, you’ve discovered a critical quality flaw with one of the key components of the product. You already approached the supplier, but their quality tests haven’t turned up any issues. They believe that the problem lies in the interface with your system. Laura needs to hear about this.
You walk in… and Laura is distracted by her Blackberry at first and asks you to wait a few minutes. Eventually, she turns to you, but she seems unfocused. Then the phone rings; quickly, she gathers some materials, apologizes, and rushes off.
Where do you stand now? Your issue never got expressed. The problem remains unresolved and even feels magnified. You don’t really know how to proceed with the project. You feel kind of unimportant. You know Laura has other challenges she’s facing, but you had made an appointment, hoping for a few focused minutes. You wonder if you’ll get another meeting with Laura anytime soon. You wish your boss didn’t seem so remote.
These and other thoughts and feelings you are having.… These are the same ones your colleagues and direct reports have when they are not “heard.” Listening and not listening have a real impact, and the impact compounds over time. You need to reflect no further than your personal experience to know that this is true. Your commitment to listen – or not – will eventually affect the productivity, creativity, engagement, and performance of your team.
Contrary to our common assumptions, effective listening is hard, and most of us do not do it well. It takes conscious effort to learn the skills and commit to practicing and building them. Consider this quick assessment (Are You An Active Listener?) to identify some of your areas for improvement, and then commit to action. There’s probably nothing you can do that will have more immediate and enduring impact on your relationships and leadership success.
Posted by Lisa Kohn on July 9, 2010
“We need to drink the Kool-Aid.” I heard a client say this again last week and I finally have to speak out. This is one business saying of the moment that truly, truly annoys me. Makes my skin crawl in fact. Each time I hear it I want to scream to whomever has uttered the words, “Do you know what that really means????”
So, to stand high on my soap box, I think we should be more careful about what we say and how we say it. To take into consideration if someone, anyone, might find it offensive. And to definitely stop talking about “drinking the Kool-Aid” as if it’s a good thing.
Drinking the Kool-Aid. It refers to a mass-suicide in 1978. Jim Jones was the leader of a cult, the Peoples Temple. He moved his following to northern Guyana, and in 1978 nine hundred and thirteen people participated in a mass-suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Men, women, and children. I understand that people only mean “we all need to get in this together, to agree without question, to move ahead as one” – but people died and I seriously think we should stop treating it so callously.
What is important is this – we never really know who might be offended by something we say. One off-hand remark. One off-color joke. One non-thought through comment that we never intended to be offensive. I’ve witnessed racial comments in front of someone who was of mixed-race origin, only you’d never know by looking at them. Slurs against people who happened to be related to, or friends with, the people in the room. Political and religious comments in front of someone who took the comments personally. You never, ever really know.
Okay, so maybe it isn’t important that I hate this saying. That I think it’s offensive and completely off-taste. That I’ve even been known to judge someone harshly when they innocently and ignorantly use it. Maybe it isn’t important that this saying pushes me over the edge. And it certainly isn’t important that I give you a full explanation of why.
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