Category: Communication

How to create more buy-in

Change which is ignited by motivated employees goes better and faster than change which is ‘imposed’. How can you tap into the intrinsic motivation of your employees so that it matches the ambition or priorities of the organization?

Support base
Lack of support is one of most the important causes of frictions that hinder change. Differences in understanding of priorities exist between management and teams (in 40% of the cases, see graph) and within teams (70%). They lead to resistance. How can you convert that into support?

Source: dissertation by Dr. J.M. van de Poll,
Ambition Patterns in Strategic Decision-Making.

The trench of one’s own right
We live in a highly opinionated society with an abundance of information. We only need a little information to form our opinion and we are strongly inclined to hold on to it.

We have all experienced it: you have a discussion about a problem and you are convinced of your opinion. But… the better you put forward your arguments and supporting facts, the harder your conversation partner seems to cling to his or her conviction. Instead of coming together, it seems that everyone is digging themselves in the trench of their own right.

Trying to convince others of your opinion often leads to more resistance and controversy

Persuasion leads to resistance
This is a well-known phenomenon in clinical psychology: people are well aware of their behavior – and the improvement it needs – but when you want to convince them that they have to change, resistance arises. What if we don’t try to convince others but instead let people find the motivation to change themselves?

Change by listening
That’s exactly what motivational interviewing is about: it’s a technique, developed by Bill Miller and Stephen Rollnick1, that originated in addiction treatment.

1 Motivational interviewing: helping people change, William R. Miller en Stephen Rollnick, third edition, 2013

In motivational interviewing, the interviewer – or: the manager, the colleague, the parent, the coach… – mainly asks questions and listens, with the aim of finding out what would motivate someone to change. Not by telling people what to do, but by letting them discover alternatives themselves2.

2 The results of this method of interviewing in mental health care are good: 75% of the studies on this method report positive results and psychologists and doctors who use it report a success rate of 80%. Source: Think again: the power of knowing what you don’t know, Adam Grant, 2021, page 149. 

Suppose a manager has an employee on his team who often delivers his work too late. That is annoying for colleagues because they depend on it. The manager would like the employee to plan his work better so that the team can rely more on him. When the manager tries to convince him to change his behavior, the start of the conversation could go like this:

Manager: I notice that you often deliver your work late. You need to plan your work better.
Employee: Oh, what’s wrong with it?
Manager: The people who depend on your numbers get in trouble if you deliver late. They must be able to rely on you to keep your promises.
Employee: Well, I keep my promises allright…
Manager: But your numbers are often too late.
Employee: If different things are asked of me all the time, it becomes difficult to keep everyone happy.

This does not seem to be going in a direction that leads to motivation and agreement. What if the manager is eager to find out what would motivate the employee to organize his work differently? That conversation could go like this:

Manager: Could you explain to me how you plan your work?
Employee: Of every request that comes in, I note when it has to be finished.
Manager: So you have a good overview of all deadlines?
Employee: Yes.
Manager: And that works well?
Employee: The problem is that people come up with additional questions very often. As a result, I lose the overview and some activities will be delayed.
Manager: I understand that’s difficult. What could you do to keep the overview and meet the expectations of your colleagues?
Employee: I could schedule activities for each deadline and stick to it more closely when new requests come in.

Now an open conversation arises in which the manager understands the nature of the problem better – ‘planning’ is not so much the problem, but what the employee does when shifts occur. The employee, in turn, feels safe to think along about changing his behaviour. Now the door opens to a structural solution.

Change from within
Motivational interviewing enables the other person to find his or her motivation for change. Such motivation is always stronger than when behavioral change is imposed. It also leads to greater mutual understanding and support. It enables you and your team to become more responsive because dilemmas and problems are solved faster and more effectively, with more creativity and in greater harmony.

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From resistance to aspiration

Details make perfection
In the previous blog we discussed the blessings of micromanagement: if you want to be the best, it pays to go into great detail. “Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail,” said Leonardo da Vinci, and that also applies to top-quality products and services.

So micromanaging products and services pays off, but micromanaging people does not: it distracts and undermines self-confidence. Moreover, nobody likes it when people are constantly told in detail what to do and how. People thrive when they can indulge in a task that suits their talents and ambitions, with a certain degree of autonomy, in good cooperation with colleagues.

Resistance
The micromanager’s urge to control creates resistance. Because people feel affected in their autonomy, while they want to have the feeling that they are masters of their situation. In addition, people under micromanagers experience insufficient recognition. And that is a basic social need: people want to be seen for who they are and what they can do. Lack of recognition also causes resistance.

Out of the stranglehold
How do you get out of the stranglehold of the urge to control? How can you achieve your goals without the resistance that a micromanager typically evokes? Without giving yourself and others the feeling that you have to interfere ‘really on everything’ in order to get the work done properly? How do you involve people in your ambition for quality and results?

Trust
In micromanagement, the self-confidence of team members is undermined because they experience insufficient confidence in their qualities. The primary task of management is to build that trust. You do this by being explicit about the qualities you value in your team members and the potential you see in them. One of the most influential thinkers in the field of leadership, Stephen Covey, once summed it up like this: “Leadership is communicating the value and potential of people so clear that they will eventually see for themselves.”

Whenever I work with others I experience how true this statement is and how much people need to be confirmed in their qualities and potential. We live in a society that is disproportionately focused on mistakes and imperfections. More than on potential. Early on in primary school, children learn how much “mistakes” their work contains. But which perspective is better for self-confidence, “two wrong” or “twelve right”? Whenever I ask people about their qualities, I always notice that they are much better able to name their ‘bad’ qualities and ‘weaknesses’ than to talk about their strengths and potential. But when we only talk about their talents, possibilities and ambitions, the relationship transforms: people feel understood, seen and recognized and a better energy is created. The energy of trust.

Team
At team level, the principle is the same as with individuals. I regularly apply the following to teams I work with to build trust and engagement: after we have developed a strategy or change plan, I ask the team members to imagine it is five years later. And that all ambitions and goals from the plan have been achieved. Then I ask the people to write an email to each other, also dated five years later, in which they describe three things:

  • why they are so proud of the organization;
  • what they value in each of the other team members;
  • what they value most in themselves.

It is arranged in such a way that everyone receives all emails at exactly the same time. They are invariably full of positive energy, ambition, enthusiasm and appreciation. The potential that people see together is very tangible1. When the team members have done this, there is always a noticeable increase in energy: there is more appreciation, trust and fun. And that is reflected in the cooperation and better results.

1 This approach is inspired by Benjamin Zander’s YouTube lecture “How to give an A” and the book “The Art of Possibility”, which he co-wrote with his wife Rosamunde (Penguin Books, 2000).

Aspiration
Through such a way of collaborating and forming ambitions – primarily based on possibilities and appreciation – you unleash an aspiration in the team. The aspiration to realize ambitions together, to realize goals, to grow. Aspiration is a much more powerful source of energy than resistance. Resistance lowers the team’s energy, atmosphere and agility. Aspiration increases energy, enthusiasm and decisiveness.

Now the team is ‘on the road’ to realize its ambitions. It is important to maintain the energy and to allow both the individual employees and the team to come into their own. In addition, they benefit more from a facilitating manager who supports, advises and coaches them than from a controlling micromanager. But managers who have arrived at this point will have little interest in the arduous path of micromanagement, which saps too much energy and fun from all involved.

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Responsiveness and the communication dilemma

Personals advertisement
“Man, 39, is looking for a girlfriend to share joys and sorrows with. I am sporty, I have humor and I like good food with a good glass of wine and a nice conversation. “

What’s wrong with this ad? It conveys what the advertiser in question thinks the partner of his dreams wants to read and therefore hardly shows what kind of person he really is. The keywords with which that happens – like sporty, humor, good glass of wine … – are so generic that it will be almost impossible to get the correct image for the advertisement. If someone responds, it will be out of curiosity rather than a convincing feeling that this is really the one. The chance of a good “match” has been significantly reduced.

Suppose the person had written the following about himself: “Because I believe in a healthy mind in a healthy body, I lift weights and study philosophy (the 19th century, John Stuart Mill is a particular favorite). I am a fan of Seinfeld, I love red Bordeaux and prefer to walk through the woods early in the morning.” Now a more concrete picture of the person in question emerges – because generic terms such as ‘sporty’ and ‘humor’ are made specific. This makes the unicity of the sender more visible and increases the chance that the ad will catch on with the right potential life partner.

Personals ads in business…
Unfortunately, a lot of business communication gets stuck at the level of a personals ad. All too often, a connection is made with fashionable and generic terminology that sounds good, but says little about the organization. And that is often a lost opportunity, because every organization is unique. And that unicity appeals to certain types of leaders, employees and customers.

To test it, I invite you to study the job advertisements in any medium. See how often you come across generic terms that are not made specific: good communication skills, open, professional. These terms mean something different in different organizations and in different situations. For example, the term ‘academic level of thinking’ is charged differently for a scientific research institute than for a company that markets consumer products. “Open” means a different kind of informality for an advertising agency than for an asset manager at a merchant bank. The disadvantage of the use of generic terms is that they lead to “hail shooting” and a waste of time, money and attention.

Communication dilemma
Convincing communication, internal and external, is always authentic. Do you want to convince by communicating in the way you think it appeals to your target group? If you organization has encounters success and there is a lot of positive things to say, then that is of course no problem. But organizations struggle with numerous issues, events and plans that do not go (completely) according to plan, but about which clarity is desired. Especially internally. “What are we really doing in the field of sustainability?” “Why is there still no clarity about our reorganization?” “How do we deal with these unexpected setbacks?”

These are all questions to which certain – internal and external – target groups – would like a clear answer. But what if that answer is not (yet) there? Or if arriving at a solution is even more difficult than expected?

Attractive and credible
Responsive organizations usually have little trouble with authentic communication. They face the facts, act on them, and rely on their own strength. By consistently and clearly showing who they are, they avoid the communication dilemma. Their message is genuine, natural and powerful. And it automatically becomes attractive and credible for the target group. That strengthens the bond and reputation with their target groups. Especially when there is not only good news to report.

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