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Win Their Hearts, Win Their Actions
February 25, 2009 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Musings, Project Stakeholder Management
Win Their Hearts, Win Their Actions
By Barry Otterholt
To cause people to change, you must have more than a good idea. You must have their desire to act on it.
In project management, we learn to discern and rationalize needed actions. We study the environment, consider alternatives, consequences, cost, political resistance, and other factors, to ensure our recommendations are sound. And we are accustomed to having our recommendations accepted, even though they may be controversial. Why then, if they’ve accepted our recommendation, is there so little action? The reason is simple:
We’ve won their minds, but not their hearts.
We’re asking them to do something different in the future than they’ve done in the past. The past is what they know. It’s what has given them their style and their confidence. It usually takes more than being right to persuade people to leave a past that’s served them well, for a future loaded with uncertainty. To ensure action follows our recommendations, we must take the extra step and win their hearts.
Win their hearts, win their action.
Talk candidly with key stakeholders and influencers. Ask the simple but uncomfortable questions after you know what’s needed.
- “Do you like this recommendation?”
- “What will keep you from implementing this recommendation?”
- “What will keep others from taking recommended action?”
- “How can this recommendation be better? …more practical?”
You will certainly learn the answers to these questions over time. Better to learn the answers early, when you’re shaping your recommendations, than later when your impractical recommendations fail.
Take the extra step. Empathize. It will make your insights more relevant, and bias people in favor of needed action.
Barry Otterholt, CMC, PMP
Barry Otterholt has been a project management specialist and coach for the past 30 years. He is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) and a Project Management Professional (PMP). He works with both public and private sector companies in the USA, Europe and Scandinavia. Mr. Otterholt was a Director with Microsoft, a senior consultant with Deloitte Consulting, and a COO with a nationwide consumer electronics enterprise. In 1988 he founded Public Knowledge, LLC to provide independent management and operational support to the public sector. More recently, he founded Stouffer & Company, LLC to provide as-needed project management services to fill an obvious skills gap in both private and public sectors.
Mr. Otterholt is an adjunct professor teaching project management at Northwest University. His essays on project management have been published in PMI newsletters. His runs a blog, Project Management Essays, where he muses about various project management topics.
Mr. Otterholt is a member of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC) and the Project Management Institute (PMI). He has a BA in Accounting and Computer Science and an MBA in Business Administration. He lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
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[...] Project Managers have to get out of their office, out of their comfort zone and join the real world. Make a list on a spreadsheet of not just the project stakeholders, but everyone in the organization that has the slightest influence on the project. Rank each person based on their importance to the project. Create a PowerPoint presenter and print it in color. Get face time with all the people on your list, and see those at the top of the list regularly. Use the presenter one on one. Twenty minutes should be enough time. Talk about the project, and why the benefits are important to the organization. Get feedback, but most of all, get out and win hearts and minds. [...]