Successful Projects Depend On Community Spirit

Last week I brought together a group of major corporations to discuss the difficulty they had each faced in driving adoption of a global e-sourcing application. The conversation could have applied to many similar workplace challenges; in the end, it was about the inability to build consensus and support for a common initiative. 

Faced with such circumstances, many professionals see power as the issue. They long for personal authority, or the authority of a senior sponsor, to ‘impose’ their solution or their rules, with dire consequences for non-compliance.

Power is certainly one way to win arguments. But power does not win loyalty, nor does it generate a sense of ownership or collaboration in achieving a joint mission or vision. Indeed, the use of power frequently undermines responsibility or accountability for outcomes and accounts for many failed projects and negotiations.

Winning hearts and minds depends on creating connections. This is emphasized by Drew Westen in his recent book, “The Political Brain”.  Although written with the more conventional field of politics in mind, his ideas and findings apply to the highly political environment of large corporations, where many vie for power and influence.

In order to win support, Westen suggests that we must appeal to core issues that unite us with our ‘voters’ (think here of colleagues, stakeholders, management). Those issues are about ‘survival, reproduction, connection to kin, connection to others’. In other words, we must use terms and messages that strike a chord and are seen to relate to their interests and concerns.

Although this seems obvious – and is a sentiment to which many subscribe – it is notable for its absence in many areas of business operations and planning.  Far too often, project leaders become consumed by their perception of desirable outcomes or interests and fail to put these into a context that is relevant to the needs or aspirations of others. We assume there is common acceptance that results such as savings, workload reductions, greater visbility of data, more central control or faster business growth are seen as mutually beneficial. And often we are wrong, because some constituents may view those results as threatening, or they may not agree or feel personally comfortable with the means by which they will be achieved.

The e-sourcing debate was an excellent illustration of the problem. It emerged that resistance was not uniform. Indeed, as we explored the situation, the conversation unearthed a variety of telling insights. Resistance was stronger in non-English speaking locations (even though the system was multi-lingual); push-back was evident among smaller suppliers; and finally, we found that business units with a higher proportion of older workers were reluctant to adopt the system.

All these groups preferred ‘manual approaches’, even though that meant heavier workload and undermined corporate initiatives to raise business performance.

I am in the process 0f writing up the findings from this conversation and IACCM will be conducting several research projects on related topics and potential approaches that were discussed. It was clear that no one had really undertaken segmentation of the user groups to better understand their perceptions and issues related to adoption; the projects had been rolled out with a ‘one size fits all’ message and methodology. While this included substantial training and, in many cases, on-going support, it had failed to relate to the resistance groups and for the enthusiastic adopters often represented excessive investment . For example, younger workers, comfortable with technology, viewed the system as an obvious way to avoid boring and repetitive activities, while for others, it was threatening because it demanded new approaches, use of technologies with which they felt uncomfortable, uncertainty over whether efficiency would be followed by job losses ….

In the end, these projects had ‘failed to resonate emotionally with the electorate’ and therefore for many created resistance and a sense of exclusion.  Of course, just as with politicians everywhere, it is unlikely that any campaign will win all hearts and minds, but most could be far more successful than they tend to be.

 All of us need to consider the messages that build connections. Some of these may be generic, but the statement of benefits must typically be adjusted to the differing audience segments.  In our example, it would not have been so difficult to undertake a stakeholder analysis that distinguished different linguistic or national groups, different age ranges and internal versus external groups. Each needed to be reassured and they needed to feel that their specific fears or concerns were being addressed. A connection had to be formed; when they are in the voting booth, Westen explains, people “think with their gut”.

 I suggest it is much the same when they sit at their desk or in their work cubicle. It’s a message that any manager or professional who aspires to influence and success will do well to remember.