Getting buy-in for your vision without writing by committee
Right, so now you’re convinced that you shouldn’t create a vision by committee. That’s a good thing. You’re ready for the risk of failure. But you also know that it’s your team that’s going to have to bring your brilliant vision to life, and if you aren’t writing by committee, then how do you get them behind your goals?
Communicating your vision to build momentum for success
I have done this in a big way four times, and many more times in a small way. There are probably many others ways that will work, and what specifically works will vary from situation to situation, but this has worked for me.
As I am forming my picture of the future I’m not locked in a dark room by myself. I did say that the vision needs to be yours, but you need input. You need feedback. You need help! You’re paying these people, use them for something.
Start with your senior team
I go about getting this help by meeting with progressively larger circles in my organization. Starting with my most senior team, I spend a long time sharing my early thoughts, getting feedback, and listening to their input. The vision at this point isn’t set in stone, because it really is important to listen to the concerns of your closest leaders. They are usually your brightest folks and the folks most acquainted with the big picture, so their insight should be particularly valuable.
One or two sessions seems to be enough to get to the point that the top team can buy in to the vision and really help bang it into meaningful shape. I always (forcefully if necessary) insist that everyone participate in providing feedback. To get buy-in you’ve got to get all those niggling thoughts out of your top team’s heads and on to the table, where they can be incorporated or dismissed as appropriate.
Then in successively larger circles throughout your organization
After this first round, I broaden the attendees at the vision feedback sessions to include first line managers and team leaders, and explain the vision to them. In this session, I again ask for some feedback, but I am less forceful about insisting on input from the team and I am more reluctant to make changes. The top team is also invited to this meeting, and here’s why.
Bring key leaders along for the ride, every time
Remember we talked before about the need to educate your team about your vision in order that they can have the knowledge they need to make their own decisions? Your top team needs the most complete understanding, and the need for completeness diminishes as you get further away from the top team. As my circle broadens and I work down the organizational chart with my vision sessions, the participants from the meetings farther up the chart attend every meeting on the way down the chart.
This has the effect that by the time you have your final all-hands meeting to share the vision with your entire organization, the senior leaders have heard it many times (four in my case). I have found that it takes at least three sessions to grok a vision presented in this way.
Until the whole organization hears the vision
I continue the process of expanding the audiences at the vision sessions and reducing the opportunity for input until I reach the final session in which everyone hears the vision. At this point everyone in the organization has heard the vision at least once, and while I take less input as I work down I always encourage and answer questions in every session.
Don’t ask for too much input, or you might get it
Note that you may be tempted to be very democratic in your evangelism and ask for input all the way down. I recommend against this practice, because too many cooks spoil the broth. Ideas don’t generally get better as they are edited again and again by person after person in successively lower levels of the organization.
Organizations do get healthier as more and more people have new ideas, and this is always to be encouraged, but editing will eventually suffocate the life force in any good idea. You may as well start off with a committee to form your vision in the first place and get to failure right away.
