Getting Someone’s Buy-In

Recently, I came across a very interesting post on Harward Business Review’s blogs. The article from Peter Bregman is called “How to Counter Resistance to Change” and I recommend you read it and also scan the other posts from the author. The part that will probably create a few raised eyebrows is when it advises against getting buy-ins. Well, at least in the dumb way this is usually done: In most cases I have personally experienced, what people effectively did, was try to persuade me (or even talk me to death). Folks, this is not getting a buy-in, this is talking someone to death.

In my view getting someone else’s buy-in usually means that the other party needs to change, at least partly, a position they had taken before. To make matters more difficult, in many cases the incumbent position has also been communicated to others, so we add the not-loosing-face factor to the equation. Variations of the latter are things like being seen in control by superiors as well as subordinates. But also the impact on relative strength perceived, compared to the person that gets his or her own view through, plays a role. So all in all this is quite a minefield and careful handling is required from a short as well as a long-term perspective.

What I found particularly interesting, or rather amusing, is that the author’s approach is something I also heard about in a TV series where it was called the “horse dealer’s approach”. So nothing really new, but still very relevant to many situations. Also, you can look at it as identifying a given pattern in as many different scenarios as possible. I am very much someone thinking in patterns and always find that one gets tremendous insight into the core of something following this approach.

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