You can have the best idea in the world. But if you can’t get people to work with you, it will remain just that – a great idea. And yes, this also applies to leaders. Because as my guest on this episode says, change doesn’t happen in the boardroom. You need people to work with you, not because they have to but because they want to.
Simon Dowling is one of Australia’s leading thinkers on leadership, teams and collaboration – and the author of ‘Work With Me: How to Get People to Buy Into Your Ideas’. I first learned of Simon through his frequent video posts on LinkedIn, in which he offers a refreshing perspective on leadership, team collaboration and meetings. This one on how to respond in the face of uncertainty and fear and this one about fine-tuning the pace of a conversation are among my favorites.
Double life
Simon’s passion for team dynamics started when he led a double life: during the day he worked as a commercial lawyer in a big city firm in Melbourne and at night he performed in improvised comedy shows.
In our free-flowing conversation, Simon looks back on this transformation and how one night of reading completely flipped the script on a gridlocked negotiation - and changed the trajectory of his career. Of course, he also talks in great detail about the ideas from his book and how to get people to rally behind your project or initiative – regardless of your position or role.
“I try not to make it a conversation around power is bad; buy-in is good. As a leader, you should realize that you are making that choice all the time consciously or not.”
- Simon Dowling
My favorite part starts around the 36th minute when we discuss where most people including Simon (and me) go wrong when seeking buy-in. In our drive to get to the finish line, we tend to go too fast and make it too much about ourselves. Simon presents a powerful framework to help you prepare and create the right mindset from the get-go, which is equally useful for any conversation or meeting in the workplace.
We also discuss why you should be fearless in embracing the black hole in conversations, how you can train your own buy-in muscle and what you can do to ensure that support for your ideas actually leads to change.
Show Notes:
0:49 – Reflecting on the time when one of Simon’s clients found out about his double life
4:06 – The book that sparked his interest in collaboration
7:54 – Why it makes sense to explain your negotiation philosophy to your ‘counterparts’
10:50 – ‘You have to go slow to go fast when it comes to buy-in’
13:42 – How to practice empathy when seeking buy-in
15:49 – Embracing the black hole
18:32 – The three questions to ask yourself when preparing for a buy-in conversation
21:18 – The power of asking why
22:27 – Influence by decree vs. influence through win me
26:10 – Determining your leadership style in wartime and peacetime
28:22 – Why most organizations are still addicted to using power
32:24 – Are people and organizations becoming more open to the concept of buy-in?
34:30 – Examples of when and where to use influence through win me
36:18 – Where most people go wrong when seeking buy-in
37:56 – Negotiating with your kids
39:34 – ‘People need to feel like they had a role, they played a part in shaping the outcome’
43:11 – How to avoid the pitfall of fingerprinting
46:05 – Influence through letting go
48:13 – The improv principle of asking ‘What does the show need?’ and how it relates to meetings
51:52 – The Preparation Paradox
54:34 – How improvisation helps Simon to get out of his head and into the moment
58:21 – The process of building buy-in: it starts with you
1:00:23 – Nemawashi and the importance of laying the groundwork by socializing your idea
1:04:58 – The 3Ms: operating the buy-in control panel
1:06:01 – The power of storytelling
1:07:21 – The Mind-dial: how to respond to the question ‘what’s in it for me’
1:08:47 – Architecting movement: how to help people take action and hold them accountable
1:13:17 – Why you should shrink the change to the smallest possible chunks
1:16:09 – Using scaffolding to stick with the change
1:18:40 – The nudge theory
1:19:35 – Throw a ‘starty party’ to make change fun
1:20:44 – How to start building your buy-in muscle
1:23:10 – What Simon learned from Sheila Heen, who wrote the foreword of his book
-
Links to people, books and resources mentioned in this episode:
- Simon’s profile on LinkedIn where he frequently posts cool videos on leadership and team collaboration. To learn more about his work, you can also go to the website of his company 2engage.
Here’s a link to his book ‘Work With Me: How to Get People to Buy Into Your Ideas’ (via Amazon).
And while we are at it, you can also check out the book that changed the course of Simon’s career: ‘Getting to Yes’ by Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton.
Another great book from the Harvard Negotiation Project: ‘Difficult Conversations’ by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen.
- Other books that we discussed: ‘ish’ by Lynn Cazaly and ‘Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard’ by Chip and Dan Heath.
- The Harvard Business Review article that Simon talked about ‘Getting Past Yes: Negotiating as if Implementation Mattered’ by Danny Ertel.
- Simon’s remarks about Nemawashi and the Australian practice of socializing your idea, reminded me of this 2018 article on using design thinking to plan better meetings. Go to Wikipedia to learn more about the concept of Nemawashi.
- My episode with attorney David Rudolf from The Staircase and my earlier posts on The Preparation Paradox and positional negotiations (a review of ‘Never Split the Difference’ by former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss).
-
If you enjoyed this episode of the Meeting Strategist podcast, you might also like these:
Ep. 12 - The Science of Power and Empowerment, with Irene Sinteur
Ep. 09 - Creating a Safe Space for Young Professionals to Thrive, with Julia Hart
Ep. 08 - How to Close the Power Gap in Meetings, with Marcel van de Hoef
Ep. 04 - Exploring the Unsaid: Deep Listening With Oscar Trimboli
-
To relive the episode, here are the key quotes from Simon Dowling:
“You have to go slow to go fast when it comes to buy-in. We need to take the time to listen, to understand.”
“What’s really helpful is to embrace the black hole and be the first to acknowledge that there might be points of resistance and to welcome that into the conversation.”
“We’ve got to get to a place where people feel like: ok, I see that this is a problem, I see that we need to fix it, I see that I’m the person to be part of fixing that, I want to do that, where do I begin? And at that point, wow, we can open up the runway and say ‘you’re clear for takeoff, folks, go do your magic’.”
“People need to feel like they had a role, they played a part in shaping the outcome. And when it comes to buy-in, that’s the best thing you can do.”
“Improvisation is the best way for me to reinforce that ability to get out of your head and into the moment, and to be comfortable letting go and to really notice the things that are unfolding in front of you right now and to use that as your set of ingredients for the next moment.”
“Storytelling is a really important aspect of helping people to step into and be part of a conversation and part of a problem or part of a situation, so that they feel it if it was their own.”
“When it comes to buy-in we have to be really good at architecting movement, in other words the next steps, the action.”
-
If you enjoy listening to this podcast, please consider subscribing and leaving a rating or quick review on iTunes to help other people discover the show. Here are instructions on how to do that.