Don’t Expect Change to Happen in the First Conversation
Photo by Ste:Lu
It may sound obvious, but big changes often take more than one conversation to get buy-in. What’s less obvious is that we want to leave the first conversation in a way that can lead to a good second conversation.
Years ago, I gave this advice to an agile coach who was preparing to meet with an executive leader. He was clear on what he wanted to request and was concerned that the executive might not agree to provide what he hoped for. The question he asked me was, “What would be the best way to convince the executive to say yes?”
We could’ve tried to make an airtight case for his request with the hopes of convincing this executive in one hour to say yes to something that was a deviation from the operating model and likely outside of his comfort zone. That would’ve raised the stakes on this single conversation and would make “yes” a longshot. Given the executive and topic, the better approach was to broach the subject directly, state the request, answer questions about it, and give him time to think it over. Plant the seed and let the executive consider it privately before a second conversation.
It worked. Both felt respected in the first conversation and positive about discussing a decision in a follow-up. If the agile coach had spent 45 minutes trying to convince the executive, it might’ve moved him to a clear No. Even if they still agreed to reconvene on a decision later, the salesy tone of the first conversation would’ve clouded the next one.
This idea of the second conversation came up for me again recently. I mentioned in an earlier post talking with a development manager, product owner, and tech lead about the Productivity Zone vs. Incubation Zone. We’d heard hints of innovation as they described the goals for a nine-person team they were forming, and my colleague proposed a different team structure and way of working to better suit that desire. They were intrigued at the thought and bought into the idea enough to talk to their managers about it that afternoon.
The next morning, we got a message that the development manager, product owner, and tech lead wanted to talk to us again because their managers hadn’t said yes in that conversation. Could we talk about a compromise? The dream of this other model that they had first heard of and fallen in love with not quite 24 hours earlier seemed hopeless!
Intuition told me we needed to put aside our fears. We agreed that a compromise solution would not work in this situation—it would be giving a team conflicting goals and limiting their chance for success. I reminded them that this is a pretty big change from their original plan, and the idea is brand new to their managers. It might need to marinate a bit. If the answer was no to working in the Incubation Zone, that would be ok; the team’s goal for the Productivity Zone would be clear, and they know how to deliver for that.
Feeling calmer, they had the second conversation with their managers and reiterated the options to choose from. The answer was yes, and the new incubator team started the following week.
Sometimes we fool ourselves into believing that a big change is so clearly right that we feel anxious when people don’t buy in right away. We may try harder to convince them on the idea, which can have the opposite effect. Or we might try to appease them with a different, smaller change that offers little of the results we want. Giving people a chance to reflect on their own and then having a great second conversation with them can build trust in the relationship and confidence in the decisions that are made.
