Chief Question Asker at 7:47 & Author of "Gratitude and Pasta: The Secret Sauce for Human Connection"

Chris Schembra

Psychotherapist, Teacher and Leadership Consultant

Glenn D. Rolfson

Founder, Lead Coach & Leadership Development Consultant

Gabriella Alziari

Team morale is low

Senior Consultant at BuzzFeed, book author

Caroline Moss

Contributing Editor to Inc. and Author of "The Motivation Myth"

Jeff Haden

TED Speaker "Why good leaders make you feel safe", Author of "Leaders Eat Last" and Host of "Bit of Optimism" Podcast

Simon Sinek

We struggle to reach our goals

CEO of Verus Global, a four-time book author, executive coach

Craig Ross

Executive Leadership Coach to CTOs and Technical Founders, Writer & Startup Advisor

Mathias Meyer

Former Airbnb and Google GM turned executive coach

James McClure

Struggle to get buy-in from my team

Engineering Leader | Ex-Google, Trello, Fog Creek

Rich Armstrong

COO at Lambda School, and scaled teams from 2-100 people at Facebook and Google

Molly Graham

Sharon Koifman

My team often lacks alignment

Kevin Kruse

Professor in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Evangelia Demerouti

CEO of Shopify, coined the term "Trust Battery"

Tobi Lutke

Not enough time for my team

Leadership Burnout Coach, PhD & Host of the Leadership Antidote Podcast

Dr. Kim Hires

Podcast Host, Published Author, Mental Wellness Advocate

Jessica Thiefels

Career and burnout expert, coach and author for Forbes

Rachel Montañez

Burning out

CEO of Perdoo. Expert on OKR, KPI, and Strategy. 

Henrik-Jan van der Pol

Nick Walker

CEO coach, Angel Investor and Serial Entrepreneur

Dave Bailey

Team struggles with accountability

What to do when your ideas keep getting shot down.

Robert B Cialdini

3 Phrases to Get Buy-in for a New Direction

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Kristi Hedges

3 Phrases to Get Buy-In for a New Direction

How To Get Real Buy-In For Your Idea

Leading by Influence and Creating Intentional Teams

Brandon Voss

How To Get Buy-In With The 3 Most Effective Communication Techniques

The Intentional Organization

Mathias Meyer, Executive Leadership Coach to CTOs and Technical Founders, Writer & Startup Advisor

#3 Phrases to Get Buy-in for a New Direction

How many times have you thought of an exciting new initiative, only for it to get shot down when you bring it to your team? 

It can be hard work to get buy-in, but it's critical for change. Mathias Meyer, Leadership Coach to CTOs and Technical Founders says *“It’s all about providing your team with an image of what’s possible…invite them to contribute towards this beautiful future on the horizon.”*

Here are 3 go-to phrases to help 👉

#1. What if…? 💭 

Asking *“What if…”* helps people imagine what the future could look like and gets them curious instead of feeling threatened.

For example, when Mathias wanted to propose a new process in his team, here’s what he said:

*"Currently our release process happens every month, imagine what we could do if it was happening every week, every day...whenever we want?"*

*"What if...we could adjust our development process so that we can fix bugs and respond to customers quicker?"*


#2. What's the worst thing that can happen? 😈 

When Andrea Stubbe, Head of Product at commercetools, suggested a major new feature, she knew it would face some resistance. She asked this question and kicked things off by saying, *“If we do this, we’ll burn out our frontend dev team and they’ll all quit. We really shouldn’t do this”.*

Andrea says “When you invite people to rant about why an idea is horrible and can’t possibly be done, it’s both fun and helps to get your team’s deeper fears out in the open, so you can work on them bit by bit.”

This tactic is especially good for those controversial “we tried this in the past” topics.

#3. Yes, and… 🙋

These two simple words encourage more divergent thinking and help your team to build on each other’s ideas. Here’s how you might set it up:

*"There’ll be plenty of time to explore risks and concerns, but for the sake of exploring the potential, let's do an exercise: when you hear an idea, try to respond with 'yes, and...', and hold back from saying 'no, but...'"*

#🧪 Frame it as an experiment

Lastly, when you commit to the change, ask people to try it out for a week or two and book in a timeslot in advance to collect feedback on how it’s going. 

Once the time period is up, get together to decide as a team if you’ll keep, change, or trash the new way of working.

#🤲 Lead by influence

Sometimes all it takes is a simple question to start influencing change. 

By having a set of phrases in your pocket, you’ll get your team considering the opportunities, which is a great place to start!


Barbara Minto

Inspires at scale and drives engaging conversations

Former FBI Negotiator, CEO of The Black Swan Group Ltd, and Co-Author of "Never Split the Difference"

Chris Voss

Former Navy SEAL and Motivational Speaker

Andy Stumpf

Executive Coach and Best-Selling Author of "The Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success" and "Overworked and Overwhelmed: The Mindfulness Alternative"

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3 Phrases to Get Buy-in for a New DirectionScan the code to see it on your iPhone 🍎

PRODUCTS

For Business:

COMPANY

CONTENT & COMMUNITY

3 Phrases to Get Buy-in for a New Direction

Scan the code to see it on your iPhone 🍎