How do you create shared commitment to a decision? Do you restrict yourself to pushing your own views or do you draw ideas out of others? If you prefer to sell your own views, then you’re likely good at analyzing problems and developing solutions. You could consider yourself a solution generator. If you have a technical or professional background, you get paid for developing winning solutions to problems.
Nothing wrong with playing to your strengths. But this can be a limited strength in situations where you need to facilitate shared ownership of a plan or decision. What happens if clients don’t buy your sales pitch? Or, maybe they buy it half-heartedly but don’t put much effort into making it happen because they feel no ownership of it.
To expand your engagement and influencing skill set, try to be more of a catalyst, facilitator and coach by asking engaging questions such as “What do you think?” or “What do you want?”
We like being solution generators, however, promoting our own solutions to problems; it’s fun, like scoring goals in sports. But your solutions may be rejected by stakeholders who want something different or to feel engaged in developing and co-owning any agreed plans. You can be more successful today by creating partnerships where shared ownership is essential. The best way to create shared ownership is by getting the balance right between selling your ideas and asking engaging questions to draw out partner suggestions.
Similarly, telling your team what to do may get you no more than compliance. Engaging your team members in making decisions not only develops them but also instills in them a greater sense of personal ownership, engagement and commitment to carrying out the plan. People feel much more valued when you ask them for their input with genuine interest and respect. How motivational is that?
People today want a say in what they’re going to do. An engaging style can help you better motivate team members and gain greater shared commitment from partners. If you excel at developing solutions, you might limit yourself to asking analytical questions. To get the facts, you ask what happened, when, how, why. But asking analytical questions treats people as data sources. It doesn’t engage them. Solution generators tend to restrict their questions to analytical ones so they can make their own decisions.
Team Engagement
Engaging your team in making decisions means having a participative or democratic leadership style. But restricting yourself to simply asking for feedback on your ideas is superficial participation, hence not as engaging as presenting a problem first and then asking for suggestions to solve it. This is where “What do you think?” questions come in.
Examples of “What do you think?” questions designed to engage people in solving problems or making decisions include:
- What do you see as the main issue in this situation?
- What are some possible solutions?
- What solution do you think would work best?
- What other options do you see?
- What are the pros and cons, risks and costs of your suggestion?
- How do you think we can avoid or minimize these problems?
Notice that these are not analytical questions: they ask for suggestions, not facts or information.
If you short-circuit this approach by only asking for feedback on your ideas, you may find that many less confident team members will simply agree with you if they don’t feel strongly enough about other options to challenge your idea. It’s more engaging to present the problem first and then go around the table acting as a facilitator instead of as a solution generator. Being facilitative is showing leadership because you’re aiming to get the best out of people. Offering your own solutions is operating as an individual contributor, less as a leader.
Engaging Partners by Asking Them What They Want
When you have a client or partner who isn’t overly pleased with your sales pitch or your ongoing work, ask “What do you want?” questions such as:
- What would you like to see happen?
- What would be your preferred option?
- What are your top priorities?
- What do you see as the advantages of our idea?
- How can we adapt our proposal to better meet your needs?
- How can you help us improve our work so it is closer to what you want?
You might not need to change your offering radically. Just showing that you’re prepared to listen and are open to client suggestions could calm your client down and induce them to be more open to your ideas. Sometimes people object just because they’re annoyed at not being involved or sufficiently consulted in the development of the solution.
When people are annoyed, they often see only the negatives. If it is a simple factual misunderstanding, of course, you should correct them. Some of their annoyance could be due to their overlooking the benefits of your work because they are only focusing on what they don’t like. This is human nature. When we want to do something, we see only the advantages, downplaying or not even seeing the negatives. Conversely, when we don’t like something, we are often blind to the positives.
You can help them reach a better balance in their minds between positives and negatives in one of two ways. You can tell them the benefits they are downplaying or not noticing. Or you can use a more engaging approach and ask them to list the benefits themselves.
To use an engaging approach, begin by acknowledging their main criticisms: “You’ve raised some important points that you are not happy with. It’s essential for us to meet your needs so we must go through each of your concerns one at a time to see how we can adjust our work to address your concerns. But, before we do that, let’s see if we agree on the benefits our work can bring you.” Then ask them to list the benefits that are most important to them. When they finish listing a few, say: “Great, any others?” When they can’t think of any further benefits, let them know the additional benefits but do so in the form of questions so that you remain in engaging mode. Ask how much each additional feature of your work might be a benefit to them: “How about feature A? How much of a benefit would that be to you?” Continue with this approach until you have got agreement to all the benefits your work offers them.
The point of this exercise is to help them form a more balanced view of your work so they do not focus only on the things they don’t like. This can help them become more open to any changes you propose. Whereas, if you argue with them on the things they don’t like, you might anger them further.
After you have got them to agree with all the benefits of your work, go over their concerns, the negatives, one at a time and ask “What do you want?” questions of each area that displeases them:
- How would you like us to change this to better suit you?
- How can you help us change this feature?
- What would you like us to do differently?
- We’re happy to fix this for you. How would you like it changed?
If they ask for changes that are outside the agreed budget, don’t just say so. Try to avoid saying a flat ‘no’ as that can be a conversation stopper. Instead, say something positive like: “We’d love to make that change for you. Can you raise the budget so that we can add this additional feature you want?”
When to be Engaging
You can’t always operate as a facilitator or catalyst in engaging mode. You need to be strategic about yourself, which means regularly asking yourself: ‘How can I add the most value in this situation?’ ‘What’s the best use of my time, energy and knowledge at this point?’ Sometimes there is no time to engage people. Other times, you are the only one who knows what to do. Or maybe you are in the midst of a crisis and quick decisions are necessary. As long as you operate in engaging mode most of the time, your accrued credibility will allow you to be directive and decisive when necessary. When you need to gain shared ownership to a plan, deeper commitment on the part of others, increased empowerment or the development of your team, use an engaging style.
If you are so authority-driven that you must decide everything without ever engaging your team, you are bound to make some bad decisions. This damages your credibility. Your team will be unforgiving and dismissive of you, thinking ‘If you’re so smart that you can decide everything without consulting us, then why did you make such a mess of X?’
It’s a lose-lose stance to be overly authority-driven. You will never make full use of your team members or their intelligence and you will make too many mistakes acting as the hero. However, if you are used to operating as a solution generator, it’s natural to continue playing to this strength when you take over a new team. You feel anxious to make a good impression so you are quick to toss out some decisions and solutions in the hope that you will succeed. This is like throwing darts in the dark.
To adopt a more engaging style, explain to your team that this is not because you have no idea what to do but rather that you are using a leadership or management style that has the potential to develop staff, involve them in making decisions to create more shared ownership and, in fact, to create greater team spirit.