Cathy, an HR Manager at a company with 500 employees felt that it was a perfect time to do an internal survey to gather feedback from employees. After all, a survey had never been done in the past, and the company had doubled headcount in the last 2 years. However, Cathy knew that the CEO’s attention was focused on other pressing issues. She needed an effective and compelling way to deliver the message to the CEO and thereby gain approval for the program and the budget.
Finding an internal champion
What Cathy decided to do was find an internal champion who could help “lobby” the cause to Executive Management. She decided to bounce the idea off of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) with whom Cathy had worked in the past. CMOs understand the value of knowing customers’ needs and problems. From an HR perspective, this translates to soliciting employee feedback and finding out how they think and feel about specific topics relating to the company’s internal operations.
Nemawashi
Another approach is something I learned when I worked at a Japanese company. The concept is called “nemawashi”. “Nemawashi” refers to the consensus-building approach that leads to a decision or a change in the organization. Instead of a proposal being presented for the first time in an executive meeting, prior “nemawashi” is done by having multiple one-on-one conversations (formal or informal) with various influencers. This approach avoids public debate or clashing of opinions. The goal is persuasion. But it can also be a way to get feedback on whether the proposal is ready to put forward and to determine if the influencer supports the idea. Perhaps suggestions will come forth that will help you improve the proposal. As described in the May 2010 Japan Blog Matsuri, “After an iterative process of successive nemawashi meetings and refinements to your plan, you’ll either have something sure to succeed, or will understand why your idea is unlikely to be approved.”
Summary
- Begin with the end in mind. Present your recommendation and bottomline proposal, then peel the layers that justify why your recommendation merits approval.
- Show that you’ve done your research thoroughly.
- Show the RoI analysis.
- Show what would happen without the system.
- Show the capabilities and implementation timeline for the solution you’ve chosen.
- Show real examples of how the system has helped organizations like yours (your competitors perhaps?
- Pre-sell the idea to the various stakeholders – “nemawashi”.
- Find an Executive Sponsor for the project – someone you trust, a mentor, whose department will greatly benefit from your project being approved.
- Offer to present a post-implementation analysis of the project’s impact to the attainment of the organization’s goals — at the 6-month point.