You remember that one where you were awake nights crafting that perfect solution to one of the key problems ailing your organization. You boldly wrote the five-page email, describing the issue and your idea in great detail, complete with supporting graphs and charts to prove your point. You checked your facts and discovered that a simple change in design, process or perspective would save the company more than you originally expected and build competitive advantage faster than the speed of light. After thoughtfully building a distribution list to include your manager, and every other top executive you believed would want to be in on the innovation, you courageously pushed send. Then came the shocker. There was no response. One day went by. Two days. No response. Then your boss called you to his office, wanting to know why you sent the email to so many people. It’s clear your idea wasn’t even reviewed. The tone of voice said it all. Don’t do this again. Slightly bruised and demoralized, you go back to work. Idea lost.
Perhaps, your mistakes have been subtler than this example, but I am certain that the journey of any good change leader is riddled with a few memorable wrong moves. Aristotle obviously knew this when he said, “The things we need to learn, we learn by doing.” So it goes for learning how to present an innovative idea, seed a new program or initiative, gain sponsorship, get endorsement for the charter of your organization or any other change you are leading.
The big goal of INNOVATION is getting acceptance for our great ideas. Acceptance is the most critical --- and most often overlooked success factor for new ideas. In the last three INNOVATING in HARD TIMES webinars that futurist Joel Barker and I conducted this year, how to get buy-in for new ideas has been a top issue all around the world, regardless of organization, sector, type of organization, or role of the innovator/leader. This is a problem we all are faced with day-to-day.
"When you have an innovation, it is a 50-50 proposition. 50% is the idea. 50% is in how you present it. If you blow the second 50%, you can have a great idea that never gets accepted."
Joel and I spent the summer developing a ONLINE professional development CLASS to address this need. He described the work this way at our last webinar:
"Our October 15 webinar is designed to give provide detailed guidelines and detailed examples that demonstrate how to get your ideas accepted. It is high-value content for those of you that are internally or externally working in your organizations to get acceptance for a new idea (e.g, new strategy, new product, new service, new offering, new organization, or a change initiative). Both, Debbe and I have dealt with this issue for the last decade helping organizations and individuals spread the good news for their new innovations and we are excited to share what we've learned."
HOW TO GET BUY-IN for NEW IDEAS
October 15 - 1:00 pm - 2:30 p.m. EDT
Executive Instructors: Joel Barker and Debbe Kennedy
Tuition is significantly discounted for everyone registering before October 1, as well as discounts for groups, seniors, and students. To learn more about the class and to register or go to http://tinyurl.com/y984hn2
Hope you can join us for this special ONLINE professional development class. We'll be putting all our differences to work and know what you will learn can significantly improve your effectiveness in presenting new ideas.
Best...
Debbe
Debbe Kennedy
founder, President and CEO Global Dialogue Center
and Leadership Solutions Companies author, Putting Our Differences to Work
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership,
and High Performance (Berrett-Koehler 2008)
Buy a Copy at Amazon.com
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