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How to get a team to sign up, head and heart
Congratulations, you’ve assembled an awesome team of people from right across your organisation who want to help you deliver a project or initiative. You sold the project to their heads using logic, and to their hearts with emotion. You answered the answer that they asked on day one, ‘Why should I work on a project that I don’t own?’.
Wait, hang on, you haven’t assembled your team yet? OK, we’re going to tell you exactly how you should do it. Buckle yourselves in.
The Logical Argument
You’re going to need to sell to the heads first, because if anyone thinks your project is nonsensical, no amount of pursuasion is going to get them to buy in.
So, firstly, find goals, actions and targets that overlap.
Perhaps they want to contribute to sustainability, maybe they want a promotion or just to get in the good books with the procurement boss. Maybe they want to make new friends, build stronger ties or just be more influential. Perhaps the project will make their job easier or free up more time for higher priority jobs.
It matters to you to know what their goal is, so that you can use it to sell your project to them.
How do you work out people’s objectives? Check out our blog post here.
The Emotional Argument
Getting the heart to buy in is a lot easier than the head, that’s because people crave love, compassion, making a difference and team culture, and don’t always know where to find it. If you make them believe that they can make a difference and change lives and culture, then you will make them buy in, and they will become a driven member of your team. You have to act like a sales person, pulling the right strings and using the right words to create a wonderful visualisation of your ideas.
Top Tip For Pulling Heartstrings
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Enthusiasm goes a long way. To get someone excited about your project, you have to be excited yourself, that way you can get the buy in you’re after. If their enthusiasm seems to be waning, just being around yours will give them a natural and infectious lift. A big smile and wide eyes are going to perk them up when they need it most and realise why they offered to help. It’s hard to keep so enthusiastic all the time, so when you’re feeling low, remind yourself why you’re doing this and give yourself a pat on the back. We wrote a blog post about being persistent here which might help. Visual InvolvementIf you can get people involved in your project on a visual level, it’s easier for them to imagine the vision of a completed project. Even if the project is, or will be ongoing, you can visualise the milestones and objectives along the way. Start taking photographs and videos, not just of stuff relating to the project, but also of the team. Selfies and group videos will help the team gel and build morale. A group chat could have the same effect. The better you all work together, the sooner you’ll reach success. Put all your videos and photos into powerpoint and present your project in a linear way. Show what success will look like, what the finishing line will feel like and what personal benefits they will get from their contribution. For reuse, visualising the end goal could be shown through photos of the problem, of reusable assets being destroyed or dumped. It could be showing the purchase of new assets, when reusable older ones are already owned by the organisation. If you can visualise wastefulness, you can get an emotional buy in. Read our ultimate guide on the power of a picture here.It’s A Story, And They Are A Character |
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You can’t present your project as a matter of fact thing, you have to show it as a real life story. It will change people’s lives, it will have a great effect and it will change the way people work. If you want buy in, it might not be best to talk about the financial benefits to your colleagues, but instead the social and environmental benefits. Be a real person talking about the real project with a real story. Get real people to help you and make the whole thing as visual and human as possible. Do it all with enthusiasm and you are almost guaranteed to assemble the team you are after. We've put this quick checklist download together, just for you!Check it out:
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