So what’s the problem, I asked?

Nobody else is buying into it, he said.

Why? To make a long story short, he had gone into his office, shut the door, and laid out his view of how the company would be successful.  Only problem was, he didn’t get anyone else involved in the process.

The best plan in the world will not succeed if the people responsible for implementing it don’t buy in to the program.  “Buy in” requires that all concerned get to say their piece, and believe they’ve been heard, whether their idea is adopted or not.

In most of today’s complex business planning situations, two (or more) heads are better than one. How to bring out the best collective intelligence of a group?

An effective, collaborative planning exercise requires a balance of two kinds of conversations:

Divergent thinking is a process of exploring possibilities, brainstorming, different or emerging perspectives, thinking outside the box. The wise leader encourages these contributions from everyone involved.

And, at the end of the day, there needs to be a focus and a plan.  This is convergent thinking – out of all those possibilities, where will we focus?

I’ve heard a lot of leaders say “We operate by consensus around here”, but I seldom believe it.  Often the appearance of consensus is like one of those elections in a country where, say, 95% of the voters support the incumbent. It’s just that people don’t dare to voice what they really think. Everyone would like to believe that a consensus is desirable – but it’s not always possible. If everyone has had their say, however, and understands the reasons for picking that focus, you’ll have a much happier team.

1. Figuring out what’s going on and what’s possible to do. Do we agree on what the situation is?  Do we see a common problem or opportunity? Do we both care to do something about it?
2. Coming to an agreement. Healthy agreements and promises are based on each party clearly understanding what the other person is offering or asking for, and what that will look like when it’s done.  In business planning language, this is expressed as SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Accountable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
3. Following through, and dealing with breakdowns. This is where things get challenging. If our agreement is clear, whether because it’s very thorough, or because we “understand” each other through past experience,  follow through may be easy and straightforward. If not, we need to get comfortable with addressing the situation early on – a skill I call constructive complaining. The clearer the agreement in the first place, the easier it is to deal with breakdowns.
4. Declaring completion, letting go, and learning. This could be as simple as saying Thank You for a job well done, or a lot tougher if things haven’t turned out the way we wanted or expected. Letting go does not mean forgetting about it, it’s understanding how to get better results next time, and becoming more skillful with our requests and offers to others.

Too often though, we fall into the trap of seeing businesses, or any purposeful organization, as a “machine” – a financial machine, an information machine, etc, as if we simply plan it, program it, and “get” the parts to co-operate.  A more powerful approach is to see the plan as an agreement among all the people that need to make it happen. To be successful in today’s transparent environment, any organization, whether a business, a government agency, or a social enterprise, needs to maintain the confidence of all its stakeholders.  This requires an ongoing conversation about what each stakeholder values and how well we are fulfilling that.  And that’s the foundation for measuring business performance.