Don't waste energy trying to get every person onboard

As a leader, whenever you make a significant change or introduce a new idea/plan, it's obviously essential to get your team on board with it.

However, while it's good to get input from all sides leading up to an important decision, once the decision is made, don't make the mistake of trying to get every single person on board.

Seasoned politicians know you can't get everyone's backing on every issue. The important part is to get enough people on board so that you have sufficient support to move forward effectively.

The critical question is where to focus your efforts. The simplest method is just to target everyone. The challenge with this method is that it's inefficient and typically wastes resources on the wrong audience.

I believe that for most changes, new ideas, or plans you are trying to get buy-in for, your team will typically fall into three core buckets:

Supporters - These folks are already on board with what you are trying to do. While you shouldn't ignore this camp, the effort spent here will have limited relative value unless you need to recruit them to help convince folks who are still undecided.

Undecided - This is the primary group you should focus your efforts on. Getting enough of these folks onboard will be critical to moving forward. As such, it's going to be vital for you to understand what matters most to these folks and what it is going to take to get them across the line. Often, this group will be split into multiple subdivisions, and you will need to determine how to engage and message each subgroup in a way that is relevant to them. Having said that, the folks in the middle tend to go with the flow, and as such, results here will likely snowball; if you can get enough of them to champion your plan, the rest of this group will quickly align in support as well.

Detractors - These people oppose your idea/plan and are unlikely to change their minds. As such, while you may feel the need to spend a lot of effort and time engaging with them, doing this is not a good use of limited resources. The reality is that it's unrealistic to get everyone on board. In the end, if you can get the majority to support your idea/plan, many of this group will have no choice but to go with it. Ultimately some detractors may depart, and there isn't much you can do about it. It's critical to remember that trying to appease everyone isn't a winning plan, so don't fall into that trap.

All else being equal, for a new idea or change, both the supporter and detractor groups would typically be in the 15-25% range, with the undecided group at 50%-70%. Of course, depending on the specifics of the group and issue, these percentages can vary widely, but the concepts still hold.

Obviously, in a business environment, not everyone's views are of equal importance relative to what you are trying to achieve, and thus you need to be strategic about the different levels of folks you need to influence. However, these concepts still hold, as at any level, you will likely have some distribution between those who are onboard, undecided, or fundamentally opposed.

Bottom line - As a leader implementing change, you can't make everyone happy, and that shouldn't be a goal. You usually just need to build a critical mass of support, and the best way to do this is to focus your efforts on the undecided, not the detractors.