Two Steps to Regaining Buy-In When You've Lost It

I have been really fortunate to experience the successful growth of three businesses. We did incredible things. Broke barriers. Changed industries. Created products that were the start of new product categories, spawned new rule-making, and begat legislation to change industries.

The stuff we were doing was really, really hard.

It was the kind of product that should be possible. Probably. But… you were not entirely sure. Half dream. Half product. As a team, we were a strange combination of terrified that we could not finish the product and frightened about how everything would change when we did.

When I was a kid at my grandfather’s farm, the dogs would always chase the school bus when it drove by. My dad used to ask, tongue in cheek, what would they do if they caught the bus? That was what finishing these products felt like to us. Catching the proverbial bus. Exciting and terrifying. Leaving you uncertain about what you would do and what life would be like if you got there.

In my career, we caught the bus. A few times.

Later, difficult challenges would emerge around maintaining the products, updating them, evolving them, and working on new, equally challenging products. These challenges would be both difficult and time-sensitive, faught with the same uncertainty and a similar technical challenge as we faced in launching the original design, with one big difference.

People no longer wanted to do the work

When the original conquest was complete, the team was heavily bought in. Nights were burned. Weekends disappeared. There was a group of people entirely committed to realizing the crazy thing. We’d all signed up for it. No one asked extra of anyone. We couldn’t hold ourselves back.

Now, the business was faced with a new crisis. Our original achievement needed to evolve, or the business would suffer greatly. We might lose the product entirely. The story created by all our crazy labors, risks, and sacrifices could end right here, falling from triumphant to tragic.

In many ways, it was the same as when the product needed to be launched or the business might fail. Except this time, volunteers were not raising hands, jumping up and down, eager to be part of the effort. No weekends were prepared to be sacrificed. The roaring blaze of our energy had dwindled to embers, struggling to stay alight.

This is what changed

The zealous volunteer force that created the original product now looked like a group of reluctant conscripts. Concerns for team member welfare transformed into concerns about team members' disinterest. We had lost buy-in.

There are a lot of ways to lose buy-in. We lose buy-in when:

• the objective becomes vague, abstract, or unclear
• the sacrifices needed to achieve the objective don’t resonate with our team’s personal needs or values
• the person promoting the objective doesn’t feel bought in themselves
• the request for the extraordinary is delivered to a team with an expectant tone
• the team is uninvolved in conceiving the idea and feels no individual sense of ownership
• there are doubts about the feasibility or sustainability of the course that has been outlined

As an organization, we had done so much with so little for so long that we thought we could do anything with nothing.

The team told us otherwise. That we couldn’t do it all. The leadership team rationalized in response. We’d overcome bigger challenges before. We would do it again. We tried to sell them on our rationalization. They weren’t buying it. What do you do when you are at an impasse? The immovable object of a team that is not bought in. The unstoppable force of leadership rationalization.

Here is what you should not do

Stupidly, we are tempted to try brute forcing the magic.

The magic doesn’t like to be forced. I feel like you can make it happen one more time, but that is typically all you get. A forced heroic last stand of what was once spontaneous and extraordinary. Then you have broken a beautiful thing that cannot be repaired.

So does a leader do? When the challenges are great, the consequences of failure are scary, and the motivation is low. Your instinct is to grab your objective and swim furiously against the tide. But you shouldn’t. You can’t. You’ll only get swept out to sea.

It isn’t about doing anything. It is about starting something. Something new. Something different.

Like starting the wave in a sports stadium begins with a single person and becomes a thing unto itself. Larger than the individual. Out of his control. With momentum in and of itself. Your objective isn’t to control anything. You need to start it. To rekindle the roaring blaze you once had using the embers that remain.

This is how you start

Bring the team together and put the problem on the table. Not just the product problem. The meta-problem. That the collective is uninspired about solving the problem itself. Own it as a leader. That you feel that losing buy-in is a function of your approach and direction. Ask the team for feedback. Then — listen.

Create a dialog with the team that is full of your curiosity and questions. No solutions. No ideas or direction. Especially no disagreements, excuses, or justifications. Create a space for honest feedback about the root causes and what the organization might be able to do about it.

Your only goal in this dialog is to clarify the organizational challenge. Be transparent and honest about the fears you’re grappling with regarding the consequences of failure—both your own and the organization’s. Help them see, genuinely and authentically, why it is important to you that the team and the organization succeed.

Then ask the team how they would get there.

You will hear things you really don’t want to hear. Something about the timeline is impossible. The technical path is disagreeable. The team is just done with the problem emotionally, and they don’t want to do the work. That they do not believe the work is as important as you’re making it out to be.

Making this choice is where you get it back

You want to make the context of the problem very clear to the team. In return, you want the team to build a clear path to solving the problem. It isn’t about you leading the team through the problem; it is about the team leading the organization through its challenge.

There is likely going to be something the team outlines that you’re not going to like. The organization will probably need to make a very difficult choice. The proverbial rock and the hard place. This is where your support of the team changes everything.

It is often the organization’s failure to choose, more often than our choices, that creates an environment where we lose the buy-in of our teams.

Our persistent indecision in the face of a very difficult choice reaps a harvest of frustration and apathy. They see that we can’t do it all. They see that it is all important. We insist that they do it all anyway. With as much courage as they manage, they indicate that isn’t going to happen. We are deaf to their concerns and resolve to push forward anyway.

Then it doesn’t happen.

Then we feel angry when what they signal is exactly what happens. Even though they told us to expect it. We wanted something different. We didn’t get it. So, we’re upset.

Often, we repeat the cycle, hoping for a different outcome. The team’s emotional distance from the organization grows with each repetition. The poor outcomes persist.

Making the difficult choice breaks the cycle. Choose rock. Or hard place. Give the team control and the opportunity to pursue an objective that they believe in, with a plan they hatched, with an organization that supports them in both word and in deed. This is the pathway to rebuilding the buy-in you have lost. The origin story of overcoming great challenges lives in clear choices about priorities.

As Karen Martin said, “when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.”

I get it. Not easy. Maybe it feels like an impossible choice. That is the mantle of leadership. Difficult choices. Your avoidance of the reality that a difficult choice must be made prolongs the suffering in your team. They recognize your weakness as the source of their pain. This damage hurts their affinity for the organization and you as a leader, which must be repaired to rebuild buy-in.

Make the choice. Give them the power to put their fingerprints on the organization’s history. In a place where they feel like they can be successful. On a challenge that is visible, consequential, and theirs. Like so many things in life, you receive through giving. Give them this.

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