How to get others to support your ideas
There can be nothing more frustrating than having a great idea and not getting the go-ahead from the boss. Worse still, is to encounter lukewarm support from your team or peers after the idea has got approved by the executive team. How do you get others to support your ideas? Just because you have a great idea does not mean that it will get approved. And even after you get an approval, peers and team members need to be enthusiastic about it. It is only after that, someone will start executing it. So what is the real key to getting others to support and implement your ideas?
Change the language
Nancy Duarte is an expert on how to present your ideas in a more persuasive manner. She even describes different kinds of slides you can create for different outcomes. How many of these do you use: Walk-in slide, Title slide, Navigation slide, Bullet slide, Big Word slide, Quote slide, Data slide, Diagram slide, Conceptual Image slide, Video slide, Walk-out slide.
You can read more about that here <Please click>
Nancy Duarte wrote a terrific book on how to craft persuasive presentations. I am a fan of her style of presentations. It is visual and compelling. You can read about some of her tips along with a review of the book Persuasive Presentations here <click here>
Getting approval from the senior management is often about the language of you have used in the document or presentation. That's what experts say. Several bright people look at selling an idea as the socially acceptable term for telling a lie. That is so not true.
“An idea - no matter how brilliant - has to be sold.”
When you are getting top management to approve your idea, give them data support. Present the idea in a concise manner. If you are giving them a big document, please don't forget to enclose an executive summary. When you are presenting the idea to your boss, please enclose all the data and support that he or she can use to independently verify that your idea has a firm basis in research and basics.
Getting enthusiasm from teams and peers
Once your boss gives you the go ahead for the project or idea, you are actually entering the most difficult part of the project. How to build enough enthusiasm to ensure success in implementing the idea. Here Duarte suggests two approaches:
Speak to your own team by using the abbreviations they know and are familiar with.
Speak to the larger audience by appealing to their emotions
Any story that appeals to the audience must have an emotion. If it does not do that, it is not a story. It is some piece of information that is being conveyed. Remember, that people take action only when they feel strongly about the idea or the person. So that is an emotion. Information is only cognitive. It doesn't get people to move. No wonder people say, "I was moved", when a story has an emotional appeal.
Read more: How to get others to adopt your recommendation
Pixar does storytelling really well. Read about their 4 rules <click here>
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