Buy-In Book Summary
We have all experienced the basic problem addressed here, and in a very personal way, because it is an old, common, human, and increasingly important problem.
You believe in a good idea. You're convinced it is needed badly, and needed now. But you can't make it happen on your own. You need sufficient support in order to implement it and make things better. You or your allies present the plan. You present it well. Then, along with thoughtful issues being raised, come the confounding questions, inane comments, and verbal bullets—either directly at you or, even worse, behind your back. It matters not that the idea is needed, insightful, innovative, and logical. It matters not if the issues involved are extremely important to a business, an individual, or even a nation. The proposal is still shot down, or accepted but without sufficient support to gain all of its true benefits, or slowly dies a sad death. What do you do?
Buy-In is not a book about persuasion and communication in general, or even about all the useful methods people use to create buy-in. Instead, here we offer a single method that can be unusually powerful in building strong support for a good idea, a method that is rarely used or used well, and that does not require blinding rhetorical skills or charismatic magic.
The ideas and advice offered here are not based on a hypothetical theory or just "opinion". They are based in part on extensive observation by Whitehead in his roles over the years as an entrepreneur, executive, administrator, and professor of physics at the University of British Columbia. They are also grounded in an ongoing flow of research by Kotter at Harvard Business School, work on the topics of leadership and change, published largely in four books: Leading Change, The Heart of Change, Our Iceberg is Melting, and A Sense of Urgency. And while preparing this work, the authors also collected and incorporated numerous related observations provided by colleagues.
The Centerville Story Summary
This portion of the book is about a face-to-face meeting, where a brave few describe and defend an idea in a crowd of a hundred, in a room, over a few hours. It is one specific setting, but the attacks shown in the story can be seen anywhere, and the best method for responding works anywhere: whether back and forth e-mails across continents; ten people at lunch or in a classroom; a paper sent to a thousand employees; a series of two or twenty two meetings; dueling memos.
Buy-In: The Method Summary
The second part of the book becomes analytical, showing explicitly what was happening in the story, discussing 4 common attack strategies, and explaining the method. We show the 24 generic and maddening attacks people often use, along with an effective response to each. We provide a few more examples of how this all plays itself out in real situations. The last part of the book ends with clear, straightforward advice on how to easily use this material, since, though we think our method is intellectually fascinating, our goal here is entirely practical: to help you stop your good ideas from being shot down; to help you get relevant people to strongly buy-into an idea (or even a grand vision) no matter how difficult; and to help you make your changing world not just a hazard, but an opportunity.
The 8 Step Process
The 8 Step process outlined by Professor Kotter can help organizations avoid the pitfalls of these failed change initiatives and can help organizations become adept at change on an ongoing basis.
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