Building Trust and Buy-In for Successful Projects
Enter any group and quickly build a common bond and trust
TLDR:
The inability to gain trust and inspire others to buy in to your ideas and suggestions creates a feeling of frustration and powerlessness. Learn how to strategically connect with others and build consensus within your team.
Here are some key components in order to achieve this.
Understand shared and distinct values
Validate conflicting concerns
Include grounding and evidence
Show genuine care
We all want people to “get it” when we make a request, send a message, propose a solution or share an idea. But what about when that doesn’t happen? It can be easy to blame others “If they would just do it MY way, things would be better.” but the truth is, if we don’t get the response we hoped for, it indicates we haven’t done a sufficient job building trust.
How do we do this?
Understand shared values and distinct values
Shared values are what we both want. When we create agreement with each other around what success would look like and what we both care about, we create alignment around the future we want to create.
Distinct values are when different parties have unique concerns or priorities. Sometimes these priorities are conflicting, sometimes they are preferences. In order to get buy in with a group you MUST know what those differences are and what matters to THEM.
Validate concerns and affirm shared values
In order to build rapport and trust we must do two things with these values:
Validate the concerns.
When we hear the conflicting priorities of the other party it’s important to validate them. “I understand why you want to go with this tech stack. I know you are concerned about budget, timelines, etc.” Until we validate concerns of others they will not listen or buy in to our perspective.
Affirm shared values
When suggesting a new approach, it is necessary to tie the approach to the shared desired outcome. “I know we all want to finish our tickets by the deadline, that’s why I am suggesting this approach.
Include grounding and evidence
It can be difficult for others to agree to an opinion. It’s easier to get agreement and buy in when there is evidence to support your perspective. Making sure you have something verifiable to support your approach is an important step to building trust.
Care about the person
It is a cliche phrase, but one that bears much truth: “people don’t care how much you known until they know how much you care.” Having genuine care for those in your group, engaging in small chat, asking about their weekend and sharing little parts of your personal life builds rapport and connection.
When we connect as humans (especially in fully remote environments) something shifts in our brains, we care about more than just our individual concerns and we expand with greater empathy for others.
Time well spent
The biggest obstacle to building trust and creating buy in is the time it takes.
Having conversations with everyone on the team to understand what their values are, communicating your ideas in a way that connects to your shared goals, bringing in evidence to support your approach and taking the time to care about the other person are not things we can short cut.
However, taking time on the front end, to slow down and listen and engage will save so much time later on. Having teams that trust each other, listen to each other and know how to build rapport with each other, allows us to create incredible things for our clients.
Seamlessly innovation is a direct result of mastering the skill of trust building.
What are some obstacles you face in building trust and buy in?
We’d love to hear where this concept might be useful in your career and what struggles you are facing.
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That makes sense. I have to identify and focus on that. Thanks for the suggestion
Hi Vanessa, thanks for writing this so clearly. My team has 5 members with distinct personalities. I get along easy with few and few are a challenge on continuous basis.
One observation I like to share, when I did talk 1 on 1, the other person perceive it as “ oh they are doing something wrong”. When things get clearer and conversation move forward they notice they don’t need a chat with me since the org chart (contract position ) favors on their side so there is no incentive to them. Eventually I realized that I need to find a way to make the most of good relations that I naturally built. What’s your take on this dynamics?