Do you work in a corporate or business environment? Do you struggle with getting support from your peers, other team members, and experts? Well, you are not alone. Collaboration and getting people to support you is essential in getting anything done in any business environment.
Let me share the lessons that I acquired over 16+ years in the corporate world that helped me to be successful.
If you have little time here is the summary – no bullshit and to the point:
To get people to work with you it is imperative that you are self-aware and follow strict principles
- SELF-AWARENESS: Mindset < Start with yourself, if you do not get people to do what you want/need it is very likely your fault! I know you do not want to hear it but toughen up and reflect!
- SELF-AWARENESS: No one has a higher interest to get the tasks/project done as the person responsible for it – namely you
- PRINCIPLE: Be clear on WHY & WHAT (and sometimes HOW)
- PRINCIPLE: Involve the right experts
- PRINCIPLE: Reduce friction / Take away effort
- PRINCIPLE: Be a driver not a delegator
- PRINCIPLE: Don’t waste other peoples time – everyone is busy
- PRINCIPLE: Build relationships
Let’s go into the details. I split this into two parts, namely the SELF-AWARENESS section and the PRINCIPLES section.
You need to be self-aware in order to improve and asking the right questions will help you get better at the game.
Self-awareness is of course not enough, you need to take action and to help you with that I describe concrete principles and actionable items in the PRINCIPLES section.
SELF-AWARENESS:
1. Mindset
First and foremost take ownership of your past failures. You heard me right, your failure! No one else’s… if you do not get people to do what you want/need it is very likely your fault! I know you do not want to hear it but toughen up and reflect on it! This is the first step to improve.
Did you ever think
- “If just a top-down decision was made that my project has priority I would get all the support I need…”
- “Everyone responds so slowly to my emails and the colleagues do not really support me, despite the many calls I had or emails I send…”
or similar thoughts?
Well, then the first thing you need to do is change how you think about the situation.
Become clear about a few things:
- You are ultimately responsible to get the required support – no one else owes you something and just pushing work on others will likely result in failure
- Management authority or top-down decisions do not necessarily help. There are many examples, even from such strict hierarchical setups such as the military
- You are causing effort for others with your asks
- It is your responsibility to make it easy for everyone to support you
- If you can show value in the task/project and the way you work you will have it easier to convince people to support you
Did you get those points in your brain?
Great, we did the first step, now let’s discuss one of the most common misconceptions in detail as it is an immense detractor for your success. Till today I hear this way too often!
Misconception: A clear top-down decision would make everyone work and support me
Reality: First and foremost, humans are not machines.. just because someone says top-down to do something, does not really mean it will be done. This is just lazy thinking. Yes, authority can help but just look at the military & its history where time and time again it was clearly shown that if there is a bad leader the teams are not executing what is asked of them. Even more important are the positive examples. Time and time again people have been able to rally support and get stuff done despite the lack of actual authority.
Once you acknowledge that it is your responsibility to get people to work with you the second step you should take is asking yourself the right questions.
Instead of asking why no one is supporting you, ask yourself:
- What can you do/change to get people to support you?
- What could you have done better to get the support?
- How can you improve your communication?
- Do you need to make allies?
- Do you need to formulate the problem better?
- Did you cut the tasks into consumable pieces?
- How can you reduce the efforts for the people you require support from?
Don’t worry I won’t leave you hanging with questions. You will find actionable tips in the principles section.
2. No one has a higher interest to get the tasks/project done as the person responsible for it – namely you
Ultimately there is only one person that has a real interest to get it done. Namely the person responsible for the result → YOU
You need to be aware of this and behave accordingly. Understand that
- No one owes you something
- It is your responsibility to bring the task/project to success
Why do I highlight this? You need to own it. And owning it means you need to feel that you are responsible for all facets of the project. You can not fire and forget, meaning assign a task and lean back assuming all is well. Follow up and make sure it is understood, the person can actually execute and has no blocker.
I see so many projects falling suddenly from a green state to red simply because whoever was responsible did not really take ownership and feel responsible.
Instead, there was just a superficial follow-up, not trying to understand the technicalities or details of it and letting it flow.
Actionable tip: Learn about the technicalities of the tasks that you ask others to perform.
The worst results get people who are not feeling responsible for the execution and do not even try to understand what is going on in the expert tracks and tasks. You might not be a technical expert in a specific area but it is your duty to at least try to understand what is going on and learn about the issues and difficulties. How can you make a decision or support them if you sit back on your lazy ass and pronounce that you do not understand it as it is not your domain?
I work for 16 years in IT and I can tell you it doesn’t matter if you are a marketer or finance guy, project manager or whatever other function you have. If you work in an IT company and proudly proclaim you do not understand the technology and do not even try you will get shitty results. Shit in shit out. How can you be good at your job if you do not understand the domain you are in? The short answer is you can’t. I see this so often and I never saw good results and even worse you will not get the support you need.
This is applicable to any domain you work in… doesn’t matter if it is IT, Health Care, Finance, Manufacturing, or something else.. you need to understand the domain you are in and try to learn as much as you can about the technicalities of it. Otherwise, you will suck at what you do and other people are not going to support you. Hell, you can’t even judge if they support you because you are so clueless.
This should be common sense, but it is not. Learning things is difficult and uncomfortable, which is exactly why you need to do it. Do it and you will get the right results.
Now let’s move away from MINDSET and into the actionable principles.
PRINCIPLES
1. Be clear on WHY & WHAT (and sometimes HOW)
You know why and what you need to achieve… it is your responsibility to make it easy to understand. How can anyone support you if they do not understand why they should and what you ask of them?
Believe it or not, most people want to do what is right and do a good job but without clear information, even the most motivated person will fail.
What always helped me in getting people to understand why something is important and what I need from them is keeping it simple and stupid. Consider complexity your enemy when it comes to explanations.
Before you approach anyone to get support, prepare a crisp and clear statement of what the exact objective is and why it is important. If you make it difficult to understand you already set yourself up for failure. Why? Your ask will be perceived as unimportant or if people try to support they will do the wrong thing.
Now let’s talk about how you can get the WHAT and WHY so clear that anyone can immediately understand it.
Actionable Tip: Write down in one sentence what you try to achieve. Write down in another sentence why it has to be achieved.
This has several effects:
- Trying to formulate it will help you identify where you have gaps in your reasoning and understanding → sharpen it till you are 100 % clear on it
- You will find out that it is not as easy to convey as you thought
- Once you have the 2 sentences it is your entry point to build up to more complex explanations if needed. These 2 sentences will always allow for a fast centering of your audience
Once you can easily explain WHAT and WHY implement the next principle.
2. Involve the right experts
For success, you do only need the right experts. The more people are involved the slower the execution will be and even worse in many cases the whole project can turn in a wrong direction due to politics and many opinions.
Actionable Tip: Identify the most critical skills and characteristics you need for your project and make a list
Ask yourself:
- Who do you need and why?
- What technical skills do the different members have to have?
- What character types would you prefer to work with?
- Do you need to get some political support first? Is there a need to inform any any managers or area leads?
- Do the experts need to have a specific network to get topics moving?
- Who do you need to get funding?
Once you have the right experts identified inform them about the project and the WHAT and the WHY to get them onboarded.
3. Reduce friction / Take away effort
Always remember that your ask is causing other people’s effort. Everyone is busy and no one is simply waiting for a task from you. If you need something from someone, reduce their efforts to help you. Or in other words, reduce friction that might delay or prevent other people to help you. Make it easy for them.
Let me give you an example:
Project manager A. has a long discussion with several colleagues over mail on how to solve a problem. At some point in time the expert that could answer or guide on this problem is not on the mail so he simply forwards it with a short message:
“Hello XXX, could you please check this problem and provide a solution? thanks, A.”
Imagine you receive this email.. you have not been in the loop before and now you need to read through the whole email chain and the back and forth to understand what the problem is… How does this make you feel?
In this example the initial friction to support you is already high, meaning the expert has to do a lot of effort just to understand the problem.
How can you fix this?
Actionable Tip: Summarize the mail/current situation, status and ask clearly in any email chain you forward and want to get a response to from an expert that was not involved
Why does this help? This reduced so much effort for the newly involved colleague that the ask is immediately understood. You just increased the chance of support and fast reply!
Another example would be:
Project Manager A needs two experts to work together on a problem and decide how to take it forward. In one of the status meetings, he simply assigns the task to the experts saying: “X and Y please set up a call together and align on the problem X”
Another scenario could be that those colleagues are not even part of a call and just receive this as an email.
Why is this example problematic? The project manager just pushes the tasks towards the experts. They are now supposed to figure it all out. Even the alignment between the experts as well as an explanation of the ask and coordination is dropped on them… Again high friction.
Instead of pushing everything on the support do the following.
Actionable Tip: Setup the call with the experts. Explain the situation and ask. Moderate if required. Document the discussion and next steps for them.
With this, you reduced pain and took over tasks that you can definitely own. This will be seen by the colleagues and they are going to be more likely to support as you take the effort away at least on that level that you can.
To summarize this again:
- You create efforts for others so try to reduce the pain of supporting you
- Summarize emails and add clear asks before you forward them
- Do the work that you can do and prepare as much for others as possible
- Bring people together that are required to talk to each other. Setup the meetings and moderate, document and follow up on the next steps.
4. Be a driver, not a delegator
You are responsible! Responsibility means you need to take ownership and be a driver, not just a delegator. If you purely delegate without following the above principles you are not adding value at all. Unfortunately many project managers and also managers see themselves not in the responsibility to really drive topics on their own. Instead, the focus is on delegating and pushing work and also blame on others when something does not work out.
I bet everyone encountered such a person in the past who just delegates and does not understand anything. How did you work with this person? What was your feeling towards that person? Not positive, right?
Here is what you should do to be a driver
- Try to understand what is going on (constantly learn about the domain you are in, ask questions!), especially if it is outside your expertise
- If there is something you can do you DO IT and do not delegate
- Only delegate what is really required. People see if you are lazy and will less likely support you.
- Don’t be perceived as just someone causing work
- Be perceived as someone that is helpful and is also providing value
- Ensure you help the experts to support you. Ask them what they need and try to get it done
- Your project is your responsibility. Take what is offered and work with it
- Organize and moderate the colleagues
- Summarize decisions and actions
- Follow up and make it always easy to help you
5. Don’t waste other peoples time – everyone is busy
Have you ever spent time in a badly prepared and useless meeting? How did you feel about this?
Be clear that everyone has limited time and is busy. If someone gives you their attention treat it with respect and make interactions as efficient and crisp as possible.
Actionable tip: Come well prepared, make meetings & interactions crisp and as short as possible.
You need to know what should be discussed, with whom, what the outcome of the interaction is supposed to be, and what should be part of the agenda. When you schedule meetings, try to keep them as short as possible. This will force more condensed discussions.
Actionable tip: Don’t assign unnecessary tasks and reduce the effort as much as possible. Principles 2-4
Once people understand you are respectful of their time they are more likely to support you
To summarize
- Keep meetings short and to the point
- Only invite the necessary
- Clarify as much as possible upfront to a meeting
- Clear agenda & goal
- If someone is no longer needed tell them they can drop from the discussion if they want
- You bring the information together, you moderate… don’t let them figure it out
- There is a mundane task? Filling something out, transferring some information in a different format? You better do it and don’t delegate
6. Build relationships
In the long term, it is all about relationships. Build your network and your relationships over time. The better your relationships at work the easier you will get support from the people you know. A good reputation will make it also easier to get support from others.
I will not go into details on how to build relationships as this is a huge topic in itself with a lot of literature to cover it. That being said if you act on the above principles, people will perceive you as someone who gets things done and adds value. This is the first step in the right direction. Be perceived as a value driver and not an unnecessary effort creator.
Do you have a different opinion or principles, ideas, concepts that worked for you? Let’s discuss in the comments 🙂
