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This podcast is about getting things done through people who don’t report to you like other teams, peers, your boss or customers. It’s for leaders in B2B software and SaaS who need a yes they can’t demand.
Adam Verity: Have you ever been in a
situation where you lined up support from
everyone involved to get another team's
help and found yourself three weeks
later still chasing a start date from
people who you thought were on board?
This episode is all about that
moment and how you can turn that
support into a real start date.
Many years ago, I was working
on this project, and I required
some help from another team.
I actually wanted two of their
people to work with me for
six weeks on a deliverable.
So I put together the case, and I called
for a meeting with the director of
that team, and I asked her about the
whole idea and whether she supports
it, and she said, "I'm all for it."
And the two leads she had under
her were also in the meeting, and
they both said, "We are on board.
This makes a lot of sense.
Yes, let's go for it."
I went back to my boss, and I
said, "Everyone is on board.
It seems this is going to be successful
and it's a go, and let's do it."
After that, I did what almost
every leader is trained to do.
I sent a follow-up email of what we
agreed on, and I heard nothing back.
One week passed.
Second week, I sent any update on
the start date and I heard nothing.
By the third week, I sent another email,
and she replied back saying, "Let me check
with the leads, and this should be soon."
A week passed, now four weeks into it, and
I talked to one of the leads, and he said,
"But talk to her first, to the director.
She's supposed to make that decision."
So basically, I was bouncing now
between the director and the lead.
So what I did back then, I thought,
"Maybe I need to collect more support,
talk to more people about this."
So I ran this by more people in
her team, the people report under
her, and they all showed support,
and very nice and kind about it.
So I sent her another friendly reminder.
And at the time, that
cost me a lot, actually.
It cost me the lost weeks, five
weeks, and I got no start date yet.
And I thought that I will, by the
time, by five weeks, we will be
two weeks into the work with two
people from her team helping me.
And now we are at the five
weeks mark, and there's nothing.
Nobody's committed.
There's no work that started, and
I'm looking very bad in front of my
boss, which cost me some credibility
because my boss thought that I got this
handled, and he started bragging about
this project to people in his circle.
And quite frankly, me chasing that
peer, it started to getting annoying,
and she started to getting embarrassed
by not being able to fulfill on
her, quote-unquote, "commitment."
And by the fifth week, I got a couple
of vetoes from the people who I
wanted to borrow from her team, the
actual people who are doing the work.
They said, "Sorry, we can't do
that because we are so tied up
to this other project that has
priority according to management."
So it cost me a lot: credibility, lost
weeks, the relationship with my peer.
But let me tell you, at the
time, it felt right to me.
It felt right because I was thorough.
I talked to everybody under the sun,
to the director, to the two leads
under her, to people in the team,
to her boss, to my boss, and I, I
felt like I was being thorough and
considerate to everybody's opinion.
And also it felt right because
every conversation went very well.
I thought of asking her, "Who
decides on this by the fourth week?"
But I was afraid she'll feel
insulted by that because she's
the director of the team.
Reality is, that question that I
asked them, " Do I have your support?"
Or, "What do you think of this idea?"
Or, "Would you support this?
Do you think it's doable?"
That was the wrong question,
and that was on me.
Because that question
gave me the confidence.
Their answer was, "Of
course, we will support this.
Of course, it makes a lot of sense."
That kind of answer gave me
false confidence that that
means solid commitment.
But that did not increase my odds in
getting solid commitments, you see.
And she couldn't give me a date by
herself, and that's the proof that
I was asking the wrong question.
See, support and decision are
two different things, and that's
what I learned the hard way.
People support is free because a
real yes costs someone something.
In other words, a real yes has a price.
In that experience, the price was two
of the people under her leads will
slow the work on the project they were
working on, and they have to work on
mine or abandon that ship, that project
for six weeks, , to work on mine,
and that's the price of the real yes.
So I was asking the wrong question.
Now that I created the Without Authority
system, I can see that because I did
not ask them what they're stopping
to work with me on my project.
The epiphany was that I should
stop counting yeses and of
course I will support you.
I need to start to ask what
each yes cost because a real yes
costs someone something, which
is why a real yes can come from
someone who actually could say no.
Collecting more support made me
feel certain without telling me
anything about whether people will
commit with measured action or not
That was many years ago before I
created the Without Authority system.
But now that we have the system in place,
I can recognize that that situation
was all about that there was no clear
owner of who can say a real yes.
I should have seen the signal.
The signal was, "I'm all for
it, and yes, we support you,"
without attaching names to that.
Who will support me specifically?
And what kind of work they will
do for me, what kind of work they
have to stop, by what date so
they can start working with me?
There was no commitment, a solid
commitment, and a concrete one.
And the second signal I should have
detected was when people started pointing
in a circle to each other saying, "I need
to check with X, I need to check with Y."
And everyone will say, "I'll need
to check with the other person."
That was my signal as well.
So when you see those two
signals, "I'm all for it," very
friendly, "We will support you.
What you're saying makes sense,"
without concrete names and dates
and process for commitment, then
this is not a clear owner moment.
So since then, I put a four steps
strategy that I started to use in
similar situations, and it proved
that it's beautifully effective.
So the first step is what
I call sort your yeses.
For all the yeses that you got from
everybody, ask yourself for each and
every person, could they have said no?
Did they have the ability to say no?
The real authority to say no,
but they said yes instead?
Because a real yes only counts
from someone who could have said
no, but they chose to say yes.
In my case, that director could have
not said no because it's not her
decision, it's her boss's decision.
And what did it cost her to
say, "I support you, Adam?"
Nothing.
And the same apply to her leads.
It cost them nothing to
say, "We support you."
And they could have not said no because
it's not their decision as well.
It's not even their boss's
decision, it's the VP's decision.
And always look for whose
work will slow down.
Like the actual people who will
do the work, did you talk to them?
Were they in that meeting or not?
So that's the first step: sort your
yeses to real versus unreal ones.
Second step is ask yourself what has
to give, and who decides on that?
What is the cost of the yes?
What is the price?
And go back to that peer, to that lead
that you're working with, and ask them
what work has to slow down on their side.
In other words, what's
the cost they are paying?
Now, you may not want to say the
word cost, but that's the gist
and the heart of the question.
And if they say, "Well, this is what we
need to give up or stop working on," ask
them, "Are you the person who's going
to have the final signature on this?"
The third step go together to that
person, the person above her, who actually
can make the decision, and bring your
supporter with you, that director.
Bring her along, and because she
knows what that, what her boss need
to see, and talk about the trade.
Whether it's a yes, he or she
can help you, or yes if, for
whatever conditions they have.
Like, "Yes, we can help you, but we cannot
give you those two people, until three
months from now because they are busy."
Or they can say, "No, we cannot
help you with this project."
So that's the third step.
First, sort your yeses.
Second, ask what has to give.
And then third, go to the real decision
maker, the person who could have said
no, and try to get a yes from them.
And if they give you the yes or
the conditional yes, yes if, lock
the names and the start date.
Who will work with me on this?
By what date?
And if XYZ happened, for whatever
reasons you cannot continue with
this commitment, what should we do?
And look for concrete details.
Now, I'm going to be honest with you.
When I put together this strategy,
I was a bit skeptical that I'll be
insulting my peer, the other director.
If I ask him or her, "Hey,
what's the cost for this?
What are you guys trading?
What's the trade here?"
Or, "Are you the person who's going
to have your final signature?"
But then I realized that I will
explain to them "Listen it's on me.
I asked you the wrong question.
I asked you if you support
this, and you were honest.
Yes, you do.
But is this the final signature?
No, it is not."
And that kind of framing helped
people to see that it was on me.
I was asking the wrong question Now, will
this work all the time and get you yeses?
No, not really.
Sometimes there are real constraints
that the real decision-maker cannot
go around, and the answer will be no.
And this is a good thing because you
at least get a no instead of five weeks
later of, "Soon we'll be able to help
you," is dragging your work, and now you
are five weeks later paying the price of
not getting a solid yes five weeks ago.
So a no is a good answer in the strategy.
It's a win because you can easily
say, "Okay, when is the right time?
Can we reopen this conversation
three months from now?"
And so on.
But be careful.
Do not use this strategy unless you have
a good relationship with the other person.
If the room is hot, if you bring this idea
to the director or her leads or anybody
who reports to her, and they are, for
whatever reason, angry because they are
overworked probably and stressed, your
first strategy is to calm the room down,
to bring down the temperature, and that's
a conversation for a different podcast.
But for now, the strategy
is straightforward.
Sort your yeses.
Understand who can say yes and could
have said no, because a real yes counts
only from someone who could have said no.
Understand if the support
cost them anything or not.
If not, go back to that leader
and ask them what has to give.
Do that one-on-one, of course.
Change your question.
Instead of, "Will you support me?
Is this a good idea?
Do you support it?"
To, "Okay, great.
Thank you for your support.
What will have to give?"
And if she or he is not the right person,
ask them who is the final signature, who
can make the final yes on the trade, on
the cost, and if that person is willing
to go with you to the real decision-maker
because they can make the case better than
you, and they have a better relationship
probably with their own boss than you.
And the fourth step is lock the
names with the real decision-maker.
Lock the trade.
Who are going to help you?
By when?
And what will happen if they
can't for whatever reason?
What's the plan here?
All right.
The main skill in play in this
situation was reading the room.
That's about seeing what's really going
on before you respond to the situation.
It's one of the four skills in the Without
Authority system, the system that I
built to show you how to get a real yes
from people who do not report to you.
There are four skills, and
reading the room is one of them.
If you haven't already,
go to withoutauthority.com
right now and take the scorecard.
It shows you which of the four skills is
your strongest and which one to work on
to move people who do not report to you.
It takes about eight minutes,
and you get your report with
a 90 days plan right away.
That's withoutauthority.com.
Okay, see you next time