Achieving Executive Buy-In
A quality program must simplify the hardest job.
Starter Questions
Do you know what your executive’s concerns are?
Do your executives understand what “quality” really means at your organization?
What “language” do your executives speak?
Identifying Executive Mobilizers
We all work in sales roles. Each of us sells our ideas daily, no matter what type of work we do. On the other side of the conversation, there is never just one party who we sell our idea to. In The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results, the authors note: “[…] more often than not, it’s purchase by committee. It’s collective consensus across a formal or informal group of senior employees, each with the ability to stop a deal if it fails to meet the particular needs, or speak to the individual priorities.” Later, they indicate: “In a survey of 3,000 stakeholders involved in a typical B2B purchase, we found that customers themselves report an average of 5.4 different people formally involved in a typical purchase decision.” These quotes are within the context of B2B purchasing, however I believe the idea applies to our business case discussion. The trouble is knowing how to proceed when there may not be one individual executive responsible for approving your quality business case.
The authors later discuss the idea of a Mobilizer: “They are the ones who mobilize the organization to act, the ones who forge consensus, the architects and champions for change” (65). Within your organization, you must identify this group of informal decision makers – those involved in the business case decision – and understand their needs and priorities in the context of the company strategy. You must also identify your executive Mobilizer who will be your advocate.
Your goal is to interview your executives and understand their concerns surrounding quality – or lack thereof. Identify what problem your company is having because of a lack of investment or focus in a quality program.
Questions you could ask include:
What are your concerns regarding our current quality program (or lack of one)?
What is the root cause of most of our project delays?
What projects are over budget? Why?
Are you open to the idea of a more robust quality program? Why or why not?
What value or return on investment (ROI) would you expect from our quality program? Financial? Operational? Cultural? Reputational?
What does quality mean to you?
What is the barrier to further investment in quality?
What clients aren’t coming back?
What are our clients saying about us?
When you walk on one of our jobsites, how do you feel?
Who should I talk to next to have a similar conversation?
The last question is key to identifying and connecting with other decision makers. You can also ask for that executive to make an introduction on your behalf. This helps solidify awareness of your business case effort.
Learning Their Language
Pay attention to how your executives answer the above questions. Do they answer with financial information or other metrics? Or do they refer to client relationships and people? When you draft your business case in Part 5 (article forthcoming), the tactics you develop in Part 4 (article forthcoming) must directly address and resolve their concerns, using their “language” – so long as their concerns are in fact, reality.
Example Executive Discussions
I asked Ryan’s Chief Operating Officer: “What was your biggest concern regarding further investment in our quality program?” His primary concerns were:
Finding the right person with the right plan.
Quantifying the positive impact for the organization. (How does an investment in quality increase the value of the business?)
His point was not to identify the return on investment financially, rather how would investment in quality help the company improve.
Note: It was not that Ryan did not already have a robust quality program already in place. The opportunity to modernize and simplify it with new technology arose, which required a new approach to quality.
A second stakeholder was Ryan’s Vice President of Operational Excellence. He had two very critical points to share.
The quality program needs to make the hardest job on the project easier. This does not diminish one team member’s role compared to another. Your business case must identify the project team role with the most responsibility and identify tactical ways to save this team member time and make them more effective. This is great context to share with your Executive Mobilizer.
Any organization can only take on so much change. Just like people, an organization can only do so much at any one time. If an organization already has multiple change initiatives for the next year, the quality initiative could get overshadowed by other focus areas.
I also spoke with a peer of mine in the industry, external to my organization. They noted similar elements I outlined in Part 1:
The organization’s definition of quality must be extremely clear and tangible. The subjective nature of quality needs to be made objective within the organization.
The quality program must deliver to the bottom line. You may not be able to quantify it completely (this is an impossible task), but again, your business case must outline how quality will increase the value of the organization.
Achieving Executive Buy-In
Ryan’s Chief Operating Officer stated: “Company leadership has to be fully behind it. This is the fundamentals of it. It’s no more complicated than that.” This does not mean the business case is easily approved. You still need to be the right person with the right plan to bring the information forward. Ready to work with challenging personalities. To methodically be the change agent the organization needs.
In Part 3 (forthcoming), we will explore how to gather information across the company and listen to what changes are needed. In part 4 (forthcoming), we draft a plan to facilitate the associated culture change necessary for the business case to succeed.