1 big idea worth considering.
The ability to sell your ideas internally at work can be the difference in momentum and frustration. It’s a non-obvious component of leadership without a clear playbook.
This can leave a lot of leaders feeling like they’re beating their head against the wall, and wasting much needed energy for initiatives that never take flight.
But selling your ideas internally can be more science than art when we have a framework to operate from.
Here’s mine, including a free template at the end.
Understand your audience. If you deliver the right message to the wrong audience, the message doesn’t matter. The message has to be tailored to who you’re delivering it to. What do they care about? What problems do they have that you help them solve? What level of detail do they need? Put yourself in the shoes of the audience, and ask yourself what information is most important to them.
Tell the story. Our entire lives revolve around story. Selling your ideas internally is no different. Tell the story of where you’re wanting to go, where you are now, and what needs to happen between those two. If you tell an interesting story, engagement will take care of itself.
Use data and evidence. Ideas need evidence. Sometimes that evidence is data. And sometimes that evidence is anecdotal. Either way, ground your ideas in evidence because you need to be dealing in the realm of conviction, not opinion.
Anchor on clarity. Much like the point on understanding your audience, if your message isn’t clear it doesn’t matter how valid it is. Less brain dump, more direct points. Less jargon, more clear language. Less opinion, more evidence.
Anticipate objections. People will poke holes in your ideas. Recognize that this is just part of the process. It’s not a slight against you or your ideas. It’s the natural result of capable people debating what will or will not work. If you’ve given your idea appropriate thought, there will be understandable objections to the idea. Anticipate them and have rebuttals for them, again grounded in whatever evidence is available.
Seek feedback. Feedback is your friend. This reality alone can be the difference in growing quickly as a leader and in feeling stuck. Seek feedback about your ideas. Seek feedback about the way you present them. Seek feedback about what you can be doing better.
Believe. You have to believe in your ideas before other people will. Many ideas fail because the person pushing them wasn’t convicted enough in their beliefs about potential outcomes so they give up when faced with objections, hard feedback, or evidence to the contrary. To do hard things, you have to believe before everyone else does.
Selling your ideas internally is a process, and not every idea will result in immediate success. But if you know your audience, provide clarity to that audience through story and evidence, and welcome the necessary reality of objections and feedback, you’ll succeed a lot more often than you fail.
And if you want a simple one-pager that helps drive this clarity throughout the process, steal mine below.
—> Forward Coaching Proposal Template
2 Kindle highlights worth considering.
The truth is a bully we all pretend to like.
There’s not much to be said about the period except that most writers don’t reach it soon enough.
3 links worth exploring.
📚 How to do great work. (Paul Graham)
🎧 Take control of your time: tips to invest in your health, habits, and fulfillment. (The Model Health Show)
📚 What great managers do. (Harvard Business Review)
That’s a wrap for this week’s edition of Forward+.
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