Replying to LO7806, Bill Hendry said,
The word choice of management "buy-in" seems to reflect the idea that you
can purchase anything including management's commitment...
and goes on to talk about this as a problematic approach that doesn't work.
My experience, on the other hand, framed around the theme of my cartoon,
Nobody Ever Washes A Rental Car,"
is that "selling" them on the idea is of critical importance. It's not so
much selling as it is "buying," though. They need to assume ownership of the
opportunity for improvement as well as the need to do some things differently
to make it happen.
I have no problem "selling" ideas to top management. What I hear as Portents
of Failure is when the program is discussed as, "Scott's Program" or "Scott's
Idea." Then it will fail when "Scott" leaves.
A key, methinks, is the transfer of REAL ownership to senior management. If
this is called Selling, so be it. Programs seem to fail mostly because of a
lack of ownership at the top.
(Bill -- good to see you at ASTD!).
For the Fun of It!
--Scott Simmerman Performance Management Company, 3 Old Oak Drive, Taylors SC USA 29687-6624 74170.1061@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>