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7 Tips to Get That Project Moving, Today (Get Up Offa That Thing)

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The folks on my team are masters at moving groups past the initial barriers that keep projects from getting off the ground. Today, my colleague Ken Perlman offers his best practices for getting your project up and moving.

Recently, after working to get a group fired up to and excited about new opportunities that can make their lives and jobs better and more exciting, they hit some barriers. They were ready to throw in the towel, but after I offered a few suggestions, they had a huge breakthrough. They took off like a shot. I love this part of my job.

First, they listed these as their barriers:

  • “We don’t have enough time,”
  • “We need them to tell us what to do,” and,
  • “We can’t launch yet, because we can make it even better.”

Well, these barriers aren’t new to anyone. We all wish we had more time, someone to tell us what to do so we don’t fail, and there will always be a way we could have made something better. I’ve observed clients in these same situations, and every time I love to offer up a little input and watch the impact. With this client, I made the suggestions below, and we saw an uptick that day.

If you need something to get you over the hump so you can dance ‘till you feel better, consider these ideas. You may find just the right tool to expedite a process or give your initiative a jump-start:

  1. Just Start: Rapid prototyping lets you launch and learn. Re-prioritize the focus on the development process and worry less about the end product. Change can be big or small, but all change has to start somewhere.
  2. Ask the Newbie: People new to the organization or to their roles are usually the most open to asking “why” things are done a certain way. Bring them in on the change initiative and they will be the first to point out holes in your process or improvements that can be made. Their fresh ideas will make the process better.
  3. Evangelists Work Faster than Trainers: Evangelists turn the transfer of information into a shared learning experience rather than a classroom experience. People learn faster and engage more with a Peer-to-Peer rather than Sit-and-Listen approach.
  4. Show Me: Describing the process requires someone to use only their brain. Walking someone through the process makes them put themselves in your shoes and engages their head and heart. Way more effective.
  5. Engage the Departments of “No”: Quality Control, Safety, IT, Legal – all these departments can be dreaded barriers within the organization. Don’t assume they’ll say no, and make sure you ask with a “how can I help you get this done” attitude. Better yet, get someone from the “No” departments on your team and you’ll have someone from that discipline with a “want to” attitude on your side.
  6. Reach Out: If someone with a “Why?” question reaches out personally to connect with another person in that other department, many times they engage that person and they join the team. These questions can come across as “us” against “you” (the other department), but when addressed on a one-to-one level, it changes it to a “we.”
  7. Fun > Work: If it seems like more work, no one will want to do it. If framed as grass-roots-level, cool, cutting edge, under-the-radar, or part of a club, more people will want to join.

On the trip home I reflected on all the ways I’ve seen people solve problems quickly, on their own, without direction, and more effectively than if someone had managed the effort. It also struck me that my clients do not use these in common practice, but I’m certainly going to suggest they document what they did for use on the next initiative, and formally add them to my toolkit for the next round.

Ken Perlman is an engagement leader at Kotter International, a firm that helps leaders accelerate strategy implementation in their organizations. John Kotter is the chief innovation officer at Kotter International and is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School.

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For more about how organizations can develop the agility required to succeed in today’s rapidly changing world, read my new article, “Accelerate,” featured in the November issue of Harvard Business Review.

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