The Secret to Creating Team Buy-In

As leaders, you no doubt have plenty of initiatives on your plate. Simply off-loading the initiatives onto your team is not ideal. Instead, create buy-in for them which will in turn provide an instant boost to productivity, morale, employee turnover, and job satisfaction.

  1. Be firm with goals and flexible with initiatives: Goals indicate where you want to go. Initiatives indicate the path to get there. As a leader, it’s important to have clear, firm goals. For example, perhaps you want to increase performance of “x” by 25% before December 31. Being unwavering with your goals is important, because based off of the goals, your team can reverse-engineer how best to achieve the goals. Furthermore, by allowing your team to help determine the initiatives, you necessarily create buy-in for the goals.
  2. Set boundaries: Managers must lead teams with various temperaments, generations, skill sets, value-systems, etc. Being tolerant of the diversity will foster a sense of job satisfaction among your team and will lead to improved team performance. However, you should identify and communicate those boundaries which cannot be negotiated. Allow your team to work in their preferred style while making sure they do not overstep any boundaries. Examples of boundaries may cover issues like deadlines, conflict management, punctuality, etc.
  3. Get to know your team: Understanding the temperament of each member of your team is critical in building a rapport. Many free personality tests exist online, including the DISC profile: https://www.tonyrobbins.com/disc/ Have your team members take the DISC test and then review their results with them. For example, team members with a high “D” tend to be results-oriented and need a fast-paced work environment. Team members with a high “S”, on the other hand, tend to prefer a more stable, predictable work environment. Being sensitive to each team member’s unique temperament will result in appreciation and buy-in.
  4. Spend as much time explaining “why” as “what”: An educated workforce is no longer content being a taskmaster. Spend time explaining why you created a project for them. They need to understand the implications and rationale for doing the work. Not only does this lead to greater job satisfaction, but it can provide a much-needed sense of purpose and fulfillment.

Our Bullet Proof® Manager program contains several modules covering morale, alignment, and workplace performance.