Getting buy-in to get things done | nicole@web
When you are working in any sort of leadership role, you'll have to get people to work toward initiatives that you're leading or make changes you're proposing. Whether you're a line manager running a team day-to-day, or a principal engineer pushing technical initiatives forward, it all comes down to the intersection of people and technology.
When you are in one of these roles and you're championing an initiative, it can feel like the goal is to get people to agree with you on the proposal. But what you really need is for people to actually do the work, not just say that it sounds good. There's a big difference, because it's much easier for someone to agree something should happen than to actually do it themselves. This is especially true if the work is time consuming, unpopular, or difficult.
One way to get people to go from agreeing it should happen to actually doing the work is to get buy-in. When you have buy-in, people will actively work toward the goal instead of just agreeing to it. Getting buy-in is hard. It's also extremely rewarding, and it's how you get real work done as a leader. Without it, the work falls away when you're not around. With it, everyone will push forward together.
