How to Sell Your Ideas at Work and Get Higher-Ups to Listen
职场必备技能：向他人“贩卖”你的观点
前言
先啰嗦几句，这就是昨天做的事情，当然一股脑儿做这个东西确实很缺乏经验，如何让一个门外汉都能心动，这就成功了
All of us have those “aha” moments at our jobs when we know, deep down, that we have just thought of a great idea.
But in some ways, the harder part is convincing everyone else.
Often there’s a disconnect between what employees think about their idea and how people who can make that idea happen see it, according to Ethan Burris, director of the center for leadership and ethics at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.
“Other people have different experiences inside work.They have different perspectives, they have different incentives.Especially your boss, he or she has a different vantage point on what’s happening in the organization that many individual contributors … just don’t.”
To bridge the gap, you need to slow down and start thinking strategically about when and how to communicate your awesome idea so it will actually be heard.
- Understand which ideas are likely to make the biggest difference.
To see which ideas are most likely to make a big difference and increase your own influence within the organization, listen to what your colleagues complain about, said Gorick Ng, a career adviser at Harvard University.
Ng noted that problems in the workplace sit on a spectrum.On one side are inconveniences, while on the other end are mission-critical problems that could derail projects and companies.And somewhere in the middle, but still close to the mission-critical side, are massive time-wasting pains.
“The more you align yourself with solving massive pains and mission-critical problems, the more likely people will be to recognize your potential — and your promotability,” Ng said.
“To identify these massive pains and mission-critical problems, pay attention to how often your manager and other higher-ups complain about something.The higher up the complainers are, the more complainers there are, and the more they complain, the bigger the opportunity may be.The better you understand what matters to those who matter, the better your odds of making an impact.”
- Identify the stakeholders and figure out what they want, so you can frame your idea in that language.
You want to voice your idea to the colleagues who can best help you execute it.And likely, that’s going to be your direct manager, who is often the person you talk with most and is the gateway to the rest of the company for you.
Career coach Ebony Joyce said co-workers are not just good for helping you refine the logistics of your idea; they are also great for giving you institutional knowledge about who is best to champion and implement it.
No matter who you go to, do your homework beforehand.“Be prepared for follow-up questions, be prepared for the whys. Why, when, how much?” said Joyce.
With all co-workers, it helps to ask yourself what the person’s priorities are and “What keywords and information pique their interest?” said Lawrese Brown, founder of C-Track Training, a workplace education company.
“Without buy-in, there’s no continued conversation or chance of implementation,” she said.“Basically, building buy-in is about ‘How can I position this so that people see the value in it for themselves and the organization?’”
“Every organization cares about the same five things: more, better, faster, cheaper and safer/more secure,” Ng said.“The more you can present your idea in terms of how it can help the team achieve more, better, faster, cheaper, and/or safer/more securely, the higher your odds of being heard.”
- Get inside your manager’s head.See if they are playing to win or playing not to lose.
Burris found that there are bosses who are either playing to win or playing not to lose, and you should frame your ideas around those types.He gave the example of marketing departments that love launching new products as those who are playing to win, while conservative legal departments that want sure bets as those who are playing not to lose.
“You are going to pitch the positives if it’s someone who plays to win, and you are going to talk about impending threats and problems if no action is taken if you are going to pitch to someone who plays not to lose,” he explained.
