Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down

"John Kotter has done it again! With coauthor Lorne Whitehead, he offers extremely savvy advice for innovators and managers on how to sell your ideas. Buy-In is packed with practical insights and useful techniques."---Bill George Professer of Management Practice. Harvard Business School and author, True North." "John Kotter is the ultimate authority on change leadership. With this book, he and Lorne Whitehead bring the excitement back into the change process by providing sharp and practical ways to garner support for your ideas that could make change happen."---Sangeeth Varghese Chairman, LeadCap and Young Global Leader 2010, World Economic Forum" "In research and education---just as in business---progress is often delayed not by a shortage of good ideas, but rather because people aren't convinced to adopt them. This book will help everyone promote the good ideas that deserve success."---Maria Klawe President, Harvey Mudet College" "This book teaches judolike moves to explain and defend your proposal: let the bad guys swing at you and use their energy to move your plan forward. With a fun, fictional story and concise explanation, Kotter and Whitehead make the techniques clear and simple, I love it!"---Dave Hitz Founder and Executive Vice President, Net App, and author. How to Cautrate a Bull: Unexpected Lessons on Risk, Growth, and Success in Business" "Kotter and Whitehead have written an immensely readable and compelling book on how to get buy-in for good ideas. Filled with concrete examples and wise advice, this is a handbook for reformers and a manual for anyone who favors thoughtful change over risk-averse delay."---Lee S. Shulman President Emeritus, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Charles E. Ducemmun Professor of Education Emetitus, Stanford University" "The strategies John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead outline in Buy-In are simple, direct, and invaluable. Their no-nonsense yet well-reasoned approach produces real results that make positive change happen."---Aris S. Candris President and CEO, Westinghouse Electric Company" "You believe in a good idea. You know it could make a crucial difference for you, your organization, your community. You present it, hoping for enthusiastic support. Instead, you get confounding questions, inane comments, and verbal bullets. Before you know what's hit you, your idea is dead, shot down." "It doesn't have to be this way, say John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead. In Buy-In, they reveal how to protect good ideas and win the support needed to deliver valuable results." "Through the device of a fresh and amusing fictional narrative, the authors vividly show how avoiding or attempting to quash attackers doesn't work. According to their counterintuitive approach, it's far better to respectfully engage these adversaries and stand your ground with simple, convincing responses that save the day. By "inviting in the lions" to critique your idea, and preparing yourself for what they'll throw at you, you'll capture busy people's attention. You'll help them grasp your proposal's value. And you'll secure their commitment to implementing the solution---winning their minds and hearts." Smart, practical, and brimming with useful advice, Buy-In equips you to anticipate attacks and turn them to your advantage---so your good idea survives to make a positive change.

You've got a good idea. You know it could make a crucial difference for you, your organization, your community. You present it to the group, but get confounding questions, inane comments, and verbal bullets in return. Before you know what's happened, your idea is dead, shot down. You're furious. Everyone has lost: Those who would have benefited from your proposal. You. Your company. Perhaps even the country.

It doesn't have to be this way, maintain John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead. In Buy-In, they reveal how to win the support your idea needs to deliver valuable results. The key? Understand the generic attack strategies that naysayers and obfuscators deploy time and time again. Then engage these adversaries with tactics tailored to each strategy. By "inviting in the lions" to critique your idea—and being prepared for them—you'll capture busy people's attention, help them grasp your proposal's value, and secure their commitment to implementing the solution.

The book presents a fresh and amusing fictional narrative showing attack strategies in action. It then provides several specific counterstrategies for each basic category the authors have defined—including:

· Death-by-delay: Your enemies push discussion of your idea so far into the future it's forgotten.

· Confusion: They present so much data that confidence in your proposal dies.

· Fearmongering: Critics catalyze irrational anxieties about your idea.

· Character assassination: They slam your reputation and credibility.

Smart, practical, and filled with useful advice, Buy-In equips you to anticipate and combat attacks—so your good idea makes it through to make a positive change.

John P. Kotter is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School and is widely considered the world's foremost authority on leadership and change. Lorne A. Whitehead is Leader of Education Innovation at the University of British Columbia, where he has also been a professor and the NSERC/3M Chairholder in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.