It’s remarkable how often this comes up as a theme: the challenge of getting a group of people on board with a course of action.
Our natural inclination is often that the hard task in a situation is working out what to do and the easy bit is taking other people along with us.
But really…
It’s the other way round: Working out what to do is the easy bit and taking everyone else along with us is the hard part.
And so it makes sense to put that first: To recognise that time spent in the “social” process is worth it in the long run, and that we should organise around that.
This seems rather obvious but still we often do the opposite: We revert to working out the solution ourselves and then trying to sell it, which actually is much harder.
Much better to get the group to develop the solution and apply our expertise in guiding them in that process. Then we don’t need to sell the plan to them… because it’s already theirs.
It’s a fundamental trait of human nature not to resist things we say ourselves—and one that’s worth making use of.
Then it’s easy to take people along with us.