In today’s world of constant unrest — from geopolitical shifts to economic shocks – uncertainty isn’t a phase; it’s the playing field. To navigate it effectively, Dave Garrison, Co-Founder and Chief Navigation Officer of Garrison Growth, counsels his chief executive clients to lock in employee buy-in.
“We’re in a time of huge uncertainty,” Garrison explains. “The more things are unclear, the more we need to rely on every individual in our organization to be our eyes and ears on opportunities and problems.”
In his first book, out in June, “The Buy-In Advantage / Why Employees Stop Caring — and How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Give Their All,” the YPO member offers leaders everywhere a how-to manual to create buy-in at their organizations. He based the book on his learnings from his fellow YPO leaders – what worked for them – plus his own experiences as a CEO and board member.
He was encouraged to write it by a fellow YPO member who told Garrison he sometimes felt like he was climbing up a mountain, trailblazing for his company, setting direction and achieving new heights, but that when he looked down the mountain, he saw everyone else still at the mountain’s base.
“He is a great leader, lots of great ideas, but he was lacking buy-in,” Garrison explains. “The book goes through the process of what I do in my consulting business to help other great leaders take their businesses to the next level by getting everyone involved, getting everyone’s voices heard.”
A perfect storm
Millions are anxious about their futures – the first element of a three-part perfect storm that Garrison says is fueling today’s employee buy-in crisis. The other two? The pandemic, which prompted many to reevaluate their priorities and the role work plays in their lives, and Generation Z’s evolving attitude toward work.
“Yes, money is important to them, but so is purpose-matching and understanding what impact they can have on the business,” he says. “If they go into a culture where they’re just told what to do, they’ll either leave, or they’ll check out.”
So, buy-in = engagement.
— Dave Garrison share
Less than one-quarter of employees, globally, are engaged in their work, according to the multinational analytics company Gallup, Inc., and less than 30% of U.S. employees would recommend their employer.
Garrison defines engagement as the kind of enthusiasm people bring to a Friday night football game — or a soccer match, depending on where you live.
“How do we unlock that same passion and apply it to what we want to get done at work?” Garrison asks. “The difference between the passion you give to what you do for fun and what you give to work creates a costly gap.”
Gaining the advantage
In his book, Garrison spells out the why, when and how leaders can build buy-in at their organizations – and gain the competitive advantage. He cites Gallup’s findings that companies with higher engagement enjoy higher profits, better customer satisfaction, better safety ratings and lower turnover rates.
“Who wouldn’t want that?” Garrison asks. “The good news is, most big companies don’t get this stuff. Generating buy-in gives you a competitive advantage. And it costs nothing except time and intent.”
Garrison promises that recruiting with your company’s clear, compelling purpose and values means hiring the right candidates – those more likely to be engaged and stick around. Reducing turnover – the result of high buy-in – is a surefire way to reduce costs.
While investors may focus primarily on metrics such as profits, revenue growth and gross margins, they seldom ask about employee turnover, Garrison says, adding that hyperfocus on profits puts you on a hamster wheel.
“To get off the hamster wheel, you have to recognize that people are what create profits,” he says. “And if you’re spending all your time recruiting and training, it’s hard to move the business forward.”
But people who are engaged, he argues, create and contribute ideas, and identify problems early.
“Our hope is that executives will see the value in monetary terms of recognizing people as human beings, not human doings.”
Tap the collective genius
One way Garrison advises leaders to garner buy-in is to lean into a theory he calls ‘collective genius.’ It is the idea that ‘all of us is smarter than any of us.’
“Collectively, we make better decisions, generate more options and spot opportunities faster,” he explains. “Leaders enjoy more success when they include others in decision-making.”
Garrison describes meetings where an idea is presented, but the discussion goes nowhere.
“People try to either argue with the idea, come up with a better idea or defend the idea, and the conversation leaves most of the people sitting on the sidelines watching ping pong,” he says.
The collective genius process considers that in any given group of people, half need time to process new information and the other half can react to it right away. Garrison advises assigning pre-reads for any meeting that requires decisions.
“Ask people to come equipped to discuss the ideas,” he explains. “And if you need to ask an important question, allow a minute of silence for people to gather their thoughts and write them down. Otherwise, people will forget what they were thinking and go into this ping pong of reacting to whatever is said.”
Keep meetings to six people or fewer to encourage productive discussions – any more than that and you’re inviting people to tune out. If more than six are involved, break into small groups, he advises.
— Dave Garrison, Author, “The Buy-In Advantage” share
“In groups of three, you cannot hide,” Garrison teases. “Discuss the question or idea in your smaller group, and then someone reports out to the larger group so we can get the collective genius.”
Maximize your return on people
In the face of ongoing uncertainty, buy-in is essential for survival. The trust and high engagement that creates buy-in, Garrison explains, make people feel like they’re in it together and are making a difference.
For instance, if layoffs are unavoidable, Garrison recommends acknowledging the brutal reality of the situation and calling it like it is.
“Tell them, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but what I do know is we have a compelling purpose in our company. That hasn’t changed. We have values that we treat each other by and live by. And we have a strategy to deal with this.”
While still hard for everyone, people who understand your organization’s purpose understand that layoffs are not what you want.
Though leaders may occasionally take people for granted, Garrison argues it’s not intentional.
“It’s because we’ve never been taught how to think about return on people, he says. “The buy-in advantage is return on people: return on people’s experience, return on people’s ideas, and return on people’s enthusiasm.”
