A strategy we suggest is the following;
1. Identify your key stakeholders (your manager? Your Councillor?) and what they may think of you. Tune into your audience’s priorities and understand their hot buttons.
2. Talk in their language. If they come from a pragmatic, engineering-type background, talk in UoutcomesU, Value For Money (VFM) and Return on Investment (ROI).
3. Ensure you have solid evidence to back up your assertions
4. Describe your current situation
5. Describe the desired situation
6. Create three strategies to close this gap.
7. Cost the options
8. Explain the risk they leave themselves open to if no action taken
9. Explain the benefit to them, not you, if they proceed with your option
10. Recommend one option and reiterate the benefits - how it will bring them closer to their goal.
Your culture will not only depend on the quality of your team as a whole but also on the quality of the leadership. Leadership happens at every level.
Thanks to Karen Mercer, Australia for the strategy model
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