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EP 208: Stakeholder pitching - How to win the buy in of internal stakeholders before you start prototyping- Jens Heitland

Welcome to HIQA - Human Innovation Questions Answered

Today we will cover the topic of winning stakeholders before you start prototyping an idea inside of your innovation funnel.

Links to today's show:

More about the  phases in the Podcast Episode 163: How to build a Innovation System here

https://www.jensheitland.com/podcasthome/ep-163-how-to-build-an-innovation-system-for-a-company

Episode 206- Engaging with Stakeholders in the strategize phase:
https://www.jensheitland.com/podcasthome/ep-206-innovation-strategy-gathering-hiqa

Human Innovation Academy: https://www.heitlandinnovation.com/human-innovation-academy

Heitland Innovation: https://www.heitlandinnovation.com/

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Please find all resources like video, audio, show notes and as well some shorter clips of the episode at https://www.jensheitland.com/

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Transcript:

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 This episode goes deeper into how do you pitch to your stakeholders so that they are on board. Before you even start validating and prototyping a specific idea that is related to a stakeholder.

How do you pitch your idea, the thing that is solving a problem inside of the organization to your stakeholders?

Start with the benefit for the person itself.

 So if that's a manager, what is the personal benefit for this? With the idea you have with the solution you want to test,

 what is the benefit for the department, the department this manager is leading? And the third one is the what is the benefit for the organization as the totality?

 And if you do this, then the person fields direct into your idea from the start. It's not about you selling it to the person, it's more about, Hey, there are so many benefits, wouldn't it make sense to do it? So, The first block, which you need to prepare.

 Then when we talk. The challenge itself, what problem do you solve with your idea?

 Again, you can go deeper into what is that on a personal level, what is that on a department level? What is that on an organization level? Links back to the strategized part, which is the phase number one. Where you need to have a clear understanding of what problems do you want to solve with the innovation funnel which you're managing.

 I always go into numbers. Numbers means KPI's business case topics

 important.

You need to translate your idea, your problem into numbers. The person understands.

 So if you talk to a finance person, then you talk about finance numbers. If you talk to her salesperson, then you talk to sales numbers. .

A lot of people are just focusing on their specific solution and how does that work in a isolated context?

 So you're building a prototype. What does it mean for this prototype? What is return on invest in this prototype? What do you want to achieve with this prototype? Take a step back and look into what numbers are you influencing. If things are scaling,

 look forward. , what are the different sales metrics? What are the different cost metrics?

What are the different income metrics that you are targeting on a long term perspective? With your prototype, with your idea,

 bear in mind you have not started validating. It's just having an idea, having maybe a conceptual description of it, and then you go to the stakeholders to get the buy-in from them.

And then the last bigger. Is request involvement and there you need to be very specific. I have done. Long way back in IKEA as an example where I was not specific enough. What does it really mean?

 So what resources do you need from the stakeholder? 📍 What buy-in do you need from the stakeholder? As an example, if you need a specific person, let's say the stakeholder is in marketing, you need a web designer, and this web designer is working in the marketing.

 How much hours do you calculate for this? To be involved in your project. Really be clear on what resources, money, time, people you request from the stakeholders. That's one part. Then  what is the personal engagement of that? Stakeholders,

 how can you elevate the stakeholder to be part of this? How is it benefiting this person?

That's why we started with that and now this person wants to be involved

 If you do it and then you can request, would you be interested in getting an update on a quarterly base, on a weekly base, on a monthly base, depending how close the relationship is required for your prototype, for your test, for your validation to be successful.

And then the last part in the request for involvement is, are there any other people you should talk to?

 Very, very, very simple. Done a lot of times wrong. People go into stakeholder conversation with a pitch perspective, a hundred percent prepared, having a slide deck, having everything staged out, but thinking only from their personal perspective, which means I'm the head of innovation.

I have this project, and we want to do this project. How can I push you to make it?

 It's the other way. How do you translate that into the perspective of the stakeholder so that the stakeholder is naturally supporting you in what you're doing, and then you meet the person, go deeper into the conversation, update your stakeholder record.

 If you get more stakeholders, bring them into your stakeholder mapping. If you see that this stakeholder is getting closer to you, move that stakeholder closer to you. If you get additional information about family, friends, hobbies, whatever the person is talking about, put that into your stakeholder record because you can use that advancing the relationship with that stakeholder on an ongoing base, and then put this stakeholder in your follow.

 Not every stakeholder is saying directly, yes, I'm jumping in, I'm supporting you.

 It doesn't matter. Keep the conversation going. Understand the perspective of the stakeholder as well. If they're rejecting your idea, if they don't want to be part of it, understand the reasons for it so that you can build arguments in the future which fit into their perspective.

 That's it. Very short episode today just to go deeper into pitching to stakeholders inside of the validation phase before you even start prototyping, because if you have this commitment of that stakeholders, The validation, you do something inside of the organization that is touching the core processes of this stakeholder will help you to do that more quickly, more easier, and this person is already involved before things are starting.

So you have the buy-in before you start. That's it for today. Thank you very much. See you in the next episode.