Your goal is to move an individual, department or organization in a new direction. You're looking for ideas, techniques and strategies to rapidly create buy-in and lower resistance to your new direction.

One important piece of the "buy-in" puzzle is answering the question, "What's in it for me?"

Your team is listening to radio station 'WIIFM'. "What's in it for me?" With every change, shift or new initiative, the small little voice is asking this universal question..."What's in it for me?"

Fail to answer this question and you set yourself up for headaches, hassles and resistance. Answer the question effectively and you not only lower resistance and enhance the buy-in equation, but you might even tap into your team's discretionary effort.

The great Philosopher, Snoopy, said it well: "Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably be a dog. SIGH!! There's little hope for advancement." Your team is interested in what this change means to their advancement in life.

A PLUS 10% technique for answering this important question is to assist your team in discovering their own, personal WIIFM's. Self-discovery of one's WIIFM's is always more effective than being told what your WIIFM's might be.

We use a simple technique in our training to help individuals identify their three most meaningful WIIFM's; the three biggest benefits of embracing the transition or change. Try this technique with your team and watch buy-in increase and resistance lower.

In teams of six to eight, (the exact number isn't important. What we're trying to create is a resource pool large enough to generate sufficient ideas, but small enough so everyone can participate.) challenge each team to "brainstorm" all the benefits to them personally and to the company if they...(you "fill in the blank").

We generally work with companies interested in making a shift to becoming a "more customer focused" organization. Therefore, our "fill in the blank" might read like this: "Brainstorm all the benefits to you personally and to the company of creating 'WOW!' service in our organization."

Challenge the group to discover ten to twenty possible "benefits" to the above statement. Prime the pump with a possible answer. A good one might include: personal satisfaction, or pride in a job well done.

Give the group time to list possible answers. Here are a few of the benefits others have offered of creating a 'WOW!' service environment in their organization:

· More money
· Reduced turnover
· Increased referral business
· Enhanced repeat business
· More fun on the job
· Fewer headaches and hassles
· Less stress
· More proactive time, less reactive time
· Job security
· Positive reputation (You're going to get a reputation-it might as well be a positive one!)
· Increased Balance in their life (Like having a social life! I can see this is a foreign concept and perhaps a great topic for another article!!)
· Happier customers
· Less reworks
· Rebound from breakdowns (When things do go wrong with customers, as they often will, we're able to more effectively "rebound" from the "breakdown". Why? Because we have a positive track record of good performance with the customer.)
· Improved employee benefits
· Sense of contribution or satisfaction

After the group has discovered all the possible benefits, invite each individual to review the list and select the three items most important to them. This is not a group activity, it's personal.

Conceptually, each person could create a separate list of the three benefits most important to them. This is perfect. We want each person to discover his or her personal hot buttons for moving closer to the new vision. (Remember, we talked about the importance of creating a compelling vision in a previous article. If you missed it, Click Here)

What have you now accomplished? You've helped your team discover their own WIIFM's of embracing the change. This process isn't magical and won't solve all your problems, but just try to move forward without addressing the WIIFM issue—it'll be like pushing a boulder up a mountain—a really steep mountain.