Many quality management professionals describe their #1 problem as getting management buy-in to new quality management initiatives. So if you are in a new quality position or desperately need quality assurance program processes to change within your organization, how can you get management to sign off and support your new ideas?

1. Selling Quality to
Management: How to Get
Management Buy-In to New
April 30th, 2012
Quality Initiatives
Featuring Guest Speaker:
Brien Palmer, InterLINK Management
Consulting
Hosted by:
IBS America
THE PRODUCTIVITY ADVANTAGE

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IBS Overview THE PRODUCTIVITY ADVANTAGE

3. Brien Palmer
 Quality and Management Consultant for
20+ years
 “Economic Case for Quality” team leader
(Pittsburgh pilot run)
 Past chair of American Society for Quality,
Pittsburgh chapter
 CoREM Board trustee
 Managing Principal in InterLINK
Management Consulting
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4. Agenda
 Current Situation
 How Executives Think
 How to “Sell” Ideas
 Focusing on Business: Using a Business Case
 Selling Ideas to Your Organization
 Gaining Comfort Around Top Management
 Q&A
IBS Overview THE PRODUCTIVITY ADVANTAGE

5. The Business Case for This Webinar
1. Why should we do this?
To facilitate Quality principles in service to our
organizations and our careers.
2. What if we did NOT do it?
Our good ideas would not get implemented, hurting the
organization and frustrating ourselves.
3. What do we want when we finish?
Skills in “selling” Quality ideas to our organizations,
resulting in better performance, competitive success,
and more-skilled Quality professionals
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6. Some Crazy-Bad Projects
1. No customer input, no project plan, schedule
accountability, no priorities, managed by the vendor,
no sponsorship, no attempt to create acceptance by
the user community, and no forum for dissent or
criticism. (People talked to me, but would not speak
up in meetings.)
2. Manager (founder’s daughter) would not talk to
consultants, would not address her role in the process,
would not agree on work rules.
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7. Current State
 Technical Skills vs. Interpersonal Skills
 How Decisions Really Get Made
 Business and Personal Costs of Poor Management-communication
Skills
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8. You Need TWO Things
1. A Worthy 1. The Ability to
Idea SELL the Idea
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9. How NOT to do it
 Point out a problem and walk away.
 Focus on regulatory requirements but not business needs.
 Never leave the department.
 Over-use “jargon”.
 Avoid senior managers.
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10. How TO do it
 Become Project Manager of your idea
 Work with Other People.
 Get a management sponsor
 Create teams, partnerships, alliances, etc.
 Understand your Management and put your idea in
their context
 Their Objectives
 Business Case
 Cost/Benefits (ROI)
 Building Organizational Consensus
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11. How Executives Think
 Big Picture vs. Department or Project Focus
 Intuition vs. Analysis
 Quick Action vs. Ducks in a Row
 Boldness vs. Caution
 Extraversion vs. Introversion
 “The Language of Business”
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12. Economic Case for Quality:
What Sways CEOs?
89%
78% 73% 51%
#1: Conversation #2: Testimonials #3: A Case Study #4: Competitor’s
with peer CEO Financial Returns
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13. “Economic Case for Quality” Resources
 www.makinggoodgreat.org
 www.asq.org/economic-case/
 What Do CEOs Think About
Quality? Quality Progress
Magazine, May 2004
 Making the Economic Case
for Quality, by John Ryan
(ASQ White Paper)
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14. How to Quantify Cost Benefits
Use internal CFO resources
 Share assumptions and invite participation
 Offer to do a pilot run, then measure results
 Let your Financial people talk
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15. Building the Business Case
1) Why should we do this?
2) What if we did NOT do it?
3) What do we want when we finish?
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16. Business Case Considerations
 Address why any action is necessary. (If this is not clear, why
bother doing anything?)
 Emphasize the costs of NOT doing the thing. (People will
automatically focus on the costs of doing it.)
 Focus on the outcomes, not the process
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17. Uses of the Business Case:
 In selling ideas to executive teams
 In meetings where you have prepared a coalition of supporters
 At the beginning of a presentation, in order to reconnect with the
reasons for the project
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18. Sample Business Case:
 We waste a lot of time getting approval for small parts during
product development. We’d like to authorize each engineer to
spend $100 without signature.
 If we don’t do this, we’ll risk more delays in product development.
 With a $100 limit, we will still have protection, but we’ll eliminate
many delays.
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19. Practice in BUILDING A SIMPLE BUSINESS CASE: a speed
exercise
 Think of a Real Quality Idea You Have. Examples:
 Create an employee suggestion system
 Qualify the company to an ISO standard
 Track certain quality metrics
 Introducing a corrective action/preventive action system
 Survey employees re: effectiveness of work processes
 Do a kaizen or a lean blitz in a particular area
 Posting visible metrics in the work areas
 Track and analyze problems on a regular basis. (e.g., material review board)
 Introduce standardized work processes and procedures
 Jot It Down
 Consider the Following:
1) Why should we do this?
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20. Selling Ideas
 The Connotations of “Selling”
 “Why Should Anybody Care?” Tune in to WII-FM
 Use the Language of Business
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21. Principles of Consultative Selling
 Helping the Executive, from their perspective (not yours)
 Think “Pull”, not “Push”
 Trust and Selling
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22. Selling Ideas Across an Organization
 Gather like-minded colleagues and form a group (formal team or
ad hoc working group)
 Get a management sponsor
 Plan informal meetings with a critical mass of people:
stakeholders, experts, and decision-makers.
 Keep meetings exploratory. Use probing questions. Get their
opinions.
 Refine your proposal based on feedback.
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23. Tools for Organizational Interviews
 Use your business case to form an “elevator speech” that:
 Highlights the problem and current pain
 Outlines your solution
 Explains your plan to get organizational acceptance
by
ice
 sp ract rs
ake embe
Takes only 60-90 seconds
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This am m
te
 Ask probing questions
 Ask for their opinion and input
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24. Some Goals of Organizational Interviews
 Test the idea across several departments
 See how people feel about it.
 Ask for advice and help.
 Gain ownership on their part, if possible.
 See how opponents can be influenced.
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25. Presenting to Management
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26. What are the Challenges?
 You are exposing yourself to people who could
affect your career.
 Senior Managers can be impatient, brusque
and blunt.
 It is hard to get and keep their attention.
 The topic probably means a great deal to you
but less to them.
 They can ask questions that exceed your area
of expertise.
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27. Planning the Management Presentation (1 of 3)
• Before the presentation, BE PREPARED!
Previously engage a majority of the decision
makers.
• Know Your Audience, and shape your message
to them.
• Prepare a quick-hit business case (less than
one minute) and START with this slide.
• Use a human narrative, especially under “What
if we did NOT do this”
• Illustrate with anecdotes and stories.
• Make it interesting, not just technical.
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28. Planning the Management Presentation (2 of 3)
 Emphasize why this is important.
 Tell them that you will ask for their
action.
 Make major points. Illustrate with
human narratives (stories) whenever
possible.
 Use graphics whenever possible too
illustrate data.
 Stay strategic (i.e., high-level). For
detail, offer handouts, hip-pocket slides
and/or the big honkin’ book.
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29. Planning the Management Presentation (3 of 3)
 Try to set a theme that you use throughout.
 Move briskly. If you did your job well, you are reiterating
information, not presenting it for the first time.
 Plan to end at 20-30 minutes, with a summary, and a call to
action.
 Review your presentation and your meeting plan with your
sponsor, especially on how to handle objections.
IBS Overview THE PRODUCTIVITY ADVANTAGE

30. Maintaining Your Poise
 Remember, people want you to succeed.
 Rehearse your talk. Consider a dry run.
 Consider memorizing your introductory
slides. (After the first couple of minutes,
you will get past your nervousness.)
 When practicing, use positive imagery, like
professional athletes.
 Remember, you will have done your job.
Now, its their job.
 Breathe!
IBS Overview THE PRODUCTIVITY ADVANTAGE

31. DURING the Presentation
• At the beginning, announce that you would like a decision.
• Finish your presentation at about 20-30 minutes (not at 60 minutes.)
• ASK for the decision.
• Handle questions and objections in accordance with position and
expertise.
• Let your sponsor play a role.
IBS Overview THE PRODUCTIVITY ADVANTAGE

32. Learning Comfort Around Top
Management
 What Causes Discomfort around Managers?
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33. Strategies for Developing Comfort
 Practice
 Assignments and Projects
 Develop Coalitions
 Use Outsiders and Surrogates
 Questions and Active Listening
 The Value of Discomfort
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34. Thoughts to Take Away
 Become Project Manager of your idea
 Work with Other People.
 Get a management sponsor
 Create teams, partnerships, alliances, etc.
 Understand your Management and put your idea in their context
 Their Objectives
 Business Case
 Cost/Benefits (ROI)
 Building Organizational Consensus
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35. Thank You! Questions?
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36. For Further Information…
 Making Change Work: Practical Tools for Overcoming Human
Resistance to Change, by Brien Palmer. Published by ASQ’s Quality
Press
 The Case for Quality—Taking it to Management. Webinar
sponsored by ASQ.
 Selling Quality to Management: How to Get Management Buy-In to Qu
, IBS America-Sponsored Whitepaper written by Brien Palmer
IBS Overview THE PRODUCTIVITY ADVANTAGE