100 PART II Bridging the Knowing-Doing Gap

• Hear from real live customers about what they want, what theylike about what you do, and what they despise.
  
• Hear from real live former customers telling you why they took their business elsewhere.
  
• Talk with counterparts in similar organizations who have faced the same challenges and handled them well. Or perhaps they have a horror story to tell about how things went poorly. Consider a field trip to those organizations.
  
• Talk with—and listen to—people from around the organization asthey tell about the challenges they face.
  
• Hear from an executive (or someone else) who your stakeholdersrespect deeply.
  
• Find alternative ways of providing data, such as photos or shortvideos.
  
• Open the books. Let people see what’s going on without the glaze of interpretation and bullet points. If needed, help the stakehold- ers connect the dots and interpret the financial implications of what’s going on today.
  
• Engage in personal chats. Hint: Your standing on stage with anaudience of 300 is not a personal chat.
  

Step 4: Decide on Your Approach

Time to choose. Pick an approach (or approaches, for different groups). Practice. Get feedback. Practice some more.

Then do it.

Watch people’s reactions. Remember, just because you make a pre- sentation doesn’t guarantee that others will be in awe. If they are less than moved by your stirring strategy, regroup and try something else.

You may be tempted to give up and move on to Getting Started on the Right Foot. Don’t. If you move to “how” before addressing “why” to their satisfaction, you’ll have a slow slog or a fight on your hands.

A general manager was exasperated. He could not get his management team to see the problem facing them. In a meeting, he blurted out, “Our plant is idle 40 percent of the time!” People gasped. With that single state- ment he did more than reams of spreadsheets had ever done to get people’s attention. Being idle 40 percent of the time worried folks—and that’s an emotional reaction. Sometimes our own mounting frustration (like “our plant is idle 40 percent of the time”) can result in an action that gets people’s attention.