No matter how good your problem solving is, if you can’t come up with a clear recommendation that’s compelling to your stakeholders, it’s all been for naught.
The last step in the problem solving process is coming up with a clear and concise recommendation. And I like to say you need to make assertions. Assertions are nothing more than facts stated to persuade.
I’ve used this method of making assertions with a telecom replacement project where we were going to replace all of the phone systems across our entire division. It was going to cost $4 million. That’s what I was going to the stakeholders asking for. I needed to make my case, so I put together my set of facts and my set of assertions to make that case and was successful in doing so. And you can do the same thing.
Now with assertions, you’re going to run into resistance. Your task is to overcome that resistance. The key to getting your idea supported is having the right set of facts and articulating them in a manner that’s going to be compelling to your audience. So, the most common types of resistance you’re going to hear, and I bet you’ve heard some of these things already in your past experience, are:
“Well, that’ll never work.” Well, bring assertions and facts that show it has worked somewhere else, perhaps in a different business unit or even one of your competitors.
You may hear, “Well it’s too expensive.” The assertions you need to bring to table are ones around the cost benefit analysis of making your recommendation.
You may find somebody says, “Well our customers won’t buy it.” You can build assertions and facts to support it by going and surveying customers or doing a small pilot in the market and gathering data from that.
Sometimes you’ll hear, “Well we don’t like any of the options that you’ve presented.” That’s my personal favorite, and that one feels like it’s really hard to overcome. The easiest way to overcome it is show them the cost of doing nothing. Show them the cost of letting your competitors continue to penetrate the market while you sit there on your hands. It can be a very compelling set of facts to pull together.
So as you’re thinking about your assertions and your recommendations, I want you to think about the recommendation you’re trying to make and what the right set of facts are that you need to pull together to compel your audience. I want you to think of some of these types of resistance you’re going to encounter and how you’re going to overcome it because there’s always a counterpoint to every point they’re going to make.
The real trick is making sure that you have the right of facts and a powerful assertion to overcome that resistance in front of you.
Want to learn more about solving business problems? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to solve business problems. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
