Review: Get Them On Your Side

Title: Get Them On Your Side
Author: Samuel B. Bacharach
Publisher: Platinum Press
Pages: 228
ISBN: 1-59337-278-7

What does it take to succeed in an organization? Is it the hard dedication of your work? Is it the brilliance of your ideas? Is it your networking skills? What is the factor that causes one person to be acclaimed within the organization as a rising star and bright hope of the future while his colleague with the same abilities and skill set is sidelined? What is this elusive factor that puts some people on the high road of success while others end up traveling the low road of frustration?

Businesses demand results. Successful people in an organization are those who generate and more importantly successfully implement ideas that improve it in some fashion - whether by cutting costs, or improving existing products and services or launching entirely new products and services. Paper pushers will at best rise to a mid level and then stagnate. However, merely generating an idea is not enough. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Anyone who works in a field or in an organization will quickly generate many relevant ideas that if implemented will result in positive benefits to their organization. The problem is to get those ideas implemented. The key words here are if implemented. Markets are dynamic places. They are constantly changing and evolving. What works today will almost certainly not work tomorrow. This can be as a result of disruptive technologies - for example the iPod destroyed the market leader Sony Walkman in the portable music market; it can be a result of lower cost competitors - Japanese companies pushed Xerox, the inventor of the copier, out of the lower end of the copier market; it can be a result of changing consumer tastes or it can be a result of a whole host of other reasons. Whatever the reason, if organizations don't evolve and change along with the evolving and changing market, they will peter out and die. Changes within a company come as a result of ideas being generated and implemented by people working in that company.

Given the crucial importance of generating and more importantly implementing ideas, one would imagine that employees within a company will be highly receptive to new ideas and will evaluate each idea on its merit for implementation. However, that is not the case. Most people are inherently conservative and tend to resist new ideas specially where it impacts them directly. So anyone who wants to have their idea implemented has to win support and convert sceptics to their cause. The question is how?

Mr. Samuel Bacharach has given a framwork for accomplishing this in this book. This is a three step process which consists of:

1. Mapping the political terrain.
2. Getting people on your side.
3. Making things happen.

Each of these steps is elaborated upon in this book. For example, mapping the political terrain involves identifying the kinds of reactions that may be encountered when an idea is first broached. These tend to fall into one of six types.

1. "Your idea is too risky."
2. "That idea will actually make things worse."
3. "Your proposal won't change a thing."
4. "You don't know the issues well enough."
5. "You're doing it wrong."
6. "You have ulterior motives."

Notice how the objections range from attacking the idea itself to attacking the person proposing the idea. Overcoming these objections (or their variants) then involves identifying the basic agenda of the person objecting. The author identifies these agenda as:

1. Tinkering
2. Overhauling
3. Planning
4. Improvising

Each agenda has its own issues and concerns which need to be addressed appropriately. At each step, the author also notes the possible pitfalls that can destroy the idea. This framwork is a powerful approach to getting ideas implemented within an organization. This book is for anyone who wants to have an idea implemented regardless of the type of organization he works for. Definitely recommended.