A bureaucrat doesn’t care about good results, investing in a long-term solution, or the ROI of your product. They care about keeping their job and not getting in trouble.
I was listening to a podcast a while ago where the person being interviewed was talking about the sales process for people like this. He described the typical sales process of trying to appeal to FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) when you should be focussing on FOMU (Fear Of Mucking Up). "Nobody ever gets fired for choosing Microsoft"
Solid insights. These track with my experiences working to get people to adopt new technologies in large commercial and government bureaucracies at Palantir, Slingshot, Deloitte, and actually any company where I've dealt with this.
Really interesting Andy. Would love to hear your insights, especially anything surprising or unexpected you learned over the years working with bureaucracies.
Perhaps the most important thing I can note in the context of a quick comment is that while these people do exist and are serious blockers who need to be worked with productively...The skill for adoption, I think, is all about finding ways to get the few true believers who don't care about bureaucratic cost to take risk on behalf of your product and mission inside their buildings when you are not present. The insiders get far more done as champions than we can as outsiders.
At work, innovating from within (what my pub is about) is sometimes met with contraints. I had a post about navigating the powermap, but yours takes this next level! Really insightful!
Currently there was a Head of Engineering introduced between me and the CTO in a scale-up. So currently it’s open how our collaboration looks like. There are at least some signals, that this is not the person to jump fully into the weeds, ans be transparent about every „Crazy“ idea.
Which advice I deviated from you article;
I think I will, be open, figure out how to work effectively with him on the topics at hand and retain the sharing of innovative ideas a little bit at first, to find out if he is more bureaucratic or not seems to me a proper strategy. And last but not least, he is just arriving at the org, so much is new to him, so being empathic and give him time to orientate might be anyway a good idea.
Your list of social proofs immediately conjured up the rackety tale of a Stanford dropout and her scheme to test a drop of blood for myriad disorders. I don't think she missed a single one. This isn't meant as a knock on your suggestion.
Here are examples of social proof, and what the bureaucrat thinks when they see it.
Investors: “VCs were willing to put cash money in them. This company must be up-and-coming.”
Press: “A famous magazine thought they were good enough to write about.”
Word of mouth: “A friend I trust is saying this is worthwhile.”
Halo effect: “She went to MIT. She must be legit.”
Good design: “Their website looks good. They must be a real company.”
Testimonials: “Other people like me have liked this.”
Advisory board: “These people were willing to lend their names and faces. This must be credible.”
Customers: “They have lots of other customers. X number of people can’t be wrong.”
Like any tactic, social proof can be twisted and used for nefarious purposes. IMO It’s useful to be aware of influence tactics, so we can make sure we’re not being swept away by them and can maintain a healthy sense of skepticism. And also, so you can use social proof in a positive, ethical way as a tool in your toolbox.
Wes,
Right on the opening with "this is the policy", you made me think of, and then used as an example, a phrase that make some crawl up the wall:
"This is the way we’ve always done it.”
😡
Amazing piece as always. I really loved this line:
"Being a bureaucrat is a mentality, not a title."
I think knowing your audience is the main message here, then figuring out how to "present" to them.
Also reminded me of the 6 buying motives:
1) Desire for gain
2) Fear of loss
3) Comfort and convenience
4) Security and protection
5) Pride of ownership
6) Satisfaction of emotion
Our bureaucrat friends are squarely in #2 and #4, maybe even 3.
Preventing them from a Loss of their calm and peace, or strengthening their Security and Protection, are definitely the ways to go with them.
I just have to notice early on when I am talking with a bureaucrat mentality and change my tactic.
Thanks for the remainder.
"What will I tell my boss?"
I was listening to a podcast a while ago where the person being interviewed was talking about the sales process for people like this. He described the typical sales process of trying to appeal to FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) when you should be focussing on FOMU (Fear Of Mucking Up). "Nobody ever gets fired for choosing Microsoft"
Solid insights. These track with my experiences working to get people to adopt new technologies in large commercial and government bureaucracies at Palantir, Slingshot, Deloitte, and actually any company where I've dealt with this.
Really interesting Andy. Would love to hear your insights, especially anything surprising or unexpected you learned over the years working with bureaucracies.
Perhaps the most important thing I can note in the context of a quick comment is that while these people do exist and are serious blockers who need to be worked with productively...The skill for adoption, I think, is all about finding ways to get the few true believers who don't care about bureaucratic cost to take risk on behalf of your product and mission inside their buildings when you are not present. The insiders get far more done as champions than we can as outsiders.
Hi Wes, thanks for this great post, as always!
At work, innovating from within (what my pub is about) is sometimes met with contraints. I had a post about navigating the powermap, but yours takes this next level! Really insightful!
Sooooo many nuggets in here 😮💨😮💨😮💨
Thanks Wes! 😊
Currently there was a Head of Engineering introduced between me and the CTO in a scale-up. So currently it’s open how our collaboration looks like. There are at least some signals, that this is not the person to jump fully into the weeds, ans be transparent about every „Crazy“ idea.
Which advice I deviated from you article;
I think I will, be open, figure out how to work effectively with him on the topics at hand and retain the sharing of innovative ideas a little bit at first, to find out if he is more bureaucratic or not seems to me a proper strategy. And last but not least, he is just arriving at the org, so much is new to him, so being empathic and give him time to orientate might be anyway a good idea.
What do you think @Wes? Do I miss something?
Your list of social proofs immediately conjured up the rackety tale of a Stanford dropout and her scheme to test a drop of blood for myriad disorders. I don't think she missed a single one. This isn't meant as a knock on your suggestion.
Here are examples of social proof, and what the bureaucrat thinks when they see it.
Investors: “VCs were willing to put cash money in them. This company must be up-and-coming.”
Press: “A famous magazine thought they were good enough to write about.”
Word of mouth: “A friend I trust is saying this is worthwhile.”
Halo effect: “She went to MIT. She must be legit.”
Good design: “Their website looks good. They must be a real company.”
Testimonials: “Other people like me have liked this.”
Advisory board: “These people were willing to lend their names and faces. This must be credible.”
Customers: “They have lots of other customers. X number of people can’t be wrong.”
Like any tactic, social proof can be twisted and used for nefarious purposes. IMO It’s useful to be aware of influence tactics, so we can make sure we’re not being swept away by them and can maintain a healthy sense of skepticism. And also, so you can use social proof in a positive, ethical way as a tool in your toolbox.