As the Product Owner for a new internal procurement app at a midsized retailer whose process is straight out of the 1990s. Worse, the approval rules are nearly as complicated as the Canadian tax code. Right now, the organization juggles everything with a patchwork of spreadsheets and a homegrown reporting system that claims to give senior management visibility into spending. Too bad the system is always a few months behind in reporting. Even Worse, many purchasing decisions are made on an ad hoc basis, bypassing the official process.
Your team is developing a shiny new application to replace this chaotic system. This should be slam dunk.
The catch: the administrative staff is your biggest hurdle. You’re trying to make their lives easier, they should be happy. Instead, years entrenched habits are getting in the way. Everyone has their own excel spreadsheet template (some handed down for generations). From their perspective, these spreadsheets work. They see the procurement system as being imposed on them by management.
Here are just a few Influence Problems standing in your way:
- Loss of Autonomy: Railroading people into change? Prepare for pushback.
- Status Quo Bias: “The current system works well enough for us, thank you!”
- Endowment Effect: We tend to overvalue our makeshift solutions—yes, even rubber bands and duct tape count!
- Uncertainty: Past promises of improvement have fallen flat. Why should they trust you this time? All they see are the risks if they switch.
- Corroborating Evidence: Before they buy into the shiny new thing, they want success stories from someone just like them.
Is any wonder the people who spend the most time doing procurement work are mistrustful? No matter how much better our new product is, we’ve walked into an Influence minefield.
Tomorrow we will look at overcoming all of these problems
#YourTurn: Where have you encountered these #Influence obstacles?
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