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WHY TEAM BUY-IN MATTERS AND HOW TO GET IT

Reading time: about 8 min

You know the old saying about teamwork: two heads are better than one. But when
tackling a project at the workplace, it can be hard to get two people—or three
or thirteen—to agree to work together. Good teamwork hinges on a leader's
ability to help their team feel inspired, cohesive, and clear about a project
they're working on and for each employee to see why and how their contributions
matter.

It might sound like a hassle to switch from the top-down, solitary, or siloed
way that work is often done in companies. But the benefits are more than worth
it—for the company, the individual, and the bottom line.


WHY TEAM BUY-IN MATTERS

Sure, collaborating on team-based projects sounds warm and fuzzy, but it also
benefits the organization, the company, and the individual employees in
tangible, measurable ways.


GIVES EVERYONE MORE OWNERSHIP

Gone are the workplace of old, where a select few managers made all the
decisions, and individual employees contributed their small bit to the bigger
vision in departmental or project silos. The new workplace is collaborative,
communicative, and cross-departmental, allowing employees to contribute to more
phases of a project—from strategizing to brainstorming to implementation. This
new model allows employees to see the big picture behind their work and
appreciate how their individual work contributes to that whole. This in turn
inspires employees to be more productive, take bigger risks, and feel more
engaged, increasing their loyalty to the company.


BALANCES STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Every workplace has employees who shine in some areas and struggle in others.
One employee might excel at organization and strategy but struggle to come up
with creative ideas. Another might brainstorm like a pro but feel lost when it
comes to implementation. Team buy-in allows managers to match employee strengths
and weaknesses in a complementary way, which takes all the responsibility off of
one individual and allows teams to pick up each other's slack and build a sum
greater than its parts.


PROMOTES CREATIVITY AND RISK-TAKING

Even the most innovative, creative employees run out of steam or ideas at some
point, and many are reluctant to pitch a risky idea for fear that they will bear
the brunt of failure alone. But when teams are set free to make decisions, one
person's ideas can spark and inform another's, allowing more creativity and
better ideas to emerge. 

Team members can also use their different strengths to challenge each other
respectfully and point out weaknesses or problems with ideas that might not be
clear to one person—or even one department—alone. Similarly, working as a team
allows the group to share the burden of risk, allowing more innovative ideas to
emerge and helping individual employees to feel inspired and appreciated. But it
also benefits the business more broadly, allowing the best, most cutting-edge
ideas to rise to the surface.

Team buy-in is important for individual and organizational morale and
performance. And it's supported by employers: 75% of whom rated teamwork as very
important in a recent study. Additionally, 37%  of employees said that working
with a great team is their main reason for staying at a company. But there's a
gap between these priorities and company performance—and competence. 39% of
employees say that their workplaces don't collaborate enough, and ⅘ of leaders
said they did not feel prepared to get team buy-in on their projects.


HOW TO GET BUY-IN FROM YOUR TEAM

So how do you bridge the gap between teamwork as an idea and teamwork in real
life? Here are ways to build team buy-in and reap the benefits of collaboration.


SHARE YOUR VISION FOR A PROJECT

Often, managers will strategize, prioritize, and deliver a project to their team
entirely on their own, and then expect their employees to execute it entirely on
their own. But this is a surefire way to guarantee that employees are
uninspired, unmotivated, and underutilized. 

Next time you share a project, ask your team for feedback. Encourage employees
to share ideas, constructive critiques, and questions about the project, from
big-picture to implementation. Having more brains in the room will help you see
the strengths and weaknesses of your proposal in ways that you couldn't see
alone. It will also allow employees to help craft the project from start to
finish, which gives them more ownership over the project and motivation to
engage. Be prepared to compromise to ensure that the project meets the
big-picture goals and motivates the people working on it. You can even get
feedback and buy-in from key people before the meeting, ensuring that your
proposal is as good as it can be before you start and has cheerleaders in the
room from the beginning.

Finally, help your team see why the project is essential, not just how to
execute it. A why statement clearly envisions the difference you want to make
with the project and the actions necessary to achieve that goal. It offers
people the motivation to commit to the project for the long haul and shows
people how their individual strengths will help make it happen. To drill down to
the why, you can brainstorm where the company is at the moment, where it would
like to be in the near and long-term future, and how this project can help move
toward that goal. 


EMPHASIZE THE VALUE OF TEAMWORK 

Many employees might be excited about the project but reluctant to shift from
the familiar territory of solo work to the complexities of working on a team.
Invite and acknowledge your team members' concerns about this while highlighting
how teamwork actually makes projects easier. Inspire them by reminding them that
organizations that work collaboratively are often more efficient, more
effective, and more motivated to do the work. Let them know that teamwork will
help distribute the workload to do more of what they love and less of what they
don't while letting others' strengths and interests complement their own. 

Find what your team members value and speak to those priorities. Do they care
most about saving time? Reducing costs? Enjoying each others' company? Speak to
the ways that teamwork can help them meet those priorities.

Don't be afraid to get creative. Show your team that teamwork can be enjoyable
by doing an activity together or brainstorming a new project from a beautiful
location. Showcase case studies where other companies used teamwork to help
improve their products and outcomes. 


GIVE TEAM MEMBERS OWNERSHIP

You can have a brilliant vision and a shared objective, but even the best-laid
team plans will fall apart without team ownership of the actual process. When
forming a team, take time with each individual to explain why you chose them for
the team and what strengths you see them bringing to the project. Talk with them
about their fears, reservations, or weaknesses that they see getting in the way
of their performance, and help them get the training, assistance, or inspiration
they need to do their best—ideally from another team member. Explain how the
strengths of people on the team will help the whole group achieve its goals. 

Finally, assign different parts of the project to other team members to own,
setting goals around these particular individual focus areas and showing the
team how these objectives will cohere into a whole.


BE TRANSPARENT WITH PROJECT TIMELINES AND OBJECTIVES 

Once you have a clear idea of your goal, be as transparent and communicative as
possible about how you will achieve it. Create project timelines that build
toward individual objectives and ramp up toward the end goal. Help team members
visualize these processes with software like Lucidchart and Lucidspark, which
allow them to see the whole plan from start to finish and how their objectives
and projects feed into the overall timeline and goals. This will enable
employees to pace themselves, see how their current work builds toward a whole,
and understand when and how your team will achieve project goals.

Lucidchart process flow example (click on image to modify online)Lucidspark
project timeline template (click on image to modify online)


RECOGNIZE CONTRIBUTIONS MADE BY TEAM MEMBERS

It takes more than a shared goal and clear roles to inspire team buy-in. Team
members don't just want to be part of something bigger—they want to be
recognized for their contributions. In fact, 40% of Americans say they'd put
more energy into their work if they were recognized more often, but 82% say that
their supervisors don't appreciate them enough for their contributions. This
lack of recognition can create burn-out, resentment, and low-quality work—all
damaging to the spirit of working together as a team. 

It's crucial to incorporate employee recognition into the project vision.
Acknowledging and appreciating employees shouldn't be a one-off or ad hoc
affair. Build ways to recognize growth, strengths, and contributions into the
project timeline, allowing regular meetings, moments, and feedback sessions
where team leaders can express appreciation for team members' contributions—from
a simple "good work" to a handwritten note or a mid-project party. 

Want more information on building team ownership?

 



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