Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, Second Edition

by Joseph Grenny

We worked with an organization in which managers never brought their projects in on budget. We asked them to create a flowchart of their project planning and execution process, and then we asked them to pinpoint crucial moments when problems occurred. They discovered they were caught in a vicious cycle. Executives thought their managers were wasteful, so they routinely sliced 20 percent off of their budgets and demanded that they deliver with the reduced resources. So managers routinely padded their budgets by 20 percent because they knew the executives’ tricks. The padding justified the cutting, which in turn justified the padding. The cycle perpetuated itself, and it drove trust ever lower. So, what cycle-cutting behavior should follow these crucial moments? After meeting and brainstorming with the leaders, the team identified the following vital behavior: “Whenever you think a budget is unrealistic, speak up with honesty and respect.” This behavior was vital because it forced people to talk about their real, not their inflated, estimates. It was a difficult behavior for the managers and executives to implement because their trust levels were so low. However, once employees began being honest with each other, the flywheel turned from a vicious to a virtuous cycle, and their projects began coming in on budget.