Get the Boss to Buy In
by Susan J. Ashford and James R. Detert
AN ENGINEERING MANAGER at an energy company—we’ll call him John Healy—wanted to sell his boss on a safer and cheaper gas-scrubbing technology. This might have been an easy task if his boss, the general manager, hadn’t selected the existing system just a year before. Instead it was, in Healy’s words, “a delicate process.” Fortunately, user reviews of the new technology had become available only in the past several months, which Healy tactfully mentioned in his presentation to the GM and other senior executives. He also included a detailed comparison of the two systems, drawing on implementations at comparable plants; the data suggested that the new system would remove contaminants ...
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