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CHAPTER 9 MOVEMENT Convert to ­sustained action

‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’ Lao Tzu

Be honest now, did you skip ahead to this chapter at some stage thinking: Movement? That's what I'm after. Lights, camera, action — I'll go straight there!

Or perhaps you got to the end of the previous chapter and thought: Great, we've got the ‘yes’ we were after. Surely now I can relax and pop the champagne. I'm done, right? … Sorry, but you couldn't be more wrong.

Both of these are common pitfalls when it comes to the gentle art of buy-in. Either we try to push things along and move too quickly as a result (remember the mantra from chapter 8: ‘go slow to go fast’), or we hear the ‘yes’ we've been working so hard to achieve and assume all our work is done.

Perhaps you've been in a meeting, presentation or part of a conversation where there's been an overwhelming sense of positive spirit in the room, where everyone has sat earnestly nodding and declaring their enthusiastic support for an idea. Then, only days later, you find yourself standing in the corridor feeling the cold wind of inertia tickling your face, wondering what on earth is wrong with everyone? Why aren't people doing what they said they would do?

It's one thing for people to say yes, but it's quite another for them to act on it, even with the best intentions. To quote Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, ...