I’m about to reveal a time when I fell head first into the slop and still managed to come out smelling like a rose. By ultimately thinking like an entrepreneur, I was able to get my way as a small fish in a very large corporate pond.

A few years back I was the e-business manager for a business group within a Fortune 50 corporation. In addition to wearing all of the Internet and e-commerce hats for my group, I was also part of a global interactive marketing team whose members shared space (and a content management system) on the corporate web site. The site was organized in a very product centric way, but my business needed to add some customer centric content aimed at each of the vast array of vertical markets we targeted (construction, education, health care to name a few). Because of the way our content management system worked, I needed buy-in from all the groups before we could proceed.

We All Know What Happens When You Assume
Within my group this was a golden idea and I was receiving high praise for suggesting we put this project in place. Consequently, I assumed this was a slam dunk, no brainer idea and didn’t take the time to “test the waters” with the key stakeholders OUTSIDE my business group. Big mistake.

I also had the supreme arrogance to simply put this idea forward as something we were going to do during a global conference call with probably 50 participants on hand. A bigger mistake.

I was now oh for two and decided to step out of the batter’s box to collect myself.

Listen Up
After licking my proverbial wounds I took a tentative step back into the fray. THIS time I actually had one-on-one conversations with key stakeholders – or I had chats with very small groups.

Here’s what I discovered when I listened: People actually liked my idea!

Huh? I had to be hosed off to get rid of all the metaphoric rotten tomatoes heaved my way during that original conference call.

People liked the idea, but instead of seeing it as an opportunity they saw it as more work on already overflowing plates. There had been many rounds of layoffs in recent years and everyone was understaffed and overworked. My idea, as originally presented, was adding insult to injury.

Compromise
Now we were getting somewhere! I knew what the problem was and simply had to find a solution.

It was actually fairly simple. My group had quite a bit of suitable content already prepared. The other groups had similar products targeted to different tiers or perhaps slightly different verticals. I offered to work with them to help tweak our content to suit their needs – and I offered a more relaxed time line for publishing the content.

Happy days!

The Moral of the Story
These things hold true whether you’re an entrepreneur working with colleagues and customers, a marketing maven getting the word out via social media, a corporate employee, or a work from home Mom:

• Never assume. Get all the facts. Talk to all the stakeholders before you put a plan together.
• Always listen. Even if you can’t include their ideas, people appreciate having a voice. And the bonus is that you just may hear your next best idea!

Bye for now!

~ Deborah