The colleagues others actually go to for advice, often below the senior ranks, get briefed first and in depth, so the proposal reaches everyone else through people they trust.
An example
The director of line maintenance at a regional airline was about to replace paper task cards with tablets across six stations, and the last attempt, under her predecessor, had died in the hangars. Before announcing anything, she asked the shift supervisors at each station one question: when a mechanic has a problem with a procedure, who do they go to? The same eleven names came back, most of them senior mechanics with no supervisory title. She spent two days with each station's group on the actual tablets, working through their objections about gloves, glare, and the sign-off screen. Three of their changes went into the configuration. When the formal rollout began a month later, mechanics at most stations had already heard from one of the eleven that the screens worked with gloves on. Training attendance was close to full, and the paper cards were retired two months ahead of plan.
Why it works
Arriving through people the wider group already trusts on exactly this kind of question, the proposal looks better to them. A recommendation from a respected colleague carries a judgment no memo from management can: someone who knows the work has looked and thinks it holds up. The briefing also gives those colleagues the depth to answer questions accurately. Finding the real advice hubs matters most, and they seldom match the org chart; after that, the proposal has to survive their honest scrutiny, since they will pass on doubts as readily as approval.
The thinking behind it
Everett M. Rogers Diffusion of Innovations (1962) holds that adoption spreads largely by interpersonal communication, and that opinion leaders, people others turn to for views on an innovation, have outsized influence on whether it is taken up. Briefing those people first puts the proposal into the channel adoption actually travels through. It also explains why their doubts matter as much as their approval: they shape the group's response in either direction.
David Krackhardt Informal Networks: The Company Behind the Chart (1993), by Krackhardt and Hanson, argues that much of a company's real work runs through informal networks, among them the advice network of who goes to whom for technical help, and that advice hubs often differ from those the chart suggests. That is why the opinion leaders have to be found by asking people whom they consult; a list drawn from titles would brief the wrong people.
When it fits
This suits changes that a large group of practitioners must adopt, where their trust in management is limited and their trust in one another is high: clinical staff, engineers, mechanics, sales teams, field crews. You need time to find the advice hubs, the willingness to change the proposal on their input, and something real to show them, a working version or concrete details.
How to use it well
Find the hubs by asking. Put the question to people at several levels, whom they go to when they need advice on the work, and look for the names that keep coming back. They are often senior individual contributors with no title to show for it.
- Brief them first, in person, in depth, and on the real thing.
- Ask for their objections and change the proposal where they are right; tell them which changes you made.
- Say plainly that you are briefing them because colleagues listen to them, and that you want their honest view passed on, good or bad.
- Keep them informed through the rollout so what they tell others stays accurate.
What it costs and where it backfires
It takes time, and it hands influence over the outcome to people who may not agree with you. If the hubs find the proposal wanting, they will say so to everyone, and you will have made the opposition better informed. Going around formal supervisors can strain those relationships unless they know what you are doing. Asking the hubs to pass on a message they do not believe, or scripting what they say, turns them into a mouthpiece and costs them the trust that made them worth briefing.
When it is used on you
Colleagues whose judgment you trust sometimes arrive at a view on a new initiative earlier than everyone else. Ask them what they were shown and what they asked; their briefing may be useful to you as well. Judge the proposal on its substance, and if you are a supervisor who was bypassed, ask to be included in the next round.