Driving successful transformation initiatives demands carefully curated strategies. The first task at the top of that list? Begin to secure C-suite and board members' buy-in.
This executive brief discusses how to do that by effectively navigating the terrain, addressing diverse agendas, and ensuring alignments all while steering through internal politics, pushbacks, and resistances.
This roundtable was held on October 17th, 2024.
Roundtable Participants
Led by Nellie Wartoft, CEO of Tigerhall and Chair of the ECLC
- Alessandro Prieto, Analog Devices - Senior Director, HR North America Lead
- Andrew Spector, Paramount - Senior Director, Change Management
- Bill Munley, Customers Bank - SVP, People Experience Team (PXT), Shared Services
- Cenina Saxton, Global Payments - Senior Director, Talent Management
- Desiree Duarte, IQVIA - Communications & Change Lead
- Erica Howard, Managing Director, Office of the CAO - Head of Strategy Deployment & Governance
- Eva Rich, Deluxe - Enterprise Transformation Officer
- Ian Peter, St. Lucia Electricity Services - Chief Strategy Officer
- Jay Morrison, Morgan Stanley - COO and Head of Strategy
- Jennifer Asplund, RTX - Vice President Enterprise Services | Operational Excellence
- Julie Whitten, Upstate Niagara Cooperative - Vice President, Change Management and Communications
- Laureen Knudsen, Broadcom - Chief Transformation Officer
- Laurie Ditch, iMerit - Sr. Director, Organizational Strategy and Operations
- Marjorie Etter, Meta - Global Training, Knowledge & Change Management Leader
- Mary Fairchild, F5 - VP of Culture and Talent Development
- Michelle Weetman, ADP - Senior Director, Strategic Planning
- Nadine Hammer, Genentech - Sr. Organizational Change Lead - Product Development, Portfolio, Strategy, and Delivery
- Nicolas Becquet, Pernod Ricard - Transformation Senior Director
- Robert Leeds, WPP - Senior Director, People Operations and Transformation, Change and Communications
- Saumya Vardhan, Yahoo - Digital Transformation Office Leader
- Scott Namowicz, Wells Fargo - SVP, Head of Transformation - Consumer Banking
- Stacey Taylor, Visa - VP, Implementation & Change
- Subba Marellapudi, Consulting Partner
- Sundeep Thusoo, Philips - Director, Business Transformation
- Vanessa Hammett, Mars - Change Communications Lead
- Will Nolan, EveryLife Foundation for Rare Diseases - Chief Marketing & Communications Officer
- Yann Galand, BNP Paribas - VP Change and Transformation
Winning Over the C-Suite & Board Members: Key Strategies to Secure Buy-In
Step 1: Build a Strong Business Case
✔ Gather Information with Initial Research
Talk to stakeholders and collect important feedback on the transformation you are planning to embark on. Ask what they think is working well, the opportunities, what they like about the current approach, and if they would be okay with changing it.
“Don’t over-engineer the process. Take the pieces that have worked well in the past and build on them. What’s most important is to drive good behavior and identify roadmaps to get the basics right before diving deeper.”
Cenina Saxton - Senior Director, Talent Management | Global Payments
“Treat an executive pitch as a deck or memo to lay out a known business issue and propose a solution. It can be one to address issues such as gaps in tools and processes, identifying roadblocks that may be halting the company from achieving its strategic goals, or even issues related to workforce capabilities and culture.”
Stacey Taylor - VP, Implementation & Change | Visa
✔ Understand Priorities & WIIFM
Identify the organization’s priorities and find the WIIFM factors that influence the decisions of key stakeholders. Build your business case that aligns with these elements. No matter what transformation you do, what are the ultimate goals for the organization?
“The board is more concerned about the results than the methods. Try to seek approval on the overall change strategy rather than specific initiatives. This way, you will be able to take rein in the processes and methodology as long as the targets of the strategic objectives are achieved.”
Ian Peter - Chief Strategy Officer | St. Lucia Electricity Services
✔ Leverage Data-Backed Approach
While sentiment can be helpful, presenting hard data is essential in gaining approval. Show quantifiable data to demonstrate potential ROIs such as revenue and savings, on top of other goals including any operational improvement factors such as customer experience. Numbers build transparency and accountability.
Step 2: Engage Early & Often
✔ Find the Right Timing
Early engagement is important to provide ample time for you to make a solid case around the initiative. That early stage is also when advocacy or a well-established network can help see if the organization is ready for a new initiative. It is best to engage and get the C-suite and board members involved at least six weeks before the start of a program to get the whys of the change agreed upon across the board.
✔ Identify Change Maturity
When your organization has grown too quickly, you may end up with change leaders with different proficiencies or standards across the organization. Think about how you can standardize the change function across your company.
“For big-sized organizations, it is also possible that certain people have not yet been exposed to certain levels of change maturity within the company. This requires reeducation on green changes vs. mature changes to create better alignment.”
Marjorie Etter - Global Training, Knowledge & Change Management Leader | Meta
Green change refers to early-stage transformations that are still evolving and may require additional refinement or development in terms of processes, strategies, and leadership maturity.
Mature change is a well-established, fully developed transformation with proven processes, clear strategies, and experienced leadership that can be scaled and replicated.
One Size Doesn’t Fit All, Tailor Your Approach When Engaging Different CXOs
Divide & Conquer: Learn to Speak Their Languages
✔ Identify Goals & Agendas
Know your audience and evaluate how transformation initiatives can help the CxOs look good to their people and the rest of the C-suite and board members. Work on one particular leader at a time and create outputs that are aligned with their requirements and goals.
“Every C-level executive has a different personality and mindset. Figure out how to speak their language to understand their goals, agendas, and strategies. Identify which outcomes resonate with them the most. Is it data, technology, or people?”
Subba Marellapudi - Consulting Partner
“C-suite members are knowledgeable to the organization’s ins and outs and are usually more invested when you tie the transformation back to the business outcomes. For Board members, you might need to focus additionally on education so that they accurately understand the objectives and perspectives related to your transformation.”
Vanessa Hammett - Change Communication Lead | Mars
“Discern between individualistic agendas and differentiated perspectives that may come across as ‘political’ since there is a huge difference between the two of them.”
Eva Rich - Enterprise Transformation Officer | Deluxe
✔ Personalize the ROIs
Highlight the outputs in different ‘flavors’ to frame and personalize the appeal of change. Focus on technological gains when talking to the CTO or CIO. For example, application rationalization, minimizing maintenance, integration with the cloud, etc. Meanwhile, highlight the financial benefits of the transformation when appealing to the CFO.
“View it as translating messages differently for folks who speak different languages. When engaging individually, focus on the piece of their pie and present strong WIIFM in data terms.”
Marjorie Etter - Global Training, Knowledge & Change Management Leader | Meta
“Explanation should be tailored to each stakeholder, addressing what they care about, be it the financial outcomes, strategic alignment, long-term benefits, etc.”
Desiree Duarte - Communications & Change Lead | IQVIA
✔ Appeal with Emotions, Follow with Logic
Communicate your message in a way that you can gain buy-in by tapping into their emotions. Start with a convincing emotional pitch followed by a strong business case that outlines each item in more detail.
Politics in the Suite: Overcoming Roadblocks & Diverging Agendas
Internal politics can be disruptive to the progress of change. It is essential to build company cultures and hiring practices that cut through it. However, since existing political plays cannot be ignored, transformational leaders still need to understand them to push things through. There is always a secret agenda so how can you make it work for you?
“It is easier to nip politics in the bud when the project is tied to enterprise transformation since you can illustrate the need to get to a specific outcome tied to the change.”
Stacey Taylor - VP, Implementation & Change | Visa
✔ Ensuring Transparency in Communication
Be transparent with C-suite and board members on how internal politics may threaten a transformation's progress and success.
“Translate and understand others' agendas to get you to where you need to be, both for the business and the impacted parties. This is much better and less complicated than having to experience pushback. The latter can be more paralyzing and stops you from accomplishing anything, which in turn causes more trouble for the impacted workers.”
Marjorie Etter - Global Training, Knowledge & Change Management Leader | Meta
✔ Call Out Bad Behaviors
Call out disruptive, passive-aggressive, or manipulative behavior and address them publicly to help shift the company culture and disable similar conduct in the future. Counter back with factual and informative challenges.
“If you incentivize drama, you will keep getting drama. You can’t make real change in the organization with stakeholders who are set on fighting and squabbling with each other.”
Laureen Knudsen - Chief Transformation Officer | Broadcom
“Politics happen when people get insecure or misalignment occurs. Some may think that it will be to their advantage to not cooperate. If the problem is insecurity, point it out. If it's a lack of understanding, simplify the message and make transformation easier to understand.”
Sundeep Thusoo - Director Business Transformation | Philips
✔ Understanding Values and Opinions
Some individuals are more prone to let their own values, beliefs, and goals serve as the guiding light when making decisions. It is important for them to understand that this is business and not personal.
“Everyone is influenced by their own values and mindset. We should not expect the C-suite or board members to be the exceptions to that.”
Vanessa Hammett - Change Communication Lead | Mars
“Sometimes, it is more about how an initiative matches up with their own values and beliefs instead of if it’s actually good or bad. It would be smart to approach and understand the different values at play when you are making your pitch.”
Ian Peter - Chief Strategy Officer | St. Lucia Electricity Services
✔ Breaking Barriers & Embracing Differences
Personal values can be generational. Embrace individual differences, break barriers, and understand different communication dynamics to make things work. That is how you bridge that gap.
“Older generations may have a different view of what leadership looks like compared to younger ones. They are more inclined towards values like respect, trust, and transparency. Meanwhile, younger employees sometimes struggle with handling direct, unfiltered feedback and how to act on it.”
Bill Munley - Head of HR Operations Solutions, Co-Head of Global HR Operations, Human Resources | Millennium Management
When WFH became increasingly common during the COVID-19 pandemic, it blurred the line between the personal and the professional even as people started to interact more with their colleagues outside normal working hours. As a result, older generations might have a harder time adjusting and tend to favor returning to the office since their mindset equates professionalism with being physically present at work.
✔ Straightening Misalignments
It gets trickier to achieve true buy-in when different C-suite or board members are pushing different decisions for transformation and change. Differences in opinion may not even come out of bad intentions. It could just be people failing to connect the dots and waiting for change leaders to figure out the alignment part of it.
“Make them co-own the mess. Bring them into a room, make them see that they are not on the same page, and show them where the roadblocks are. While it may get intense, it is better to face it together, work it out, and create a path forward.”
Nadine Hammer - Sr. Organizational Change Lead - Product Development, Portfolio, Strategy, and Delivery | Genentech
Real-Life Tactics in Positioning Your Narratives for C-Suites & Board Members
1. Communication is Key
✔ Championing & Building Coalitions
Identify your allies and opponents in this space. Do not focus on just one or two people. Get as many important stakeholders from different specialties in the mix to widen your network and support your initiative, simultaneously securing better buy-in.
“There is a big need for consensus building and having a coalition. It may take a lot of time upfront and requires a lot of legwork but you will be able to gain insights on where different sticking points might occur and slow down the change adoption when needed.”
Bill Munley - Head of HR Operations Solutions, Co-Head of Global HR Operations, Human Resources | Millennium Management
✔ Revising Message Strategies
Sometimes, less is more. Identify how much is the right amount of information to share especially when not everything is 100% finalized. It is much easier to secure buy-in by staggering and limiting information during execution, and just showing the final ROIs at the end.
“Determine if oversharing has a positive or negative impact on your initiative. Be aware of sharing changes that might never come to fruition to avoid future misunderstandings.”
Laureen Knudsen - Chief Transformation Officer | Broadcom
“It’s almost like a divorce. You want to tell your kids what they need to know, but you also spare them some of the details.”
Laurie Ditch - Sr. Director, Organizational Strategy and Operations | iMerit
✔ Simplifying Communications
Simplify your messaging to allow key stakeholders to digest important details quickly. Prepare ‘pre-read’ materials one or two weeks in advance of meetings to allow for comprehension and a more solid in-room conversation.
Avoid making pre-reads overly complex. Leverage one-pager, memos, or white papers to help simplify the points for everyone. It would also be good to cater to CXOs' learning styles; if they are visual learners or prefer to hear things explained directly to them.
“A one-pager can be used to showcase the current state of the business, reasons behind the need for change, the expected results, and the end state with metrics to get better buy-in. Make sure to explain the consequences if the organization does not commit to the change proposed.”
Desiree Duarte Communications & Change Lead | IQVIA
2. Leveraging Collaboration
Encourage collaborations from the beginning to highlight cross-functional benefits so each leader sees what their group will gain from it. Help them understand and appreciate communications at several different levels.
✔ Meetings Before Meetings Before Meetings
Make it a habit to hold a ‘meeting before the meeting before the most important meeting'. Creating separate discussions to understand potential objections early will help to foster alignment and address concerns quickly.
“Conduct pre-alignment meetings to share potential outputs with each of your CXOs before the big meeting to avoid clashing viewpoints and mixed reactions from everyone.”
Subba Marellapudi - Consulting Partner
“Meetings are a great opportunity to get what you need and create alignment. Be truthful and transparent, open things up for discussion, and then commit to certain steps before ending the discussion. Highlight the CEO’s role in helping to gather top leadership and facilitating the process of setting things straight, subsequently creating effective leadership underneath them.”
Mary Fairchild - VP of Culture and Talent Development | V5
✔ Setting Expectations & Enforcing Accountability
Develop boundaries regarding your role, scope, and responsibilities, then educate what those are. Set expectations with your board to hold them accountable for any failures resulting from their decisions, and make them face any potential consequences.
Emphasize leadership roles as sponsors and ask them to assign champions from within their team to help smoothen the implementation process and strengthen the long-term commitment to the initiatives.
Conclusion
The C-suite and board members' buy-in is undeniably one of the most influential factors in determining the outcome of the organization’s transformation initiatives. It is critical to successfully jump over this hurdle before moving on to the next phase of your transformation plan. By understanding internal politics, considering leadership’s priorities, pursuing transparency through collaborations, and pushing for early engagement, you should be able to appeal your case better. Thus, ideally reaching alignment and advocacies within a shorter period of time.
The Executive Council for Leading Change
The Executive Council for Leading Change (ECLC) is a global organization that brings executives together to redefine the landscape of organizational change and transformation. Our council aims to advance strategic leadership expertise in the realm of corporate change by connecting visionary leaders. It's a place where leaders responsible for significant change initiatives can collaborate, plan, and create practical solutions for intricate challenges in leading large organizations through major shifts.
In a world where change is constant, we recognize its crucial role in driving business success. ECLC’s mission is to create a community where leaders can excel in guiding their organizations through these dynamic times.
Interested in joining ECLC? Learn the membership criteria and sign-up below.
