SNRD
I paid a TON of money to do an MBA at Rotman. I think of it as an early(ish) mid-life crisis where I had serious FOMO about a formal management education. It turns out that you can learn most of that stuff on YouTube and by reading a few books. However, YouTube won't give you the letters. Yet.
I did come out of it with a few tools that I consistently use, and one of them is so simple that I had doubts it was even worth a post: SNRD. I learned it in a course about how the Canadian government works.
It stands for Supporter, Neutral, Resistor, and Detractor. It's a tool to help classify people when introducing any sort of change, and since I primarily work as a change agent in companies, this helps.
The idea is to think of it as a ladder you want to move people up, so it's better written as:
Supporter
Neutral
Resistor
Detractor
Whenever there is a proposed change, I tend to informally classify people as one of these labels, just so I have a sense of where they stand, what might be influencing their position, and where I have to spend my time.
The best case scenario is when the supporters have influence to help move the others. Often times I hear that we need an outside consultant to tell us what to do. There is some merit having fresh eyes, but I've found that people are more likely to listen to peers they respect than consultants.
To make my job easier, I like to work with supporters on coaching and communication techniques which can help them persuade others of their view. For example, I ask them (and myself) questions like:
- What is it about this problem that you see that others don't?
- What pain points is this not addressing for the people impacted by the change?
- What are other afraid of that you aren't?
- Would this change make someone's life worse?
- Who benefits from status quo?
- What data exists that people haven't seen which can help them change their mind?
- What do people need to hear from you that would make them feel safe?
These are simple enough questions that make one think through someone else's perspective, and gives them enough data so formulate their next action. If I'm able to spur supporters into action, my job becomes n times easier where n is the number of supporters.
Notice the absence of "why" questions as I avoid them since they tend to make people feel defensive and pushes them towards formulating solutions rather than collecting data. I'm not suggesting why questions are bad and we do need them, for example when doing root-cause analysis, but they're less useful in data gathering approaches.
Though supporters can help you move the neutrals and resistors, who often tend to be followers, the strategy for detractors is essentially to limit them from doing any harm. They have strong opinions on things and the best approach for me has been to ask them for data to support their opinion. This can open the door for conversations that can help move them up the ladder.
Of course, I also have to be open to the possibility that the change being proposed is the wrong one and framing it as an experiment with a clear hypotheses more than a permanent change helps create the wiggle room to try something different. It also makes people feel that whatever we're doing is reversible, and there's something very safe about two-door decisions.