Hi everyone 🙂
Every company has them, perhaps it’s fueled by a distrust of a business vision, IT or they just plain don’t like SharePoint because it’s not as good as X or Y tool.
Identifying business goals and demonstrating a platform, in this case SharePoint that can help reach the goal is all fine and good but there is always an agenda with certain parts of a business that wants to block a new way of thinking and working.
How have you overcome this, brute force or have you just ignored it?
At the moment i’m facing this problem and I’m struggling to find a way past it so any advise or insights on how to tackle it would be great.
Communication is key. Are you sure you are really listening to what the naysayers are saying? “I hate SharePoint” might be what you’re hearing, but that’s not necessarily what they mean.
Maybe they are frustrated because they have to learn something else now when they are already swamped with work. Maybe they are afraid because technology scares them and they think they are too stupid to learn anything new. Maybe they are threatened because they don’t understand the technology and will be made to look stupid. Maybe they also threatened because they’re afraid this technology will replace their job and they’ll be on the street. Maybe they’re stuck in their ways and rigid to change because they got badly burnt in the past when they tried to share. Maybe they’re having a horrendous home life and they’re just not coping.
All of these things have come up with our clients, all of them. It’s time to be a human being and take a step back, listen and empathize.
Take SharePoint off the table for a bit. Take the person for a cup of coffee and a muffin or breakfast / lunch. Research shows that people are much more likely to be open to suggestion when they are given food. Then ask about the family, hobbies, car, house, whatever. Try to establish a more personal relationship with them. Play open cards if you can’t do this with subtlety; just say that “look, we keep butting heads of this, how about we just go for a cup of coffee and hash things out and get to know each other better”, or something along those lines.
The idea is to open the dialogue. Once people are relaxed, they will be more open to new ideas. People react out of fear because of many reasons, it’s your job as the consultant to see that, be gentle and sincere enough to overcome it. Sometimes it is just ulterior motives and they’re being bribed from another angle, you can’t win them all. But try this first. You may just be surprised.
I came across this issue when I was trying to introduce WSS2 to a company I used to work for, the main objector was the Finance Director. There was no “financial” reason behind his objection it was his lack of understadning how it could be used to benefit the business – in my case.
I needed to have some kind of IT support/service desk for the department I was managing & the company was not going to invest in a tool to help a already over streched department. I was told it would be a waste of time that could be better used to “fix broken PC’s & write reports (the main role of an IT Manager in his mind). I had to prove to the directors that the IT department were being over streched & dramatically under resourced but the FD was adamant that despite having a free licence & all the servers already in place that he didn’t want any SharePoint development of any kind.
I went ahead & developed a service desk site anyway (in my own time) then demostrated it to the FD, he was still against the whole idea & even advised the MD against us using it – I requested a trail period, got it & from it managed to produced the desired reports to prove the flow of support coming into the department. SharePoint stopped being a “dirty word” after that & more users came from it (strangly enough, from the FD!!!)
What I have learned over the years is to use commerical arguments more than “techie” argments, we all get buzzed about SharePoint but ultimatley the “decision makers” are more worried about the financial impact on the operation.
Convince the “Bean Counters” & the rest will simply fall into place 😉
Thats my experience, hope it helps?
