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.
