How to Get Someone to Stop Procrastinating and Take Action

In April, we succeeded in getting our client’s attention, creating interest, and building the belief that our project would make an impact. But COVID made a lot of other things seem more urgent to them, and interest in our project stalled out. The question for us was, should we all just go into a holding pattern until their urgent demands relent?

To some extent, it’s reasonable that they shifted their focus. You aren’t going to exercise if your house is on fire. But too often people feel like they need to run around putting out fires and, as a result, neglect to invest in longer-term priorities…until they become urgent, at which point it may be too late or too expensive to address.

Where are you struggling to get other people to make a commitment, jump on board, or take action?

In my last three posts, I’ve addressed the psychological pattern required to get someone to support or do something that they may not have otherwise supported or done without your positive influence. We looked at getting their attention, generating interest, and developing a belief in your idea or recommendation.

This post deals with the fourth step in the pattern: creating urgency.

The Two Keys to Creating Urgency

To understand the two keys to urgency, let’s look at how we ultimately got our client to invest in a project amid the swirling anxiety and distractions of the pandemic.

After we got their attention, created interest through questions, and built their belief in our recommendation, they told us they needed to determine the timing and gain internal support for the project. The frequency of our meetings slowed, and it became more difficult to get them to return emails.

At that point, we realized we needed to:

1. Invite resistance. This meant letting everyone involved in the decision throw questions and concerns at the recommendation, with us in the (virtual) room. We offered to present the project deliverables with all stakeholders in a Zoom meeting with ample time for feedback and considerations. Then we emailed draft project materials to the group and asked for written concerns, ideas, and questions. Never being defensive, we demystified the project details and let everyone work through their hesitations.When the shots were fired at the project, we followed another four-step psychological pattern to build alignment with the stakeholders. First, we empathized with the concern. Second, we asked questions to clarify that we completely understood their perspective before addressing it. Third, we made absolutely sure they weren’t holding back any deeper causes for their concern that should be addressed. Finally, we responded to the concern, hoping to sufficiently explain how we’d address it in the project. This helped a lot. But it didn’t get us to a decision. That reminded us we also needed to:
2. Always. Get. Commitments. Getting all the stakeholders in a virtual room with us was one important commitment toward advancing the project. After that meeting, we asked for a commitment to debrief the stakeholder meeting. Then we sent dates for the project milestones, hoping for a commitment to the calendar. Following that, we got an agreement around how and who to invoice for project fees. The delays continued. So we sent an email requesting the names of people who would fill key roles on the project. And on and on the commitments went.Every time someone makes a commitment, they become further invested, making it easier to make the next commitment. “Start small, scale fast,” my boss used to say, when I was starting out in my career consulting at Accenture. He explained that this means securing even small commitments, then quickly layering commitment after commitment to make the person emotionally and literally part of the decision process. This doesn’t just apply to big organizational decisions. It can even work at home. It’s how we got my kids to embrace the routines of the new school year. They were hesitant, so we got a commitment to talk about it, a commitment to change, a commitment to invest time, a commitment to review the plan…you get the point.

One final note about responding to resistance and getting commitments: Anything you and I say should tie back to what they said was important to them when we were creating interest in the idea in the first place. After all, this is a relationship-based approach to influence, and that means caring about and being mindful of the needs and desires of the people you’re trying to influence.

Who can you influence to stop procrastinating and take action?

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About the Author. Matt Norman coaches and advises executives on how to build great people and culture. He is President & CEO of Norman & Associates, which offers custom coaching and consulting in the areas of talent strategy, personal effectiveness, planning, and goal alignment. Norman & Associates also provides Dale Carnegie cohort-style action learning programs to help people improve how they communicate, lead, influence, and work together.

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