433: How to Get Team Buy-In on a Goal That Feels Impossible

0:00Your boss hands you a big goal, so you bring it to the team. Maybe they light up. Or maybe someone says, there's no way we can do that. Or maybe everyone just kind of nods along. That nod, that is the one to worry about. Because silence does not mean that your team believes the goal is achievable. It might just mean that they don't think there's any reason in pushing back. Today, I am walking you through four steps and five things that you can do to adjust a goal that feels impossible into one that your team can actually get behind without burning everyone out. Hello, and welcome to The Modern Manager.

0:35I am Amy Camper-Stewart, and every week I help you bridge the gap between knowing what good management looks like and actually doing it. Now, when it comes to big goals, your team does not need you to convince them that it's achievable. They need you to help them figure out how to do it. So let's get into it. When your boss or your organization hands you a goal, it can feel like it's set in stone. So you bring it to your team, and when they say it's impossible or worry about how much extra work it's gonna take, you might think that your job is to convince them that they can do it. But what if your job is not to convince them?

1:08What if it's to involve them in figuring out how to make the goal achievable? Gallup found that only 30 % of employees strongly agree that their manager involves them in setting goals. And employees who are involved are 3.6 times more likely to be engaged. That is a pretty compelling reason to stop handing down goals and start working through them together. When you bring your team a big goal, you're likely going to get one of three reactions. The first is enthusiasm. People lean in. They're like, oh, that would be huge. Obviously, that is what you're hoping for, even if the goal is a stretch.

1:41You want people to be excited about what's possible. The second is obvious pushback. Someone says, there is no way we can hit that. And while that might be frustrating to hear, it's actually a good thing. because research published in the Academy of Management Journal found that people are more likely to speak up when they believe their input will actually make a difference. So hearing that your team is worried means that you've established psychological safety and they believe that their input matters. It's the third reaction that's the tricky one, resigned acceptance. That same research found that people are more likely to stay silent when they don't feel safe raising concerns.

2:14The study also found that silence was more strongly associated with burnout than speaking up. So just because your team isn't pushing back doesn't mean they think the goal is achievable. They might be sitting there thinking, there's no way we can pull this off, but they don't believe that saying something will change anything. In these moments, your job is to get them involved in figuring out what needs to change so that they can feel the goal is reasonable. Before we get into how to do that, managing people is hard enough. You shouldn't have to figure it all out on your own. Follow the show for practical tools and strategies that make your job easier and help your team do their best work.

2:47Okay, let's talk through how to engage your team when you've been handed a big goal. Step one, share the goal, starting with the why, which I call the objective. This is where you're ultimately trying to go. The goal is a specific target that gets you there. The goal can move. The objective doesn't. So lead with the objective and then share the goal. And then stop talking and watch the room because you genuinely don't know yet how it's going to land. And if they light up, wonderful. But make sure that enthusiasm is shared across the board. Excitement and how on earth are we going to do this can still sit in the same room.

3:20Step two, explore with your team. Instead of asking, do you think we can do this? Ask, what's making this feel hard? Or what would need to be true for us to hit this? And then listen as they answer, because they're probably gonna point to one of five levers. The first lever is timeline. They just need more time to reach the same goal. The second is resources, more people, more budget, better tools or training. The third is priority. Other work that needs to get paused or slowed down or handed off or dropped completely. The fourth is scope. You narrow what the team is expected to accomplish on that same timeline.

3:55And the fifth is approach. You change how your team does the work. Sometimes the goal isn't impossible. It's just too much given the way that you're currently working. And make sure you set their expectations by saying, I don't know what's flexible yet. Let's figure out what would make this doable and I'll take it to my boss. That line does two important things. It tells your team that their input is going somewhere. And remember, people speak up when they believe it will change something. And it keeps you from promising what you can't deliver. You do not wanna break their trust by saying that you can push a deadline if that's not your decision to make.

4:27All right, step three, negotiate upwards. Some lovers, you or your team can pull on your own, but some need your boss's approval. The key is that you're not going to your boss saying, I'm not sure we can do this. You're saying, we're in. Here's what it will take to get there. That's a manager with a plan, not a manager with a problem. For example, we can hit this number if we pause the reporting project until next quarter. Is that the trade you want us to make? Step four, close the loop. Once you've had that conversation with your boss, it's time to go back to your team and share the outcome. Maybe your boss agreed to everything that you proposed.

5:02Maybe they approved some changes, but not others. Or they suggested a different way forward. Or maybe they just said outright, nope, and the original goal has to stand. Whatever the outcome, your job now is to help your team move forward. So share what's been decided, explain what it means for the team, and acknowledge any challenges that still exist. You don't need to share every detail of the conversation you have with your boss. What matters is that your team understands what they're working towards and what they have to work with. And if your boss didn't approve the changes that you think are necessary, don't pretend like those concerns have disappeared.

5:34Acknowledge the challenges, be clear about what you'll continue to monitor, and make sure that your team knows that you will continue to advocate for what they need. Now, that doesn't mean that everyone has to love this decision or suddenly believe the goal is gonna be easy to get to. But they do need to commit. And commitment, again, doesn't require everyone to agree. It just requires everyone to understand the plan and be willing to do their part. So let me make this concrete. Say you manage a client onboarding team. Your boss says, we are expanding rapidly. So next quarter, we need to onboard 40 new clients a month.

6:05You're at 25 right now. The objective is clear. Get all new clients up and running fast so they stay and grow with our business. You bring it to your team. You start with a Y and then share the number. One person lights up. Whoa, 40 a month, that would be huge for us. Everyone else, they go quiet. So you ask, what's making this feel hard? And someone says, well, every client gets the full white glove onboarding, even the tiny accounts. Maybe the full version goes to our biggest clients and everyone else gets a lighter track. That's a shift in scope. Someone else says, we do every kickoff one-on-one.

6:40What if we ran group kickoffs for smaller clients? That would be a shift in approach. A third says, we're also handling all the custom reporting requests. It's gonna be tough to do both. That's a question of priority. Or maybe someone says, I'm confident we could do 40 if we had another team member, or we started using that software we looked at last month. That's a resource request. Or maybe someone says, do you think we could ramp up to 40 so next month is 30, then 35, and 40 by the end of the quarter? That's a timeline shift. 10 minutes ago, you had one excited person and a quiet room. Now you have specific, solvable ideas on the table and a team that can start to see a path forward.

7:19And you have something real to take your boss. Now, beware, because once that door's open, your team might want to pull every lever at once. Narrow the scope, change the approach, drop the reporting, add the resource, push the deadline. And if you change everything at once, you're not really adjusting the goal, you're basically rewriting it. So ask one more question. If only one thing changed, which would make the biggest difference? You wanna ask for the most impactful change first while being ready with alternatives if that one doesn't get approved. One more quick thing. Pay extra attention when the lever is approached.

7:52In this case, group kickoffs sound great, but nobody on the team has ever run one. So we don't know if clients will like them. So wholly committed to an untested approach, it just carries some extra risk. You might position it as a learning goal with your boss that you wanna test before you scale. Something like, In order to ramp up to 40 in the next few weeks, I'd like to experiment with group kickoffs for our smaller clients so that we can maintain a top-notch onboarding experience. Our plan is to run two group kickoffs for 10 small clients and see how they respond. Assuming it goes well, we'll roll it out.

8:21And if it doesn't, we'll come back with another approach. Does that work for you? So here's your one thing for this week. Next time you share a goal with your team, start with a why, share the goal, and then watch the room. Excitement, pushback, silence, whatever you get, ask those two questions. What's making this feel hard? What would need to be true for us to hit it? Then listen and brainstorm solutions together without promising anything more than an ask. If goal setting is something that you wanna dive deeper into, I built a goal setting mini course that walks you through the whole thing, start to finish in about an hour.

8:53You'll find the objective behind your goal, pick the right type of goal, define what done looks like, decide how you'll track it and when to reset. Every video ends with one action. So by the last one, you walk away with a complete goal plan that your team can build on. You can find that at themodernmanager.com slash goals. And if this episode helped, get on my newsletter at themodernmanager.com. I'll send you episodes and one-page takeaways directly to your inbox every Tuesday. Thanks again for joining me. Until next time.