Stay Curious, Produce Success

By Dave Hoffman, Editor

When we’re talking about getting someone’s buy in, be it in sales, fundraising, or government policy, it’s important to consider the disruption factor. This is the ratio between the unseen costs of making the change you’re asking for and the perceived benefits. The WIIFM benefit must clearly outweigh the amount of additional resource spend that lies on top of the cost.

The additional resource spend can include political capital – what kind of work will they have to do to sell your idea within their company or constituency, opportunity costs – what other options working with you eliminates, or the impact of integrating your service into their system.

Change can be disruptive. For people who oversee complex systems, disruption is the last thing they need. People who tend to shy away from such responsibilities are also averse to disruption. That is why people looking to affect social change need to tread carefully.

It’s not enough to demonstrate that your answer is good, but that its benefits make the disruption worth it.  

To this end, it’s also crucial to your own resource spend to make sure you’re talking to people who have an interest and ability to push the change you’re looking for. The folks who have the most at stake in working with you.

We discuss all this and more in this Department of Energy’s Consent-Based Siting Consortia panel on Expanding the National Conversation on Spent Nuclear Fuel.