You Dont Have to Do It Alone: How to Involve Others to Get Things Done

Another question people often ask us is, "Can I only use these ideas when I'm starting my work?" Because involvement is a repeating pattern you can start anywhere. You can start with an ending, you can start with a beginning, or you can start somewhere in between. There are a number of ways to start. Here are some examples:

• Start with yourself by going through the steps outlined in this book and see where that leads you. You can use the tools contained throughout the book to help you decide how to involve others. Once you have done this on your own, you may want to share your thinking with others.

• Start with a question that is troubling you by picking one of our five questions and begin there. Suppose you are concerned about whom to include; start by using that chapter to help you decide who needs to be there.

• Start by designing your meetings using the ideas contained in "Meetings: The Involvement Edge." Because meetings are involvement processes in miniature, they present a powerful opportunity to shift how you involve others. Use our meeting canoe as a guide to creating high-involvement meetings.

• Discuss our questions with a group that is a representative sample of the people you wish to involve. Use this "kitchen cabinet" to help determine how you will involve others in getting things done. In this way, you involve people from the very beginning.

• Start at the end. If you are at the end of your work you can use our chapter "How Do I Finish the Job?" as a starting place. One organization we know called together everyone who had participated in a strategic planning process to review what they did. Taking the ideas from this chapter, they reviewed what contributed to their success and what they would do differently next time, thus providing the seeds for new and improved ways to include others.

No matter where you start, at the beginning or in the middle, whether you start by reviewing these questions by yourself or with a group, the most important thing is to start. Do something and learn from it.