Objections you may encounter with customers

"The customer is worried that employees expect too much and that it becomes a wish list"

Your response: "We've never experienced that" should be your answer. Supplemented with the fact that of course no one thinks it's an "order form". What it's all about is showing your employees "we listen to you", and when we have the full overview, we choose to prioritize the areas that pose the biggest challenges, and the areas where we can create the most value. We may not take everything at once, but we prioritize based on you, and we need to involve much broader than we traditionally have, and get data on the table so we can document the biggest GAPs and improvement potentials.

"Employees don't have time and don't want to get involved"

Your response: Employees have time, because it doesn't take long to complete. When employees are explained that the broad involvement is because we want to improve their daily work, they are also motivated. Too many projects have failed to deliver the right value to employees. Research in organizational change also shows that when employees are positively engaged in change, they are willing to actively participate in process improvements, provide feedback and participate in problem solving — that is, more than just passive acceptance.

According to Prosci research, data shows that 81% of projects where employees are broadly involved meet or exceed project goals, compared to only 15% without such a plan. Prosci is a recognized global change management research house that through 25+ years of data shows that projects with planned employee involvement, anchoring and follow-up are significantly more successful than projects without.

"It's not necessary - we in management know best what needs to be done"

Your response: We know that a large number of projects, up to 79%, fail to deliver on deadline, budget and meet expectations - these are conditions that can be solved, although it's unsatisfactory to go over budget and deadline, you can still reach the goal. EVEN worse, however, is if employees are not involved, because then adoption falls afterwards. 70% of all software implementations fail due to poor adoption. 83% of managers say the biggest challenge is getting employees to use new software. Companies with high adoption are 26% more profitable than competitors (MIT Sloan Management Review).

Involvement, BROAD involvement is what makes the difference.