Leadership Daily: Voices, Votes, and Vetoes (3V’s)
Easily the most satisfying part of my job is sharing my learnings and experiences with others. I come from a family of teachers and I suspect I might have also gone down that path had IBM not had their co-op program when I was in high school. Heck, I even taught a few university courses when I was working for a start-up in Phoenix.
I like to work with others. I’m a natural introvert who just so happens to like and thrive when working in a team. I bet that isn’t that uncommon, though we tend to hear about the extremes either way.
Recently I was working with a young manager about a rather contentious cross-company project that was about to go sideways. One of the first questions I asked the manager was ‘Who are the voices, votes and vetoes?’.
Who are the voices, votes and vetoes? They are the different people required to get almost anything done. If you correctly identify and interact with these groups appropriate to their stake, you are destined for success in whatever endeavor.
A concrete real world (and completely contrived) example is buying a new car. I might identify that my kids, friends, neighbor and co-worker have a voice in my choice of new car. I express my desire to buy a new super-duper Honda mini-van. They share their opinions and influence the possible outcomes with other options. My wife, however, has a vote. She is already on board with getting a new car, but she has to be involved in the decision and discussion. Her opinion shapes the thing. Is she ok with a mini-van? Something else? What trim level?. She has a vote and shapes the decision. And finally, our budget, or in this case, bank, has the veto. If we don’t have the cash on hand and can’t qualify for the loan, the bank can completely kill the entire thing, or at least dictate the degree to which we can do a thing (which trim level can we afford?).
The voices share, the votes shape, and the vetoes sanction.
It’s something I talk about on a regular basis and I encourage everyone to understand in almost anything they do. Understanding who each person is in each scenario is my Step Zero when I start almost anything.
This manager quickly realized they ignored the vetoes and needed to do some leg work pretty quickly to remedy that.
Let’s take a quick look at the various groups.
Voices
When working with folks, particularly new managers or first time tech leads, I find the voices the hardest for folks to grasp. In reality, voices are rather simple to identify — they are the folks who share thoughts, opinions, and ideas. Their voice is literally the thing you are after. They need to be heard and are expressing their opinion. It goes the common pool of understanding for synthesis later. The voices are the many.
Votes
If the voices are the many, the votes are the few. The votes actually shape the thing. The votes either synthesize the voices, offer directionality before, during or after talking the voices. The votes might care as deeply, though perhaps more widely, than the voices about a thing.
Vetoes
The vetoes should be less than a few, ideally one, maybe two. The vetoes are the ones who can mothball an entire thing for whatever reason. The vetoes, of all the groups, typically have either the widest or deepest connections. They are typically not the final decision maker, though without their consent nothing goes forward. They are the ultimate stakeholder.
Why does it matter? Well, if you are naturally good at sensing how to get something done, it might not matter to you. After all, the 3V’s are simply a construct that gives words to underlying sentiment that some naturally intuit. Some don’t, though. And further, even those with great intuition can get the steps wrong. And this is where I find the 3V’s to be very, very helpful.
However, many find it useful to have a notion of roles people play. It’s a helpful exercise to simply note who each group might be. We do this all the time in product development, we simply call it ‘customer segmentation’ or ‘personas’. We are trying to give some personification, differentiation and articulation to who cares and why. The 3V’s do the same thing from a project perspective. You know your 3V’s and how to interact with them, you’re likely going to win.
And even more than that, it’s just good habit to understand your audience and how to engage them. Sometimes it’s straight forward, sometimes it’s murky and sometimes it’s downright confusing. Spend the time and get a sense for each group and you’re bound to be successful.
