Op-Ed: Dispelling The Myth Of The Magical Mandate

If there's one thing I know from my former days as a global procurement contracts and supplier manager, is that it's just not easy to convince people to change their behavior. Chalk it up to plain old human nature and the age-old aversion to change management.

The reality is that educating meeting and travel and procurement managers to follow new, more efficient processes and adopt technology takes careful planning and consistent, dedicated communication. Yet travel and meeting managers all too often fall under the spell of the myth of the "M" word. That is, if they've been able to win a mandate from a CEO or other senior executive for, let's say, a new meetings policy, they think all will magically fall into place and everyone will follow that mandate.

In my experience, even with a mandate, 100 percent participation can be difficult to achieve. It would be too simple to say that this is because travelers or meetings attendees are just uncooperative employees. There could be a host of reasons for noncompliance, and if you're a travel, meetings or procurement manager, it's worth your while to discover those factors in advance so that you'll be ready to address the problems in a proactive vs. reactive manner.

For example, if you are a global enterprise, advance consideration has to address conflicts with laws or regulations that are in place in a particular country or region. In Germany, nothing can move forward without approval of employee representative bodies called worker councils in nearly all companies larger than 250 employees. Resistance could even be due to a tug-of-war over authority. Many times a general manager or highest-level executive in a foreign operation has more influence over employees than a C-level executive back at U.S. headquarters.

In my daily encounters with managers of indirect expenditures at corporations, I see that to get maximum buy-in from employees for new policies or processes requires constructing change-management strategies and communications plans, including surveying the landscape for points of pain, potential pushback areas and managers and others who are likely to resist. Successful change-makers seek critical feedback and information from stakeholders and internal customers, and then they carefully craft project plans, timelines, milestones and deliverables. Making change happen also takes consistent communication targeted to all stakeholders (including suppliers) to ensure that they're aware of both the benefits and progress of the new project or process.

As budget-consciousness makes compliance reporting and results even more important, you can empower your travel or meetings management initiative with a well-rounded change management strategy. A mandate alone won't be enough. Such strategies—and the resulting higher levels of compliance—will surely enhance not just the overall success of your newly deployed program and process, but your job security, too.

Don't be taken in by the myth of "M" word!