Retail Surgery: How can I get senior management more engaged in important projects?

The first step is to understand what it is that pushes senior management’s buttons, advises Richard Bowden-Doyle, director at business consultancy Promise.

“You also need them to connect on an emotional as well as rational level with what you are trying to achieve,” he says.

Essentially, you need them to reach the point where they feel empathy for your customers’ needs and the problem you are trying to resolve. Even great business leaders sometimes miss the point of what their customers really want, adds Bowden-Doyle.

Co-creation, where senior managers and customers are brought together to tackle the issue, can be an effective strategy. Customers can often easily identify the challenge for a business, but they rarely know what the answer may be, while senior managers often have the solutions. The latter are also more likely to be supportive of a project that they have a personal investment in and have connected with.

“Getting senior managers to sit in on discussion groups with customers is a waste of time. But get them to do the weekly shop with a customer to experience what they experience, and interesting things start to happen,” says Bowden-Doyle.

While every business isn’t Apple, nor every leader like Steve Jobs, businesses can be transformed by innovative ideas brought about by the co-creation process, he concludes.