Stop Voluntelling. Start Creating Buy-In.

Compliance is not buy-in.

Following instructions is not the same as believing in the initiative.

You might believe you are empowering your teams when you assign people to lead projects, make presentations or drive initiatives.

To you, it feels like delegation. You might even think you are giving people a chance to develop and advance their careers.

But when there’s no real choice involved. You haven’t created buy-in. You’ve just voluntold your team to do it.

And they will do it.

Grudgingly.

What Is Voluntelling?

Voluntelling is when leaders assign work to their teams while pretending to give them a choice. It’s often wrapped in compliments such as:

• “You were clearly the best person for this job.”
• “This is a great opportunity for you to get visibility.”
• “The whole leadership team agreed that you’d be perfect for this.”

Sometimes it is necessary to assign work, without checking for buy-in. For example, when the work is tedious but needs to be done. As a leader you can leverage your power and influence to assign such tasks to your team members.

This can produce short term benefits for the organization. The work gets done.

Voluntelling teams to work on initiatives produces mixed results when it comes to innovation projects or transformational change. Such long-term initiatives require a certain level of buy-in. When teams are voluntold to do this kind of work, leaders skip over the two essential ingredients of buy-in:

1. Positive Evaluation: People viewing your initiative as a good idea for the company and accepting it as legitimate.
2. Active Participation: People willing to advocate for your initiative to others and actively contribute to its success.

While you are getting some level of participation from your team, you may not have the positive evaluation you need. All you’ve created is compliance — which can look like buy-in when it isn’t. The energy of your initiative can quickly stall if your teams find a way to get out of doing the work.

Six Signs Of Voluntelling

Here are some signs that you may be voluntelling instead of getting buy-in:

1. You assign people to initiatives without checking for interest. You don’t ask whether people care or believe in the work. Positive evaluation of the initiative is not a concern for you.
2. You assign someone the role of champion for an initiative. But real champions aren’t chosen by leaders — they emerge within the organization through their beliefs, advocacy and active participation. Your role is to notice these people and give them the platform to flourish.
3. You rely on guilt to get people to agree to do the work. This involves applying subtle pressure on the team by using statements like; “We need someone to do this and everyone else is busy”.
4. You start the project before people have clarity on the goals. You talk to your team once and after that calendar invites go out for the first project meeting. The train is moving before anyone’s on board.
5. You reward acceptance and groupthink, rather than radical candor. You praise people that quickly accept your instructions and punish those that ask questions or provide feedback.
6. You call it delegation, but you are simply offloading work that you don’t want to be involved with. An initiative that you don’t like comes from top leadership. You assign the work to your team and walk away. You don’t stay long enough to build legitimacy or help drive early wins.

How To Shift From Voluntelling To Getting Buy-In

Voluntelling creates drag. By skipping positive evaluation and forcing participation, you get action, but no belief. And when the work gets tough, you’ll see that your team has low energy and quiet resentment.

You’re not leading a team. You’re dragging a reluctant group through the project.

To create buy-in, it is better to frame the why of the initiative before you assign it to people. Create a sense of shared purpose and treat the conversation as a process of mutual discovery; not a one-way handoff. You have to find a way to make people feel like they opted in. Real commitment comes from autonomy not pressure.

This approach is easier when you start your project with people that already believe in what you are doing. These may not be the most talented members of your team. But their conviction that you are doing the right thing, will provide that initial spark of energy to get the flywheel of your initiative going. Find these early adopters and work with them.

Finally, reward radical candor, not just compliance. Celebrate people who ask questions, provide feedback and challenge the idea. That’s how you earn real trust.

The Last Word — Compliance Is Not Buy-In

It might seem like the path of least resistance in leadership is voluntelling teams to do stuff. It feels efficient and looks like you are delegating the work. But this works only in the short term. When teams are doing work they don’t believe, all you have is compliance. They will not go above and beyond minimum requirements. If you want to create buy-in, start with belief. Check people’s emotional commitment before you assign them tasks.

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