Dealing With an (I) - an (I)ntegrator or Superfollower

What is an (I)ntegrator, or in extreme cases a Superfollower, looking for? His highest priority is agreement; in other words: “Is there a consensus?”

Thus, if you go to an (I) and say, “Boss, here is the problem and here is the solution and we want your authorization,” what is he going to say? “It’s not time yet, we are not ready, have you talked to Rudy, have you talked to Paul, have you talked to Denise?” He’s going to want to assess the political climate before approving anything.

So before you approach him with a problem, cover all your bases. Talk to Rudy and Paul and Denise and Nancy and find out where they stand. Then you can go to the (I) and say, “Boss, we have a problem, we have discussed it, we all agree, we think this is the solution and we want your approval.” The (I) will immediately want to know: “Who are the people who agree or don’t agree with this solution? And what about Joe? Did you talk to Joe?”

If Joe is very important to him, and you haven’t talked to Joe, he’s going to say, “Well, I just don’t think we’re ready yet.”

If you say, “Yes, we talked to Joe and he’s going to resign unless we implement this solution,” he’ll ask you, “And what about Bill?”

If you can tell him, “Yes, we talked to Bill also and he’s totally behind it,” then the (I) will probably reply, “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s do it.”